2021 Clos Saint-Denis Grand Cru

“It was important to be in the vineyard in 2021,” Virgile Lignier informs me, graciously sacrificing his All Saints’ Day vacances to receive me, allowing me plenty of time to taste through his range with a chinwag after. “It was a hard vintage in terms of climactic condition. We had frost in April, but only two or three parcels where vegetative growth was early, such as Nuits Saint-Georges Les Murgers, plots mainly located on the mid-slope. I always do the second pruning in March, just as my grandfather did, so we lost only 10-15% here. The flowering was early and very spun out, and we lost some yield as a result. There was a lot of disease, particularly oidium that we had to fight throughout the spring and part of the summer. It was cool and not very sunny with sporadic high temperatures, often fog lingering on the slope. So I did a lot of work in the vines: de-leafing just after flowering to fight oidium, which was around 10%. We did a lot of sorting during harvest and afterward. I vinified with similar percentages of whole bunch [to previous years – details in respective tasting notes but often between 60% and 80%]. I did not want to make a big wine, but rather keep the fineness of the vintage. So I just did some pigeage at the end of cuvaison, fermenting at 30° Celsius for three to five days to extract colour and substance. Lots where there was high pH, 3.5 or 3.6, together with high proportions of whole bunches, started their malolactic early, almost as soon as the temperatures had decreased. For another set of wines, the malo started much later, in February or March. Now they are more difficult to tell apart. I find the 2021s are typical Bourgogne Pinot Noir: tender in style and calm. Every cuvée is aged in 15% new oak, and all the wines are in tank after one wine racking.”

Whilst Virgile Lignier commends the consistency across his range and avoiding peaks and troughs, on the contrary, I complement him for articulating the heterogeneity for the season, exposing climats that did better than others via his ceteris paribus approach, that is to say, maintaining the same percentage of new wood irrespective of cuvée status. The heart of the range is the cluster of Premier Crus from Morey-Saint-Denis; here, the Faconnières reigning supreme – just wonderful. Also, his Clos Saint-Denis and Clos de la Roche defy the growing season, perhaps erring slightly towards the latter this year. There are others with shortcomings, yet maybe that is because Lignier’s bar is set high these days. There is a slight modern veneer à la Arlaud for example, the fruit blacker than others, though not throughout the range. These wines come recommended.