CLOS DES LAMBRAYS
2011 Grand Cru Domaine des Lambrays
Rich nose of deep fruit and undergrowth. A huge volume of wine. Rich and suave and pure. Furry with fine ripe tannin, it all builds beautifully, very harmonious, and yet still urgent, lively, brisk. A little bit of liquorice and spice. But it's the harmony that stands out.L&S (Jan 2013)
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The 2011 Clos des Lambrays Grand Cru just feels a little flat-footed. It has a typical leafy bouquet, nicely defined but bereft of some horsepower, damp moss/undergrowth scents becoming more conspicuous with aeration. The palate is quite sharp and tart on the entry. This is certainly fresh but I wish there was more substance towards the finish. It is a Grand Cru after all. Drinking range: 2019 - 2029 Rating: 89 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (May 2019)
(100% vendange entier; 13.2% with a bit of chaptalization): Medium red. Highly complex nose combines wild dark berries, smoky herbs, brown spices, leather, rust and pepper. Suave, elegant and fine-grained; a lovely silky midweight with perfumed notes of iron, rust, olive, wild herbs, spices and pepper. Finishes with very good spicy length. This can be enjoyed now or cellared. Offers a Lambrays-typical blend of structure and finesse, not to mention terrific aromatic complexity. Incidentally, although Brouin described 2012 as one of his best vintages of the last 20 years, he maintained that the 2011 is more transparent to its site. Rating: 92 Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar (Mar 2014)
The nose has a fragrant charm tight intense with a mix of flavours. The fruit on the palate is rich full of excitement lots of ripe flavours. Black cherry and mulberry give complexity and there is an opulent richness on the back palate yet the finish feels quite taught. 2015-24 Rating: 93 Derek Smedley MW, www.dereksmedleymw.co.uk (Dec 2013)
(50% new oak): Bright, deep red. Showy nose melds cherry, raspberry, white pepper, coffee, spices and smoky underbrush. Utterly suave, silky and fine-grained, but with firm tannins giving the fairly full mid-palate plenty of support for two decades or more of positive development in bottle. Most impressive today on the very long, subtle, rising finish, which leaves the mouth feeling refreshed. Rating: 92-94 Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar (Feb 2013)
Rating: 17.5++ Matthew Jukes www.matthewjukes.com (Jan 2013)
A very pale wine, with 100% stems. It’s a very definite style, which some will love and others will hate, with notes of Islay malt whisky and savoury, spicy, almost meaty flavours. It will be interesting to see how the wine ages. 2014-22 Rating: 95 Tim Atkin MW, www.timatkin.com (Jan 2013)
(produced from two large parcels of differing vine age - one that is approximately two-thirds of the blend and is now 45 years of age and a second, smaller group of vines that is approximately 20+ years of age). This offers a further step up in aromatic complexity with its ripe and expressive nose of red berry fruit liqueur, cassis, plum and violets. There is a very suave and seductive texture to the medium weight plus flavors that possess an abundance of mouth coating extract, all wrapped in a long, balanced and delicious finish where a touch of wood is in evidence. This is certainly very good but somewhat curiously it does not seem to separate itself as much as usual from the Les Loups though it is clearly more structured. 2019+ Rating: 90-93 Allen Meadows, www.Burghound.com (Jan 2013)
This is a comprehensive assemblage from around the cellar. Immediately a more complex and layered aroma. Slight herbal and spicy note. Sweet black fruit. Very bright from the attack. Streamlined body, neatly precise at the edges and lively. Finely textured tannin. Slight herbal notes and an elegant finish. Fine++ From 2017 Rating: 18.5 Sarah Marsh MW, The Burgundy Briefing (Nov 2012)
Domaine des Lambrays
The 'Clos' consists of 8.66 hectares of land enclosed by a wall in which there is the original milestone marking its founding in 1365, confirmed in the records of the Abbaye de Citeaux (those monks knew where to place a vineyard). The Clos owes much of its current fame to the nineteenth and twentieth century proprietors who reconstituted it after the fragmentation of ownership which followed the French revolution. Despite always having been considered a Grand Cru site, the Clos was in fact classified Premier Cru in the original 1936 appellations contrôlées.
The Rodier family which owned it from the 1930s fought to regain its Grand cru status, with eventual success only in 1981, when it became the last of the thirty-three Grands Crus of Burgundy, although by then it had passed to the Saier family. Recently under the benign ownership of the Günther Freund and his family, who gave a very free hand to régisseur Thierry Brouin, who had been employed by their predecessor Rolland Pelletier de Chambure, the quality of the wines here has pushed up again. In 2014 it was bought by the LVMH group.
It has been all rather quick change here as Jacques Devauge has taken over here after a short interregnum under Boris Champy. The legacy of Thierry Brouin can still be felt, Jacques decribing him as having been 'clairvoyant' in his approach to the domaine, which has set it up well to deal with challenges of warmer vintages. Jacques seems set to take this estate onward - 'every domaine has to challenge itself to do better', he says. 2019 marks the second year being fully organic - if all goes well they will be certified after another two.
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