"Clos de Vougeot" Grand Cru AOC 2022

A Pinot Noir of cool precision, finely built and geared towards clarity: juicy red fruit, fine-grained tannin, a long finish. Power and finesse sit side by side here, with neither overshadowing the other.

At 50 hectares, Clos de Vougeot is the largest Grand Cru vineyard in the Côte de Nuits, rooted in a centuries-old Cistercian winegrowing tradition. Limestone-clay soils and a gentle slope give the wines their structure. The Lignier family has farmed vines in Morey-Saint-Denis since the 1880s; today Laurent Lignier runs the domaine in its fifth generation.

Pinot Noir, hand-harvested. Long, cool macerations precede fermentation, with the proportion of whole clusters having grown over the years. The cellar in Morey-Saint-Denis works entirely by gravity, from must to bottling, without a single pump. New oak is deliberately restrained and spread across four coopers so that no single barrel dominates the wine. Synthetic products have been absent from the vineyards since 2007. The wine stands at 13.5% ABV.

Silky texture, with ripe, present tannin. Red cherry, raspberry and strawberry carry the wine, joined by violet, undergrowth and fine toasted notes. Lively acidity and a mineral drive lead into a spicy, lingering finish.

Duck breast with cherry sauce, coq au vin, saddle of venison or pigeon, as well as braised beef with mushrooms. For cheese, aged Époisses or Comté.

The 2022 vintage, after a warm, dry summer, produced small berries with intense aromas. The estate came to own Clos de Vougeot in the decades following 1973, the year Hubert Lignier began bottling his wines himself rather than selling them in bulk.