2019 Gevrey-Chambertin Les Combottes 1er Cru

Over the years I have only tasted the wines of Domaine Georges Lignier et Fils intermittently and with varying results. The winemaker here is Benoît Stehly who took over in 2002, working alongside his uncle Georges Lignier. The domaine farms 16 hectares across 17 appellations with an average vine age around 50 years. Usually around 80% of bunches are de-stemmed with a pre-fermentation cold soak of three to four days. The four samples included in this report were sent to my home in the UK. To be frank, they were not bad, but just came across a little rustic compared to other producers’ 2019s. The eight wines that I tasted did not do much to convince me that they reach the heights of say, Laurent Lignier or Virgile Lignier’s wines. For example, both the Clos Saint-Denis and Clos de la Roche are promising on the nose and yet the finishes were rather brutish and monolithic, just a bit heavy-handed compared to others.