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.
Vintage 1997
1997 VINTAGE in Burgundy
The exciting Burgundy vintage in 1997 is regarded as having produced some of the most charming wines in living memory. The whites are notable for their richness and balance. Full, elegant and well bred, they are for great short to medium term drinking pleasure. The reds have fine intense colour, with well-ripened berry fruits on the nose, and smooth, fleshy flavours in the mouth. They are already very agreeable to drink and, their personality will develop further as they age
At the beginning of the viticultural year the weather was fair, very bright and dry. Bud burst for the Chardonnay took place on the first April and for the Pinot Noir the 10th April. Following this, we had an unbroken stretch of fine weather until flowering, as a result we were twelve days in advance compared to the average year.
The period between the 15th June and the 10th July was not good, cloudy, cold and wet until the 7th July and then stormy between the 7th and the 20th July.
The beginning of veraison (when the grapes begin to change colour) occurred on the 4th August and was completed on the 20th, 4-5 days in advance. There then followed a long, unusual period of dry weather. By the 27th August, we had had only 50% of the usual rainfall, the heat was intense throughout a thirty day period. Despite this there was no sign that the sustained period of hot, dry weather had any adverse effect on the vine and its fruit.
The harvest was particularly rapid, taking less than 10 days and was not once interrupted by rain. The weather conditions during the harvest were exceptionally good, it was hot, sunny and dry. As a result we were very pleased with the ripeness of the fruit in both the Reds and the Whites. In addition, the fruit harvested was very healthy with virtually no trace of rot in the Pinot Noir. The other interesting effect of these weather conditions was that the sun and wind concentrated the grape juice without reducing the acidity. We harvested the top Cru red wines at between 12.5° and 13°. In general, we had a medium sized crop for the red wines which are of a very high quality which will create some tension at the grower level, considering the international demand.
As for the whites, to begin with they were slow to ripen, but again we benefited from the good weather conditions during the harvest period, picking the top white Crus at between 13° and 13.5° and in terms of quantity it was a good crop. We are pleased with the quality too, which we believe will be very good, with less acidity than the '95's and '96's, they will be powerful and pleasant.
