2022 Clos Saint-Denis Grand Cru

Cyprien Arlaud is too often overlooked among the coterie of Burgundy's biodynamic winemakers. That might be because his style of wines does not fit the tropes of “transparency” or “red fruit,” but rather these are more structured wines that err toward black fruit and that demand bottle age. Pulling up outside the winery, the rather undeveloped exterior is tarmacked over with brand-new electronic gates. It takes five or ten unfortunate minutes to work out how to enter. There are a few teething issues. Once inside, much of the extension and construction work appears completed, with a new ground-floor tasting room awaiting the painter and decorator. Arlaud escorted me down to the barrel cellar and commenced with a summary of the 2022 growing season.

“It was a dry growing season, warmer than usual. For the Village, we now use cover crops as they are on more clayey soils that can become compacted. This means we are getting less stress in the vines. One of the main challenges was the heavy rain in June that brought some flooding, and this accelerated the vines’ vigor. The rain was less here in Morey-Saint-Denis than in Gevrey, but we still received 100mm of rain in one hour. Fortunately, I don’t have vines where the heaviest rain fell, so I didn’t suffer any erosion, perhaps because of the way we have plowed the soils by horse for over 19 years. Now, we plow early in the morning to avoid the heat and also according to the moon. Also, we did more tressage in Clos de la Roche and green harvest. The team had to be gentle with the vines so that they would be less stressed. I started picking on August 29. I think the wines are developing how I expected after tasting them from vat.”

Among his Grand Crus, habitually, I prefer the Clos Saint-Denis over the Clos de la Roche, and in 2022, there is no change, albeit a whisker between the two. They both represent wonderful, exuberant Grand Crus oozing pedigree. Both are a step above his Bonnes-Mares this year. His range of Morey-Saint-Denis is amongst the best, alongside, I would say, Virgile Lignier's (Lignier-Michelot) and Laurent Lignier’s. They showcase the finest lieux-dits, such as Les Ruchots and Les Blanchards. As I mentioned, these wines don’t tend to show their best when young and benefit from several years of bottle aging.