Do people have different favorite premier cru communes that wouldn’t align to their favorite communes if the respective Grand Crus were taken out of the equation ?
Of course, this couldn’t affect your decision regarding communes such as NSG or Volnay, with no GCs. In fairness, perhaps CSJ and Amoureuses should be treated as (semi) GCs for this exercise.
My personal order would still be:
Chambolle
Vosne
Volnay
MSD
Gevrey
I think the MSD premier crus are underappreciated and on some days I would place them ahead of the Volnays. On the other hand some Gevrey premier crus can be very fine, and surpass the MSDs. Admittedly my experience with older NSGs is limited, so perhaps I have short changed them.
I normally don’t like to answer these types of questions, but if we’re counting Amoureuses and Clos Saint-Jacques out, then I think Cros Parantoux, Malconsorts, much of Suchots, a small part of Brulées, Reignots in climate change times, and part of Petits Monts (possibly also limited to climate change times) are above what the other communes can ordinarily produce from their premier cru vineyards, as wonderful as they are in their own ways.
Initially I wanted to eliminate the ‘super’ 2nd premier crus from this exercise, but since there seem to be so many by some opinions, let me rephrase the question:
If all Grand Cru vineyards were to suddenly disappear, which would be your favorite communes by order of preference ?
This is an interesting question. After thinking it through though, I’m not sure that picking from the penumbra vineyards changes much for me. It’s probably still Vosne, Chambolle, Volnay and Morey. I buy the PCs around the GCs because I hope they transmit many of the same characteristics I’m hoping for in the experience. It’s harder to shop Vosne and Morey though because by the time you block out the GCs, there’s a lot less to choose from. For instance, I think I’ve read the Morey acreage is over half GC. Gevrey probably suffers somewhat in the analysis for the same reason.