Gevrey-Chambertin Premier Cru, Lavaut-Saint-Jacques, Domaine Duroché, 2017

Pierre made eighteen barrels in 2017 (as opposed to eleven in 2016 – hurrah!) and what a cracking wine it is. Intense, pure and nose-filling, with wild strawberries, earth, forest floor and coffee aromas. The palate is full, deep, and resonant, chalky and saline with some dried cranberry, roasted earth, and medicinal notes and a fineness to the long herbal tannins. Lots to come.

Pierre needs no introduction these days, having been propelled in to the very front ranks of Burgundy’s most sought-after growers, for all he remains as diffident and charming as ever. With ever increasing global demand for allocations, we never get as much of his Grands Crus as we’d like but the quality and value across the range is always exciting and we are delighted to have a good supply of Pierre’s various expressions of Gevrey Chambertin.

“Quite an easy vintage” says Pierre: Following a wet winter, there was no more serious rain after March, and no botrytis, or rot, although he mentions there was a bit of hail on the north side of Gevrey in July which caused a 20% crop loss (my heart always sinks proportionate to any dip in available quantity of Duroché wines). The Grand Crus have 20-30% whole bunches and Pierre uses the same percentage of new oak in all his wines from Bourgogne Rouge to Clos de Beze. As for comparative vintages, he points to 2007 for fruit, aromatic profile and balance, but with the concentration and energy of 2010. Roll up, roll up."
Tom Harrow