Winemaker Notes
The wine shows aromas and flavors of red berries, herbs, and purple flowers. The palate is rich with ripe fruit and medium weight with bright acidity and fine tannins. Aging in 40-70% new Burgundian pièce brings notes of vanilla, toast, and baking spices.
Domaine Jean Grivot Clos de Vougeot pairs beautifully with duck breast or beef tenderloin, highlighting its powerful structure, earthy complexity, and refined tannins.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Warm, lush, and tannic, this wine shows an intensely ripe, plummy fruit aroma with notes of smoke and spice and impressive depth and length. It is the best Clos Vougeot I can recall having from this domaine. The Grivot family has a large parcel (1.86 hectares) at the base of the slope, which is not a highly regarded position in the Clos. Mathilde, however, has made exemplary work of it here. The carefully sorted grapes were destemmed and gently punched down during the fermentation on native yeasts.
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Vinous
The 2022 Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru has a refined and harmonious bouquet with red berry fruit, wild hedgerow and light oyster shell notes, ameliorating all the time in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins, a mixture of red and black fruit, truffle and black pepper. It's quite complex and very long on the finish. Superb.
Barrel Sample: 94-96 -
Jasper Morris
Mid red crimson. The barrel gives a slightly firm note to the fruit on the nose. There is a weight of red fruit beneath though this is rather reserved and only at the finish does the fruit come back. No black fruit notes at all. In reserve and slightly saline. Barrel Sample: 93-95
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Wine Spectator
A supple, elegant red, this features cherry, blackberry, sandalwood, mineral and spice aromas and flavors. Though it starts on the gentle side, this gains momentum and intensity, with a strong and persistent aftertaste. It's tannins are beautifully integrated and supportive.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Containing the largest Grand Cru in all of the Côte d’Or, Vougeot, the village, takes its name from the small stream flowing through it, called Vouge. Over three quarters of the village retains Grand Cru status, and a single vineyard at that: Clos de Vougeot (or simply, Clos Vougeot). Its mass—over 50 ha—retains the single name chiefly for historic reasons.
But today, Clos de Vougeot contains over 80 owners and shows significant soil and slope variations within its boundaries. The top, bordering Musigny and Grands Echezeaux, is calcareous and gravelly on oolitic limestone and exhibits wonderful drainage. The middle sections are limestone, gravel and clay with less of a slope. The lower part has little slant and is mostly made of clay. Historically the diverse parcels were blended but today the abundance of owners means that everyone has his own style. Exploring and understanding them is part of the allure of Clos de Vougeot.
In general a fine Clos de Vougeot when young will be dense and dark but juicy, with a pronounced austerity, and needs a good ten years to bring it to its full potential.