2000 Clos Saint-Denis Grand Cru

Jeremy Seysses told me that he and his father Jacques consider 2001 to have better acidity and structure than 2000, with generally less jammy fruit character (acidification was required virtually across the board in 2000). He compared the young 2001s to the estate's '95s. The grape skins were even riper in 2000," noted Seysses, "but the fruit was also a bit overripe." The Seysses purchased a destemmer for the 2000 vintage, and ultimately destemmed most of their fruit due to the low acidity of the vintage (the stems are high in potassium and would have further raised pHs). In 2001 they destemmed 30% to 40% of their fruit (although the Chambolle Gruenchers is vinified from entirely whole clusters). These days the Seysses are attempting to delay the malolactic fermentations. Jeremy noted that this was easy to do with the 2001s due to the very cold winter, which lowered the temperature in the cellar. Due to the late malos, which went on until June (and even later in some barrels), the wines had been racked for the first time just ten days or so prior to my visit.

My visit to Domaine Dujac this fall came just a few days after vineyard manager Christophe Morin was tragically killed in a motor accident on the route nationale between Gevrey-Chambertin and Dijon. Jacques Seysses, who had for years credited Morin viticultural techniques for much of his domain's success, was still in a state of shock but was good enough to keep our appointment. Seysses described 2000 as having produced a large crop of patchy quality, as ripe as the fruit of the preceding three years but with modest structure. The wines show a strong red fruit quality, he noted, adding that Morin dropped nearly two-thirds of the crop in order to cut yields to the 40 to 45 hectoliters-per-hectare range. I also tasted three negociant village wines (from Gevrey, Morey and Chambolle), and particularly liked the Chambolle, which was more typical of its village than the Dujac bottling, which is distinctly a Morey-side version of Chambolle.