2019 Grands Echézeaux Grand Cru

As usual, I tasted at Domaine d’Eugénie with winemaker Michel Mallard (see Ladoix). Having been bought by Artémis Domaines after the untimely death of Philippe Engel in 2005, a new chapter is about to unfold as the domaine incorporates Bouchard Pères’ holdings in the Côte de Nuits. As I quipped to Malland: You’re gonna need a bigger winery. “We started picking on August 26 and finished September 1,” he tells me on a very damp Thursday afternoon. “Sulfur is only added in barrel just after malo and just before bottling.” I have to be honest… I have written positive words about Domaine d’Eugénie in previous vintages, but I was perplexed by the showing of the 2022 reds. The tannins felt raw, and the whole bunches dictated the wines, usurping the fruit/terroir profiles. Mallard admitted they were not showing as they should, especially one or two cuvées, and invited me to return since he was convinced the wines showed better a couple of days earlier. When you’re working every day from dusk until dawn, it’s not easy to simply return. God forbid, I can imagine every winemaker asking the same whenever they’re dissatisfied with their wines’ showing. It happens. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s Nature.

Michel Mallard must consider himself the luckiest winemaker in Burgundy because he gets to see me twice each year, once at his family domaine in Ladoix and the second here at Domaine d’Eugénie. “We started the harvest on 9 September although the whites were picked earlier. I used slightly more whole bunches on the 2019. For the first time we plunged by hand, though not much as the tannic structure came quickly and when we pumped over we just used gravity. We did not use pumps at all. The Clos d’Eugénie will be bottled in January whilst the others will be racked in February and bottled a couple of months later. I think we have more finesse in the 2019s than in 2018s. We have more red fruit in 2019 and just a little greenness that brings the wines freshness. There are two appellations that gained something in 2019 - Aux Brûlées and Echézeaux.”

Mallard has really begun to put his own stamp on these wines that are far more finessed and terroir-driven than those produced when the domaine debuted with their 2006s. Case in point, the Grands-Echézeaux was one of the finest that I encountered, a splendid and regal wine with haunting complexity. In fact, all the Grand Crus deliver, which is a good job since that represents more or less half the portfolio.