2022 オーセイ=デュレス、プルミエ・クリュ、コント・アルマン

A similar bright fresh purple, with just a little more fruit weight on the palate. A little bit plusher in texture than the village Auxey, but still with notable acidity behind. A crunchy energy alongside the darker fruit. Drink 2028 - 2032

The 2022 Auxey-Duresses 1er Cru has a well-defined bouquet with brambly black fruit, wild strawberry and a touch of white pepper. This is much more complex than the Village Cru. The palate is medium-bodied with slightly finer tannins than the Village Cru but is still quite structured, which is why Paul Zanetti told me he would do a longer barrel ageing to soften the texture. Promising, but be patient. “We did not have any frost,” winemaker Paul Zanetti explains at the Pommard estate, where he’s reached his tenth vintage anniversary. “It was quite an easy vintage, warm but not too much. There were no real heat waves, but it was hot in July. It was a record yield at around 37hL/ha, the highest since 2014, and it was the same in 2023, though when we pressed, there was less juice than expected. Nevertheless, we have very good quantity and quality. The fruit was perfectly mature with alcohol, about 13.5% and 14.5% for the Clos des Epeneaux and good total acidity. I did not use whole bunches as we don’t have the space in the winery. We did have some stuck ferments. I put the bunches in a fridge at 12° and 13° Celsius, and the yeasts ‘ate’ the sugar quite easily.” I tasted the crown jewel of Clos des Epeneaux, the 5.23-hectare monopole, via separate cuvées per vine age and location, always a fascinating exercise highlighting their differences. The blend, put together in front of me by Zanetti, looks very promising, maybe not the greatest ever made both the 2017 and 2018 tasted from bottle alongside appear to be the pick of recent vintages). It tends to overshadow their handful of other cuvées. In 2022, I would keep an eye out for the very capable Auxey-Duresses 1er Cru. Drink 2027 - 2037