Morey-Saint-Denis 1er Cru "Vieilles Vignes" AOC 2005 1500ml Magnum

A Pinot Noir of cool clarity, densely built and made for length. The cuvée's name states its basis: old vines in Morey-Saint-Denis. In the glass, dark forest berries and black cherry, alongside violet, undergrowth and fine spice.

Morey-Saint-Denis lies in the Côte de Nuits, where the Lignier family has farmed Pinot Noir since the 1880s. Jacques Lignier bought parcels back then that phylloxera had devalued, and his son Jules patiently replanted them. In 1959 Hubert Lignier took over the estate's management, and from 1973 bottled his wines himself rather than selling them as bulk wine to the trade. Today Laurent Lignier runs the domaine, the fifth generation on the same land.

Pinot Noir, the grape of the Côte de Nuits. Long, cool maceration periods precede fermentation; the proportion of whole clusters has grown over the years, while new oak has been deliberately scaled back and spread across four coopers so that no single barrel leaves its mark on the wine. The cellar acquired in 2008 in Morey-Saint-Denis works by gravity alone — from must to bottling, no pump touches the wine. The vineyards have forgone synthetic treatments since 2007.

Dry, 13.0% ABV, with fine-grained tannin and cool fruit. The wine feels precisely delineated, with a clear and long finish.

The 1500 ml magnum allows the wine to mature more slowly than the 750 ml bottle. Bottled by Domaine Hubert Lignier, 13, Route Nationale 74, 21220 Morey-Saint-Denis.