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  • Country ranking ?

    520
  • Producer ranking ?

    13
  • Decanting time

    2h
  • When to drink

    2020-2035

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The Story

Unlike most Burgundian estates, whether they have been bottling for a number of decades or only embarked on this path recently, the Domaine Dujac is a recent creation. It dates from 1968. Jacques Seysses, the founder, is in his early 70s, and has now taken a back seat in favour of his sons Jeremy and Alec and Jeremy's wife Diana, a trained wine chemist (oenologue). They have been working as a trio now for a few vintages. Have things changed? Should we expect more radical differences in the wines to come compared with the Dujacs of old? I went up to Morey-Saint-Denis to find out.

The Clos Saint-Denis Grand Cru lies between the village of Morey-Saint-Denis to the south and 
Gevrey-Chambertin to the north, where the slope is very steep (13%). The plot varies in altitude from 284 to 309 meters. The lieu-dit faces east-southeast.

The soil changes from east to west. The reddish-brown soil in the eastern part is 40 to 50 cm thick, with some angular-to-rounded limestone fragments. Upslope, in the western part of this Grand Cru plot, the soil is richer in fine angular limestone gravel.

Two different substrata underlie the Clos Saint-Denis. To the east, the substratum is a fine light-colored limestone, occasionally containing flint-like chert nodules (chailles). This Premeaux limestone, crops out in beds tens of centimeters thick. To the west, where the slope is steeper, a thin layer of Comblanchien limestone scree in the form of fine angular gravel partly covers the slope.

 

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Vintage 1985

1985 Burgundy by Clive Coates MW / The 1985 vintage represents a turning point in the wine history of Burgundy. Before this date, on the whole, winegrowers made wine, merchants bought it, assembled several plots, if necessary, and sold it. Subsequently, more and more estates began to mature, bottle and market the wines themselves. In the meantime, many merchants had taken the opportunity to expand their own estates, so that, particularly at the upper end, they were more or less self-sufficient. In the 1970s, and earlier, there were barely around twenty producers – we think of Rousseau, Dujac, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Gouges, Lafarge and Leflaive – who did not sell in bulk. Many of today's super-stars bottled only a token quantity and were unknown to even the most perceptive merchant or journalist.

The emergence of these new areas is transforming Burgundy. In a very short time, almost everyone who had a grand cru and many who had a good premier cru were bottling as much as they could themselves. There was, of course, the question of cash flow. If you sold to a merchant, you were paid in full at the time of the next vintage. If you sold in bottles, you didn't get the money until about two and a half years later, after bottling 18 months after harvest and possible shipping in winter thereafter. We would therefore not be able, unless we were otherwise financed, to move from bulk sales to bottled sales overnight. I remember the late Philippe Engel explaining to me that the transformation for him took ten years.

The process was encouraged by local residents. Burgundy is a generous wine region. Most growers are on very good terms with their neighbors and are only too happy to help if there is a problem. Naturally, the best ones have a queue of potential buyers waiting to step in if one of the regular customers falls through. What could be more natural for the important owner of the much sought-after estate than to recommend a hitherto unknown young neighbor who was looking for business. If he or she was a cousin or in-law, so much the better.

 

Moreover, the quality was improving, and by leaps and bounds. The best growers went to Viti in Beaune then to the University of Dijon. Many left for a stopover in California or Australia, or elsewhere in France. Tasting each other’s wines with your neighbors has become commonplace. Firstly, selling your wine under your own label required you not to cut corners, which you might have been tempted to do if you were simply selling in bulk. Tasting your wine alongside those of your friends and reading a review of it in a wine magazine will soon tell you whether you are producing superior quality or not. Second, viticulture and viticulture techniques had become increasingly sophisticated. There has been a return to plowing and the elimination of herbicides and pesticides. The size of the harvest was taken into greater account. And finally the introduction of the sorting table: the greatest contribution to increasing quality of all. Today, everyone has a sorting table. The first time I saw it was Domaine de la Romanée-Conti when I was making a video in 1987. Finally, after a disappointing run of vintages in the 1970s and early 1980s, 1985 ushered in a series of high quality years that continues to this day. Burgundy has not had a bad vintage since 1984. Thirty years.

The consequence of all this is that it is increasingly difficult for everyone, not just the outside journalist, to keep up. Every year, new areas, worthy of exploration and waiting to be discovered. In 1985, I visited six estates in Gevry, four in Morey and Chambolle and perhaps eight in Vosne. Today I should visit 25 in Gevrey, and so on. A marathon for which I no longer have the energy. I am very lucky to have been there at the time and to have experienced what was an exciting time in Burgundy.

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Tasting note

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Written Notes

There were two wines to go, and what wines they were. We continued with a perfect bottle of 1985 Dujac Clos St. Denis. It was so sexy and aromatic, showing all the colors of the wine rainbow, including apricot. I guess that’s technically orange lol. I wrote ‘Dujac=delicious’ and this beautiful bottle epitomized that statement, giving me autumn kisses and a purple forest floor on which I could stand. Autumn continued its statement on the finish in a youthful way; it was the September autumn, not the November one (97).

  • 97p

Medium-full colour. Fully mature. Aromatic nose. Fresh and concentrated. But gamey nonetheless. A fullish wine which is a little less fresh and has a little less acidity than the 1990. But it is sweeter and more seductive. Splendidly classy and harmonious. Very lovely.

 

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Information

Origin

Morey-Saint-Denis, Burgundy

Other wines from this producer

Bonnes Mares Grand Cru

Chambertin

Chambolle-Musigny Les Gruenchers

Charmes-Chambertin

Clos-de-la-Roche

Echézeaux

Gevrey-Chambertin aux Combottes

Marc de Bourgogne

Morey Saint-Denis Aligoté

Morey-Saint-Denis Les Monts Luisants

Morey-St-Denis

Morey-St-Denis Premier Cru

Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Les Damodes

Romanée-Saint-Vivant

Vosne Romanee Aux Malconsorts

Vosne Romanee Les Beaux Monts

Vosne-Romanée Les Beaux Monts 1er Cru

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