2008 Domaine Dujac Romanée-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru

Vanilla, star anise, forest floor, citrus oils, peat, and dark berry aromas rise kaleidoscopically from the glass of Dujac 2008 Romanee St.-Vivant, then deploy themselves with similar kinetic complexity on a palate of quite silken refinement. There’s a resinous, toasty element from the barrel that I could do without, and Seysses notes that “I am working on the toasting” of the particular 350-liter barrels employed here (and demanded by the volume of this precious cru that his acreage and the vintage yielded). But that’s almost a quibble in the context of a wine of such energy, underlying density, and sheer length as to suggest it will be worth following for a couple of decades. The Dujac 2008s were not racked until last December, and bottling took place January through March. “The malic acid numbers were high-ish, but not significantly higher than in, say, 2006 or 2001,” says Jeremy Seysses in an effort to explain what he admitted were “for us, excessively late malos. I have a feeling it was a lack of nutrients that were wash out,” he continues, since, after all, “it rained a lot in 2008” with, he adds, “poor fruit set proving to be the vintage’s saving grace. I think we would actually have had less to harvest (i.e. worth keeping) if we had had a better fruit set. There was rot, but can you find it in any of the wines? That’s a credit to how far Burgundy has come along in terms of sorting” (which Dujac does exclusively in the vineyard, not on sorting tables – the name of their U.S. importer ironically notwithstanding). “I didn’t love my lack of options in 2007,” says Seysses of the preceding season, “so we picked early – earlier even than in 2003.” In vinification “we decided not to force too much, and just to keep it charming,” which is exactly how I thought the wines turned out. “At Domaine Dujac, we’re never been that attached to deep color, so we’re quite tolerant (in that regard), and the least thing we wanted to do was make hard wines. I de-stemmed more (than usual, or than in 2008). The fruit felt fragile, so in barrel I kept the wines under a bit more free sulfur than usual, which reinforced their lightness.” Seysses opines that 2007 was not a year in which old selections displayed their overall superiority to clones, because “if yo(‘re Pinots) were riper earlier, you were ripe while it was raining,” whereas in 2008 you could scarcely get too much ripeness. Importer: The Sorting Table, Napa, CA; tel. (415) 491-4724

(vinified entirely with whole clusters; sulfured a month ago following a relatively early malo) Bright, deep red. Incredible nose combines smoky red fruits, pungent minerality and ineffable high notes of Oriental spices, white pepper and blood orange. Boasts a silky, utterly palate-staining texture with extraordinary energy and grip, and conveys a powerful impression of energy to its tangy fruits, spices and flowers. This thick yet lively wine boasts great class, and the mounting finish of spices and flowers goes on and on. There are just two 300-liter barrels of this elixir.