Burgundy Crus

wines

This delicious wine is perennially among the most concentrated and nuanced in Lignier’s cellar—just don’t refer to it as ‘the blended premier cru’. He is at pains to point out that the rows start out in Faconnières and end up in Cheneverey, but that it is one single parcel. The wine boasts aromas of ripe plums with notes of violets, pepper, and a hint of dark chocolate. The texture is dense and rich but without any heaviness. The grapes are from 0.66 hectares of vines. The oldest were planted in 1936, and the youngest in 1962.Decanter Magazine | 95 DECThe 2023 Morey-Saint-Denis Vieilles Vignes 1er Cru comes from the usual three lieux-dits. It has an intense bouquet with cool but focused blackberry, briar and light flinty scents. The palate is medium-bodied and very well balanced, with finely sculpted tannins and seductive creaminess to the texture in the finish. Frequently one of Laurent Lignier’s finest cuvées, this is just wonderful.Vinous Media | 93-95 VMMostly Faconnières. Rich dark crimson with the most fruit to date, fully ripe. The palate offers a balanced headiness, with a fruit dark enough to include some plums. This is the more hedonistic of the two but I think my preference comes down narrowly on the more cerebral Chaffots. Drink from 2032-2038. Tasted Dec 2024.Jasper Morris | 92-95 JMA restrained but beautifully layered nose grudgingly offers up its aromas of black cherry, crushed anise and newly turned earth. There is slightly better density to the overtly powerful and more obviously mineral-driven medium-bodied flavors that culminate in a firm, serious and compact finale. This too virtually always ages well and the 2023 version should be no exception.Burghound | 91-94 BH

Lignier’s new cuvée in Morey is the premier cru Les Sorbès. The wine boasts a ripe blackberry fruit with an almost gamey savoury note and hints of mineral and spice. Although the flavour is substantial, the texture is pleasantly ethereal, almost like a wine from Chambolle. This is the first vintage of this wine; Lignier sourced enough fruit for four barrels from the site located down the slope below the Clos de Tart and the village.Decanter Magazine | 94 DECSlightly fuller crimson colour with a floral nose, a touch of peony. All destemmed as it is the first year of this contract. More sweet cherry fruity intensity on the palate, a little gentian at the finish, an interesting, complex wine. The fruit has more sucrosity than some. Drink from 2030-2037. Tasted Dec 2024.Jasper Morris | 91-94 JMHere too there is a hint of herbal tea on the softly wooded nose of earthy red currant aromas. The seductive, round and utterly delicious middle weight flavors are shaped by relatively fine-grained tannins on the youthfully austere and lingering finale where the only reproach is a touch of warmth. This is a wine of finesse but with sufficient stuffing to repay up to a decade of aging.Burghound | 90-93 BHThe 2023 Morey-Saint-Denis Les Sorbés comes from a purchase of fruit that represents four barrels this year. This has a vibrant floral bouquet with lovely delineation and lift, as rose petal and bergamot infuse the raspberry fruit. The palate is well balanced with supple tannins and a caressing finish, a little fleshy and perhaps Chambolle-like. This will drink well in its youth.Vinous Media | 89-91 VM

The iodine, blackberry and rose-stem character comes through clearly. Plenty of fruit and depth. Medium-bodied with fine tannins that caress the palate and provide endless flavors of Indian spices, flint, nutmeg and light crust. Such refinement and integrity. Drinkable now, but better in three or four years.James Suckling | 98 JSLovely cherry fruit with hints of lavender and rosemary. The texture is silky and dense, almost fat. There is more clay here, and less limestone than in Les Cras, and the tannic structure is not as firm. The grapes are from Drouhin’s massive 6.75ha here, not far from Pommard; they are partially destemmed and fermented on native yeasts before ageing in cask (25% new) for 14–18 months.Decanter Magazine | 93 DECThe 2023 Clos des Mouches Rouge seems just a touch riper in personality than the les Cras this year, thus having just a bit more mid-palate amplitude of sappy black fruit and just a bit more length on the lovely finish. The bouquet is excellent, offering up notes of black plums, black cherries, coffee bean, woodsmoke, gamebird, dark soil tones, a hint of graphite and cedary oak. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and very sappy at the core, with a good foundation of soil tones, ripe, buried tannins, lovely focus and grip and a long, nascently complex and very promising finish. (Drink between 2036 - 2080)John Gilman | 93+ JGThe 2023 Beaune 1er Cru Clos des Mouches (Domaine) is showing nicely, bursting with aromas of sweet berries, spices, orange zest and new oak. Medium to full-bodied, succulent and lively, with chalky grip on the finish, it will offer a broad drinking window.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 91-93 RPThe 2023 Beaune Clos des Mouches Rouge 1er Cru comes from 35 separate plots with different geology. It’s comprised of ten different lots picked over a week. This opens with dark chocolate and white pepper scents. It has slightly darker fruit on the nose and is a little more introspective at first. The palate is medium-bodied and quite sapid with a firm structure on the entry and a touch of licorice on the finish. This should be very fine once in bottle.Vinous Media | 91-93 VMDeep purple, with a fresh energy. Intense fresh dark raspberry, with just the right structure, tannins present but refined, adequate acidity, a touch of velvet and very persistent. Drink from 2028-2035. Tasted Nov 2024.Jasper Morris | 91-93 JMAn exuberantly floral nose presents ripe aromas of spice, black cherry and a top note of kirsch. The notably finer, though not denser, middle weight flavors are shaped by remarkably fine-grained tannins on the lightly stony bitter pit fruit-inflected finale. This balanced effort could use more depth so at least a few years of cellaring should prove beneficial.Burghound | 90-92 BH

Laurent Lignier has crafted a delicious wine from his holdings in Clos de la Roche, with dark plummy fruit and notes of ground coffee, earth and spice. The texture is serious, dense with tannin and extract, with enough acidity to draw the flavours out on the palate. Yields were tiny – just five barrels instead of the customary 15-20. This wine will begin to open in three to five years and will drink well for decades after that.Decanter Magazine | 94 DECLaurent has not made the special cuvée in 2024. Here there are 5 barrels from 0.90ha, two thirds Monts Luisants, one third Fremières. A fine mid crimson with a slightly weaker rim. The nose is very high class though, with just a little savoury edge to the mineral red fruit, good tension at the finish, maybe a little blueberry, classic Clos de la Roche with quite some staying power. Drink from 2032-2040. Tasted Nov 2025.Jasper Morris | 94-96 JMThe 2024 Clos-de-la-Roche Grand Cru has an exquisite bouquet that is easily the best that Laurent Lignier conjured this vintage: wonderful redcurrant and raspberry scents, freshly picked roses and crushed stone. The palate is medium-bodied with finely honed tannins, a silver thread of acidity and silky texture that instantly seduces. There is just a tingle of white pepper on the finish that completes a lovely Clos de la Roche. Divine.Vinous Media | 93-95 VMModerate wood influence sets off overtly floral-suffused aromas of wild red berries, spice and a suggestion of wet stone. The succulent, round and utterly delicious medium-bodied flavors possess a lovely sense of underlying tension that adds to the appeal of the powerful, impressively long and well-balanced finale. This is though compact and very firmly structured so at least mid-term patience is recommended.Burghound | 91-94 BH