Domaine
Dujac
visiting
Burgundy, part 5
Website:
www.dujac.com
The
next appointment was eagerly awaited. One of the great domaines of
Burgundy: Dujac. I was meeting with Jeremy Seysses (above),
who now running the day-to-day business of the domaine, although his
father Jacques is still involved.
As a
newcomer to Burgundy Jacques founded his domaine (Domaine du Jacques
= Dujac) in 1967, but carried on working with the family biscuit
business for a while as the wine picked up. Remember, Burgundy in
the late 1960s was a very different place to the affluent region it
is today, and in those days you could reasonably expect to come in
and buy enough serious vineyards to form a top domaine. Not so now.
Jacques
began by buying the 4.5 hectare Domaine Graillet in Morey-St-Denis
in 1967. He then added vineyard blocks, including a bit of
Echézeaux, Bonnes Mares and Clos de La Roche. His latest
acquisition was the joint purchase of the Charles Thomas estate in
2005, which niftily secured bits of Chambertin, Romanée-St-Vivant
and Vosné-Romanée 1er Cru Malconsorts, which would have been
eye-wateringly expensive and are just about impossible to obtain
however deep your pockets.
Current
vineyard holdings are impressive. Grand Crus are 2 ha Clos de la
Roche, 1.5 ha Clos St-Denis, 0.55 ha Bonnes Mares, 0.6 ha Charmes
Chambertin, 0.6 ha Echézeaux, 0.16 ha Romanée-St-Vivant, 0.29 ha
Chambertin. Then 1er Crus are 1.5 ha Malconsorts, 0.7 ha Beaux Monts,
1.15 ha Les Combettes, 0.32 ha Les Gruenchers, 0.65 ha Les Monts
Luisants, 0.75 Morey-St-Denis. Altogether, Dujac cultivate 15.5 ha
of vines (not all are owned by them, though).
Dujac
stopped using herbicides in the early 1990s. ‘For me this is the
most important thing’, says Jeremy Seysses, son of Jacques and now
in charge of the domaine. ‘My gut feeling is that 90% of the
change came from working the soils and stopping herbicides. It led
to an introduction of a degree of biodiversity in what otherwise is
intensive monoculture.’ He admits that moving in this direction
generates significantly more work. ‘We have an extra tractor and
tractor driver’, he reveals. Jeremy reckons that by the time you
get to implementing biodynamics, you are usually better at working
in the vineyards, spotting mildew patches on leaves and oidium
affected berries. ‘The people who are poster children for
biodynamics are in the vineyards a lot and are good growers.’
Jeremy began with organics and biodynamics on some of the Grand Cru
vineyards, and in 2009 moved all vineyards under their control to
this form of viticulture. Dujac have a permanent team of seven to
cultivate 15.5 hectares, plus seasonal workers to do jobs such as
debudding, shoot thinning and green harvest. He says that they are
very thorough with their shoot thinning and leaf pulling because
this is a prophylactic measure to get good air flow through the
fruit zone and canopy, and thus reduce the risk of fungal disease.
Stylistically,
Jeremy says that they aim at elegance, finesse, complexity and charm
ahead of alcohol and tannic structure. ‘I started making wine with
my father in 1994,’ says Jeremy. ‘We have had lots of ripe
vintages by the standards of pre-1990, but 2007 is a return to the
old styles of the 1980s: wines with less alcohol and a longer
growing season.’ He adds that, ‘our tendency is not to push
things too far. People consider us underextracted.’
At
Dujac, 12 days between picking and pressing is not that unusual,
which is quite a short maceration. Dujac are also a house who tend
to favour whole cluster fermentations with the stems, but not
religiously. ‘I have some colleagues who never adapt their
winemaking, but I shift the destemming thing, and some years we
destem more than others.’
THE
WINES
Dujac
Morey-St-Denis Village 2007
Elegant, smooth, fresh cherryish nose. The palate is pure and
elegant with lovely texture. Very fresh and intense with real
vibrancy. Beautifully focused sweet cherry fruit dominates with some
spicy, grippy structure underneath. A wonderful wine. 92/100
Dujac
Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Les Combottes 2007
This vineyard is a corner of Clos des Roches. The wine has a
beautifully mineralic nose: dense, perfumed and spicy with
beautifully elegant dark cherry and plum fruit. The palate is
profound with lovely elegant dark cherry fruit and some spicy
tannins. Grainy structure with beautiful minerality. Fantastically
expressive wine. 94/100
Dujac
Clos St-Denis Grand Cru 2007
Wonderfully aromatic swet, pure dark cherry fruit nose is really
elegant and silky, with some subtle green sappy notes adding
interest. The palate has power and elegance with lovely freshness.
Bright and vibrant with dark cherry fruit and fine-grained
structure. Beautiful. 96/100
Dujac
Clos de la Roche Grand Cru 2007
Lovely expressive dark cherry and blackberry nose: brooding,
sweet and perfumed. The palate is amazingly dense with beautiful
spicy, firm structure. Dense and expressive with amazing
personality, combining power with finesse. Grippy structure. 96/100
Dujac
Clos St-Denis Grand Cru 2001
Very perfumed, open, elegantly expressive sweet cherry fruit
nose. The palate shows lovely pure fruit and delicious structure
with good acidity. Suberbly elegant and beginning to open out.
94/100
Dujac
Clos de la Roche Grand Cru 2001
Robust, sweet, perfumed spicy nose shows hints of earth with
some tarriness in the background. The palate is herby and dense with
lovely structure and elegance. Powerful with grippy spicy notes.
Structured and intense, this needs more time. 96/100
Dujac
Clos St-Denis Grand Cru 1990
More evolved, with a beautiful nose that’s open, sweet, lively
and elegant, with hints of undergrowth and red cherries. The palate
is open and leafy with lovely sappy, elegant sweet cherry fruit and
a mineralic undercurrent. A little earthy, but minerally and
precise, this is drinking perfectly now. 95/100
Dujac
Morey-St-Denis Blanc Village 2007
Rich but balanced, with nicely mineral notes and citrus
freshness under the dense nutty, herby fruit. There’s a touch of
fennel, too. Taut and quite dense with nice character. 91/100
BURGUNDY
SERIES
Joseph
Drouhin
J-P
Fichet
Pierre
Morey/Morey Blanc
Louis
Latour
Domaine
Dujac
Sylvain
Cathiard
Clos
du Tart
Wines
tasted 06/09
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