Wine Ratings

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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

From a vineyard that was originally planted in 1982, with 12 feet spacing between the rows, the 2023 Pinot Noir Marjorie Vineyard boasts a youthful ruby red color and lifts with notes of cranberries, cinnamon, clove, dusty earth, and minty herbs. The energy of the palate is fantastic, with salty minerality, refreshing acidity, and a long, energetic finish. It’s packed with tension and should only improve over the next several years with some patience. This was my favorite in the range at this tasting, Drink it over the coming 20 years.Jeb Dunnuck | 97 JDAn elegant, delicious and structured medium-bodied wine with pleasing aromas of bright raspberries, strawberries, crushed rose petals, pink peppercorns and some cool blue fruit. A nervy backbone with fine, chalky, mouth-filling tannins and a zesty finish that goes on and on. Drinkable now, but it will age wonderfully. Drink or hold.James Suckling | 97 JSMarjorie is part of the Cristom heritage, with the original planting dating back to 1982, first planted on its own roots and eventually replanted vine by vine. The 2023 is made with 45% whole cluster. It’s a small block, so they’re careful with it. This vintage was made after half of the block was removed. There is an umami character to the Majorie Pinot Noir aromatics, a depth showing salty brine. It always has fleshy red fruits, blood orange, and soaring acids accenting mint leaves and herbs. It’s spicy and salty through the finishDecanter Magazine | 96 DECThe 2023 Pinot Noir Marjorie Vineyard is youthfully understated and coy, blending dusty floral tones with dried strawberries and nuances of autumnal spice. Harmonious and pure in style, it offers vivid raspberry fruit elevated by a hint of sour citrus as a collection of fine-grained tannins adds cheek-puckering tension through the close. Spicy and exceptionally long, the 2023 finishes structured with a tart blackberry twang. Patience is required.Vinous Media | 95+ VMThe 2023 Pinot Noir Marjorie Vineyard was fermented with 45% whole clusters and matured for 18 months in 31% new French oak. It has layered, savory scents of mushrooms, flint and pipe tobacco over a core of red cherry, blackberry and orange peel. The medium-bodied palate pairs earth-laced flavors with pleasantly rustic, chalky tannins. It’s balanced by bright acidity and has a long, layered finish. 636 cases were made.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 93 RPWell-framed and tightly focused, with raspberry and red currant flavors that take on forest floor and black tea as this gathers tension toward medium-grained tannins. Drink now through 2034. 636 cases made.Wine Spectator | 92 WS

A tightly focused beam of bitter cherry, damson plum and raspberry coulis streams through this red, with mouthwatering cut in the form of ocean breeze minerality that runs throughout. Iris and rose hip notes fill in the background as the long, piercing finish shows a remarkably pure and unadorned feel. A high-definition Pinot. Drink now through 2035. 3,650 cases made.Wine Spectator | 95 WSThe 2023 Pinot Noir Freestone Occidental Bodega is a well of strawberry, raspberry and blackberry, plus nuances of grapefruit, tea leaves, cola and bitters. The light-bodied palate offers crunchy, perfumed flavors framed by dusty tannins and vibrant acidity, and it has a long, latent finish.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 94 RP

From a mostly decomposed granite, 1600-feet-elevation, northeast-facing site with different exposures, the 2023 Pinot Noir Michaud Vineyard is the first vintage for Smith from this vineyard, which he calls as old school and rugged as Chalone. Earth, black tea, and gravelly rock highlight an elegantly poised, complex, floral, and mineral wine that shows both dustiness in texture and ample structure for aging. Cellar through 2037.Jeb Dunnuck | 97 JDThe cranberry aromas on the nose of this bottling is layered in cedar, pine duff and dried mushroom scents on the complex nose of this bottling. Cherry, red currant and cranberry flavors are cut by graphite and sandalwood on the savory palate. This is a very young wine from an appellation that always benefits from age. Drink now-2040.Wine Enthusiast | 93 WE

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

The lightly chewy tannins are caressing in this wine and give a cement-like character. Medium-bodied with flavors of chocolate, spices and stones. Delicious and crunchy. A tiny amount of sulfur at bottling. Drink now.James Suckling | 95 JS

Year after year, Egly’s NV Blanc de Noirs Grand Cru Les Crayères remains one of the most compelling and reliable wines from the Montagne de Reims. Sourced from a south-facing lieu-dit in Ambonnay that was planted between 1946 and 1947 on shallow chalk soils with just 30 centimeters of topsoil, it was disgorged in October 2024 with a dosage of one gram per liter. This release blends the richer 2017 vintage with the taut, incisive character of 2016. Notably, prior to 2000, Francis Egly produced this cuvée as a single-vintage expression, only later opting for a two-vintage blend to buffer against the variability of any given season. The wine ascends from the glass with a bouquet of remarkable complexity—aromas of acacia, ripe pear, orange zest, toasted nuts and patisserie elements unfurl. Full-bodied, concentrated and layered, with ample chalky structuring extract and mouthwatering acidity, it concludes with a long, saline finish. While I often vacillate between Les Crayères and the Millésime as to which I favor, this year, Les Crayères stands as the most captivating wine in the cellar. It offers immense youthful appeal yet promises to evolve beautifully with age. Readers would be wise not to hesitate—it fully lives up to its reputation, and I’d gladly secure bottles for my own cellar.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 98 RP