The 2012 Echezeaux Grand Cru has a complex bouquet with touches of dark plum and mulberry infusing the red berry fruit. The oak is nicely married into the fruit profile here: open and generous. The palate is medium-bodied with a candied quality on the entry, spicy black fruit, dried orange peel and an effervescent finish that fans out nicely across the mouth. This is a pretty, feminine and vivacious Echezeaux that should age beautifully. Tasting in the cellars of Domaine Dujac in Morey Saint Denis is always an educational, enlightening experience, granting you a useful picture of how some of the top vineyards performed in the Cote de Nuits during a given year. Alec Seysses was on hand to guide me around his particularly cold cellar, one of those occasions when my warm hands might be bad for pastry, but ideal for warming glasses. “It was the fourth poor year in a row in terms of quantity,” he explained, showing me the concrete eggs now employed at the domaine, a less common sight here in Burgundy compared to Bordeaux. “although in 2012 we had a regular crop of the village crus and the younger vines did well. We averaged around 20 hectoliters per hectare. Everything was racked in early September but there is some reduction from the cold cellar. The softness of the tannins strikes me as a character of the vintage. It is more a dark fruit vintage than a red fruit vintage. Sugars were between 12.5 and 13%, with a few 13.3% here and there. I find the wines similar to 2010, but the 2012 is a little more charming because the tannins are not quite as strong.” Tasting through the complete range of wines from the small batch of negociant wines under “Dujac Fils et Pere” to the clutch of grand crus, it was clear that propitious terroirs that influenced the wines greatly. The village crus were mostly commendable in their own right, but the real excitement begins as you broach the premier crus, where the barrel samples achieve high degrees of complexity and nuance. Like many of the top growers, I was pleased to see individual terroirs articulated with great clarity in 2012, perhaps more so than the 2011s. These barrel samples seemed to contain so much energy: tightly coiled springs of fermented grape juice, brimming with tension and freshness that Jeremy and Alec will endeavor to capture once in bottle. I have little doubt that they will succeed. Importers: The Sorting Table, Napa, CA; tel. (415) 491-4724; Martin Scott Wines, Little Neck, NY; tel. (516) 327-0808; Chambers & Chambers, San Francisco, CA; tel. (415) 642-5500 and though several merchants in the UK including Berry Brother & Rudd.

Silky, open and expressive, the 2012 Echézeaux is striking today. The most accessible of the Dujac Grand Crus, the Echézeaux is the only wine I would consider drinking before its tenth birthday if absolutely necessary. Silky tannins grace the sexy finish laced with spice and citrus overtones that add further finesse. Dujac owns parcels in the Poulallieres and Champ Traversin climats within Echézeaux.

An exuberantly spicy and floral nose features a variety of red berry fruit scents laced with hints of sandalwood and Asian spices. There is a silky and restrained mouth feel to the intense, concentrated and detailed flavors that brim with dry extract that does a fine job of buffering the moderately firm tannins on the lingering finale. This is unusually accessible in the context of the Dujac 2012s and should drink well earlier than any of these grand crus.– Burghound.com, Issue 57. Tasted: Jan 2015

Saturated dark red. Sappy aromas of red cherry, ripe red berries and spices; shows an almost liqueur-like quality. Then very ripe, silky and feminine on the palate, showing a fine-grained texture to its intense flavors of raspberry, flowers and spices. Less explosive on the back end than the Malconsorts and perhaps a bit oakier today. But I like the surprisingly subtle effect of the 100% whole-cluster fermentation.