The 2012 Morey St. Denis 1er Cru is quite a bit more refined than the village bottling. Floral and spiced at the outset, but with plenty of underlying minerality, the 2012 is very expressive today. Crushed rocks, spices, flowers and a hint of citrus add nuance on the exotic finish.

Medium red. Reduced aromas of red berries, mocha, brown spices and minerals. Fine-grained, concentrated and sweet, showing lovely richness and saline complexity to its strawberry and raspberry flavors. Finishes spicy and long, and considerably richer than the Morey villages , which was hard to taste in November in its very reduced state.

The 2012 Morey-Saint-Denis 1er Cru comes from 4 different lieux-dits from north to south of the appellation (the same as previous years.) It has a very refined bouquet that shows more mineralite on the nose than the village cru with hints of rose petal. The palate is medium-bodied with a firm entry: a “solid” premier cru with a pleasant limestone touch towards the finish. It just needs to develop a little more flesh by the time of bottling, but there is an agreeable sense of energy displayed here. 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.