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Domaine des Lambrays

Marathon man Boris Champy is now at the helm of Domaine des Lambrays following what seemed like a very prolonged retirement of the much-loved Thierry Brouin. I was not the only person to observe that Champy has the same insouciance and wry sense of humour as his predecessor. I also observed how relaxed he seems in his role, partly because his paymasters, the luxury brand LVMH, appear to let him get on with his job, make any changes he feels would benefit the wines and make the crucial on-the-ground decisions fundamental to running a Burgundy estate. The buck stops with Boris. For example, he explained how they send 100 bottles to a laboratory to check there is no peroxide taint on the cork, even though they produce just 4,000 bottles in total. It shows how they are putting the consumer first.

We commence with their two lesser-known whites. “Thierry Brouin’s approach was to pick the Puligny on the early side, and I will continue,” Champy explained. “You could see in the last week of August that the vineyard started to suffer, so we clearly wanted to keep some freshness. I found that Clos du Cailleret suffered less than Les Folatières. I knew when I had to pick by examining and judging the three rows close to the wall that are protected from the sun. We picked on August 31 for Les Folatières and the following day in Clos de Cailleret. We have to be precise in vinification for the whites, especially in terms of oxygen. They were both bottled in mid-October.”

We then moved on to the reds, and Champy advised how yield control has become important in the last couple of vintages. “We have entered a new era of yield control. Between 2008 and 2015 there were no big harvests. Then in 2016, Thierry Brouin did a green harvest, and we did some in 2017 and 2018. Our vineyard is now 75 years old. No fertilizer has been used for 20 years, so it is not a vigorous vineyard and we can aim for around 35hl/ha. It is a classic modern vintage with slightly less acidity, more like 2006 or 2015, good colour and aromatics.”

The two whites are excellent, in particular a very impressive Puligny-Montrachet Clos de Cailleret. The Clos des Lambrays, picked September 3–11, is classic in style and very pure. Occasionally I felt that Brouin did not achieve phenolic maturity, as demonstrated by a recent and almost undrinkable magnum of 2004. However, there is no evidence of that here, and I think Champy knows that Clos des Lambrays would benefit from a slightly later ripening – just a day or two – in order to gain more density without compromising its style. Then maybe they can replicate the legendary wines of the 1940s and 1950s.

From 2017 Burgundy: A Modern Classic (Jan 2019) by Neal Martin

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2017 Clos des Lambrays Grand Cru

Color: Red

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