Having written about the head-to-toe reconstruction of Domaine des Lambrays after it was sold to LVMH in 2014, I will not repeat details of the new winery; readers can refer to last year’s Burgundy report. Jacques Devauges was appointed director of the Domaine and oversaw a revised approach to Clos des Lambrays. This included dividing the clos into separate cuvées to be vinified separately and incrementally expanding holdings, albeit relatively tiny in nature (see below).

“I was ready to start earlier according to the flowering date,” Devauges tells me down in the expanded L-shaped barrel cellar that’s come in useful with the extra cuvées and plenitudes of the last two harvests. “But due to drought, the maturity was not as fast as expected, so I delayed and delayed, eventually starting September 1 and finishing on September 8; the whites picked August 29 and 30. We cropped at 30hL/ha, which is the average in recent years. For your information, the 2021s will be released with the 2022s. It’s the first year officially certified organic vintage with ECOCERT, though this will not be printed on the label. It is also the first vinified in the new winery using gravity and cylindrical tanks. Plus, we have four new cuvées, although two will not be commercialized [Nuits Saint-Georges Cras and Les Murgers, which I advised Devauges to hold back and release with a bit of bottle age, lest they are guzzled in infancy]. The two new cuvées that will be released are Morey-Saint-Denis Clos Sorbet and Clos Baulet, which are sited just in front of the domaine. Domaine de Lambrays owned them until 1980, when the Cosson family sold the estate but kept those parcels. Etienne Cosson, who lives in the village, then sold these parcels back to LVMH in 2022 when he took his retirement. So, effectively, they are reunited after 41 years.”

Those two new additions in Morey are worth seeking out: propitiously located and evincing assiduous use of stems. Beyond the Clos des Lambrays, the stellar Nuits Saint-Georges La Richemone had me grabbing for superlatives with the hubris to outshine the Vosne-Romanée Les Beaux Monts. The Clos des Lambrays itself was, in fact, tasted on two separate occasions, the first vintage to include the parcel known as “30 Rangs”. I thought it tasted better the second time during a vertical tasting going back an entire century, which will be published on Vinous in early 2024.

Domaine des Lambrays

Content

Engage

Vinous

Social