Description
“You’ll find great purity of fruit here and graceful elegance, rather than muscle and power. They model Pinot Noir, burgundy-style, to perfection.”Andrew Jefford, The New France
Domaine de l’Arlot, with its hillside vineyards and 19th century gardens, has what many consider to be the most beautiful estate in Burgundy. Since the late 1980’s this producer has also been responsible for some of the prettiest red Burgundies going around. The perfume, silkiness and flickering clarity of these wines is born of the l’Arlot vineyards, and the Prémeaux terroir in general. Prémeaux has always stood apart from the rest of Nuits-Saint-Georges and made wines that are altogether more fine and elegant than those produced further North, around the town itself. L’Arlot brings the finesse of this terroir to the fore with their approach to wine growing and elevage. Biodynamic farming, perfect, well-sorted fruit, gentle extraction and whole-bunch use all play their part. Every step from vineyard to bottle is tailored to underline purity and finesse.
This is one of the two great monopole vineyards at the core of this Domaine and it is also one of the great terroirs of Nuits St George, made clear by its position, so close to Les Saint Georges (the full name of this vineyard is in fact Clos des Forêts St-Georges). To our mind, this is Arlot’s finest terroir in Nuits and it consistently makes this producer’s finest wine from that region. Arlot only uses vines planted before 1982 for this bottling. These older, biodynamically-tended vines are vinified in five parcels subject to soil type. As always, it’s the deepest, most powerful Nuits wine in the Arlot stable. Cropped in the region of 17 hl/ha in 2012, this my friends, is beautiful juice. It’s gorgeous already with layers of black cherry fruit and spicy, resinous, classy oak, but given time, it will get better and better. There are the trademark mineral tannins (although they are super fine and round in 2012) and the finish goes on and on. Outstanding it is.
“Outstanding. A distinctly cool nose of purple fruit, earth and a hint of the sauvage leads to powerful, intense yet not really rustic medium weight flavors where the shaping tannins are unusually fine grained, all wrapped in a robust and tautly muscular finish. While this has not completely shed its typical Nuits character, the 2012 version is certainly more polished than usual. In sum, this is really quite good and worth your attention.” 93 points, Allen Meadows, Burghound, Issue 57
“Deep, bright, saturated red. Knockout nose combines black cherry, sage, licorice and leather; smells strong! Then thick and silky but almost magically light on its feet, showing extraordinary complexity and eclat to its flavors of brambly black fruits, menthol, mint, fresh blood and rocky minerality. Really splendid intensity here–“a concentration that comes from the grapes, not from the winemaker,” says Devauges. The horizontal finish saturates the entire palate without leaving any impression of weight, thanks to utterly suave tannins and pungent minerality. A great vin de terroir in the making: this wine reminded me of the stunning 1991 version of this wine.” Stephen Tanzer, 92-95 Points
