CLOS DE LA ROCHE
2015 Grand Cru Domaine Lignier-Michelot
Wonderful nose, floral and fruity at once - real class. There's a sweetness here - but just a touch - a mouth-filling supple silky velvet dark berry fruit that is suave and grand in feel. Weighty but not heavy, bright but never 'tinny', a shape that is all long elegant sweeping curves. Very grand. Drinking range: 2025 - L&S (Nov 2016)
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Good full, bright red; the darkest of these 2015s. Inviting aromas of black raspberry, black cherry, chocolate and five-spice powder. Juicy and crunchy in the context of the vintage; dense and thick but not heavy, with its penetrating, fruit-driven flavors framed by surprising harmonious acidity and saline minerality. This very ripe and rather stylish Clos de la Roche finishes with substantial refined tannins and excellent length and lift. Like several other of these 2015s, this seems fresher in the bottle than it was from barrel in late 2016. Virgile Lignier vinified most of his 2015 crus with 70% or 80% whole clusters and as his stems were fully ripe owing to his late harvesting, they add an essential element of energy without introducing greenness into the wines. Drinking range: 2025 - 2037 Rating: 92 Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar (Jan 2018)
Rating: 17+ Matthew Jukes www.matthewjukes.com (Feb 2017)
Cask sample. The nose is underwhelming at first - subtle, reclusive. There's a faint violet aroma and the requisite red fruit but not much else besides. Tight palate, but doesn't seem to have the depth and profundity expected from grand cru. Perhaps it just needs bottle age and optimism ... Drinking range: 2020 - 2035 Rating: 17+ Richard Hemming MW - www.JancisRobinson.com (Jan 2017)
(from fruit harvested on September 14; vinifed with 70% vendange entier as Lignier felt that the wine was "too minerally to use more stems"): Bright red-ruby. Very ripe, pungently mineral scents of blackberry, violet and chocolate. Huge, thick and sweet but its rich dark berry, chocolate and violet flavors are energized by minerality. This plush, sweet wine struck me as a rather New World style of Pinot Noir. It will give early pleasure but will need to burn off some of its baby fat if it's ever to demonstrate finesse. Finishes with substantial dusty tannins. Puts a fitting exclamation mark to this often chocolatey, late-picked set of '15s. Rating: 91-93 Stephen Tanzer, www.vinousmedia.com (Jan 2017)
The 2015 Clos de la Roche Grand Cru comes from 0.30-hectare in the Montluisants area supplemented by some purchased fruit from 72-year-old vines in the lieu-dit Les Chenevrières. It has a very pure and powerful bouquet with layers of small dark cherries, blueberry and violet aromas, a little richness of the growing season showing through via a touch of glycerin. The palate is medium-bodied with a bit if sinew on the entry. This dovetails into a structured mid-palate with a pinch of white pepper lingering on the finish that has a real peacock's tail of flavors, reinforcing its grand crus pedigree (just in case.) This is a sublime expression of the vineyard from Virgile Lignier. Drinking range: 2020 - 2045 Rating: 94-96 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (Dec 2016)
This is deep, seductive and full. A rich, generous and deep wine. A velvet depth of texture. Deep and there is the density of matter here and on the finish dark, strong and rich. Rating: 19.45 Sarah Marsh MW, The Burgundy Briefing (Dec 2016)
Domaine Lignier-Michelot
A domaine of 11 hectares, 25% regionals, 50% Villages, 20% Premiers crus and 5% Grands Crus. Virgile Lignier worked at the domaine with his father Maurice from 1988, beginning to bottle some of the wine from 1992 (it had previously been sold to the négoce), taking over in 2000, which was the vintage when he first bottled all the domaine's production.
In the vineyard Virgile made significant changes, stopping the use of herbicides, and beginning to plough instead. Green harvesting to limits yields followed, along with greater attention to grape selection. The domaine works organically except in extremis.
The wines have a lovely combination of enough body and richness, combined with a lively clarity of expression. The old vines village cuvées are seriously good, and great value too. Going up the scale each site seems to speak very clearly of its source and there is a brightness and energy along with full, seamless fruit.
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