John gave me permission to post the article.
Highly recommend that if this type of long-form writing and depth interests, you should subscribe to View from the Cellar. Added bonus is that the tasting notes will automatically link into Cellartracker!
A.
Clos Vougeot is one of the best-known grand crus in all of Burgundy. This 125 acre walled-in vineyard is entitled to grand cru status in its entirety, though there are many that would argue that the bottom third of the vineyard is not really capable of producing grand cru quality wine. With its long and illustrious history, it is perhaps the most famous Burgundy vineyard to many wine lovers who are not fully immersed in the wines of the region. It is not surprising that in one of the most lovingly rendered odes to the transporting power of haute cuisine and fine wine: the 1953 story and 1986 film, Babette’s Feast, the centerpiece wine of the grand meal is a Clos Vougeot. In fact throughout much of the long history of the Côte d’Or, Clos Vougeot was rightly regarded as one of the crown jewels of the region, as well as one of the greatest wines in the world. However, today, Clos Vougeot, rightly or wrongly, has fallen from fashion, and there is an almost universally shared opinion amongst Burgundy cognoscenti that the vineyard is indeed a second tier grand cru, and that much of the wine that wears the Clos Vougeot label is clearly not of grand cru quality. I once shared this sentiment, but over the last several years I have begun to rethink my expectations of Clos Vougeot, and to try to more precisely place the wines of today in the context of this important vineyard’s historical legacy.
As the wine’s inclusion as the focal point of Babette’s Feast clearly indicates, there was a time when Clos Vougeot was spoken of with the same reverence that today is reserved more for wines such as Musigny, Chambertin, Romanée-Conti, Richebourg and La Tâche. In fact, the Clos Vougeot has played a central role in the evolution of the Burgundy region. Following the arrival of the Cistercian monks in the region at the end of the eleventh century, the order found that the land around their newly established abbey in Citeaux was really unsuitable for vineyards. Their first vineyards on the slopes to the west centered around what is now the Clos Vougeot (the monks having followed westward from Citeaux the small Vouge river from whence the vineyard derives its name); the first were cleared and planted by the monks themselves, with new land under vine donated to the order beginning around 1110. Over the ensuing years the Cistercians continued to receive donations of vineyards in the vicinity from neighboring landowners (no doubt hoping to garner favor in the next world through a gift in this world to the order), and the area under vine of what was to become Clos Vougeot was enlarged. The Cistercians were well-known and well-respected for their aesthetic, pious and hard-working existence (not attributes particularly noticeable amongst many of the more worldly monastic orders of France in the middle ages), and their renown spread over the years. The fame of their wine made from the Clos Vougeot also began to grow (according to Burgundian historians Danguy and Aubertin writing in their 1892 tome Les Grands Vins de Bourgogne), so that when Pope Alexander III issued a papal bull in 1164 formally recognizing the Abbey of Citeaux, the monks’ cellars in Clos Vougeot were prominently mentioned. In the mid-twelfth century the Cistercians built a cuverie and cellars to make and age the wine right alongside the vines. Eventually, on this site in the sixteenth century the final cuverie was constructed which now stands today in the middle of the Clos and is referred to as the Château de Clos Vougeot. This is now owned by the famous Confrerie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, in which they hold their annual candlelit dinners in the middle of “Les Trois Glorieuses” each November.
During the Cistercian era, the order owed a tithe on their Clos Vougeot holdings to the Priory of Saint Vivant, which was based nearby in Vergy. Richard Olney in his book on Romanée-Conti cites an accord that he estimates as dating from the twelfth century (unearthed by another early Burgundian historian, Dr. Lavalle in 1855) that grants the Cistercians deed to the Clos Vougeot and surrounding lands. This agreement was still in effect (at a much higher tithe) two and a half centuries later. The Cistercians set about walling in the vineyard in 1336, and by the second half of the fourteenth century the vineyard as we know it today had taken shape. The Cistercians’ control of Clos Vougeot continued on up until the French Revolution in 1789, when the property was confiscated from the order as part of the revolutionary government’s seizure of all ecclesiastical property and eventually auctioned off in its entirety as a national asset in 1791. According to Clive Coates, the high bidder in 1791, Jean Foquard (who acquired Richebourg at the same time), never finished paying for the Clos Vougeot (the record does not indicate whether or not M. Foquard finished paying off his Richebourg purchase), and while the affair languished, the revolutionary government ironically continued to have the property managed by the monk cavistes that had been previously been in charge of the property prior to the revolution.
Finally, in 1815 (after Napoleon’s exile to Elba and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy) the Clos Vougeot was purchased by the Parisian financier, Gabriel-Julien Ouvrard, who registered ownership in the name of his seventeen year-old son, Julien-Jules Ouvrard. Also included in this sale was the nearby Château de Gilly, which had been the Cistercians’ summer residence since its building in the seventeenth century (and which today has been restored as a splendid hotel and is a superb point from which to tour the Côte de Nuits). By 1828 Julien Ouvrard had taken up residence at the Château de Gilly, and settled down permanently to oversee his vineyard holdings in the area that included by this time also holdings in Corton (almost all of Clos du Roi and a sizeable chunk of Renardes), Chambertin, Chambertin “Clos de Bèze”, Latricières-Chambertin, Chambolle-Musigny “les Amoureuses”, and (purchased in 1819) Romanée-Conti! During Ouvrard’s ownership, Romanée-Conti and Clos Vougeot were both vinified and cellared at the cuverie in the Clos. Romanée-Conti would continue to be vinified at Clos Vougeot for fifty years. Upon Ouvrard’s death in 1861, his properties were inherited by his nieces and nephews, with the Clos Vougeot and Romanée-Conti being put up for sale in 1869. Romanée-Conti found an immediate buyer, but the price asked for the Clos Vougeot was too steep for the market to bear, and it did not sell until twenty years later, when a group of six buyers split up the vineyard in 1889. This was the end of the almost nine hundred years of the Clos Vougeot’s history as an extant monopole vineyard; today the carving up of ownership of the vineyard has culminated in eighty separate owners of vines in the Clos.
As I alluded to at the beginning, there was a time when Clos Vougeot was considered one of the very best vineyards in all of Burgundy, with only Romanée-Conti and Le Montrachet generally ranked higher. As cited in Richard Olney’s book, during Julien Ouvrard’s ownership of Clos Vougeot in the mid-nineteenth century, Clos Vougeot sold at the same price as Chambertin (the 1847 vintage for both was 460 Franc per queue, or just under Romanée-Conti’s price of 500 franc per queue). However, today its reputation has fallen markedly, and there are plenty of Burgundy connoisseurs that will turn their noses up at Clos Vougeot. A perfect example of the Jekyll and Hyde reputation of Clos Vougeot in modern times can be found in most books on the region; for example, Harry Yoxall notes in his fine 1968 book The Wines of Burgundy, “in the nineteenth century, Clos Vougeot was ranked with Romanée-Conti and Chambertin and regarded as among the greatest treasures of Burgundy. “ But he quickly adds that “this reputation dates from the period prior to 1889, when the Clos was undivided.” Remington Norman in his The Great Domaines of Burgundy perfectly captures the sullied reputation of the vineyard in the eyes of many these days:
Wines from the Clos too often disappoint, ranging from dreadfully thin and acidic to the few which genuinely merit Grand Cru status. The majority are usually lumpen and tannic without the promise of ever blossoming. invariably expensive, Clos de Vougeot scores highly on the price/ disappointment scale.
The underlying assumption is that the reputation of Clos Vougeot was made when the monks controlled the entire vineyard and were able to exercise a selection of only the choicest parcels in their Clos Vougeot, and hence producing a wine of a quality that cannot now be replicated within the limitations imposed by such a myriad of small holdings.
Interestingly, when the Cistercians were building up the reputation of Clos Vougeot, they actually made three distinct cuvées of their Clos Vougeot. Danguy and Aubertin cite Docteur Morelot, (who wrote the first major work on Burgundy in 1831), in noting that during Cistercian times there was a top, “première cuvée” made from “the best part of the vineyard” which was never made commercially available. This cuvée was reserved for the head of the Abbey of Citeaux, who used it as gifts for the Duke of Burgundy, the French king and court, popes, church dignitaries and other European princes of the Christian world. The second cuvée “which was on average almost equal in quality to the première (cuvée)” was sold at a very high price- in essence a Clos Vougeot Reserve bottling. The third cuvée “was made up from all the grapes of the inferior part” of the Clos, and though it did not have the “value of the two premières, it was considered very good and sold well.” Danguy and Aubertin go on to note that after the Clos was bought by Julien Ouvrard, there was only one cuvée made, except on very rare occasions (great vintages?) when a second cuvée would be produced. Monsieur Ouvrard attempted to make the three cuvées on one occasion, and held a tasting of the “gourmets” of the time to ascertain their opinions, with rather surprising results. As the authors note (writing shortly after the tasting), strangely some of the tasters preferred the lowest level cuvée, while the vast majority preferred the mélange of all three cuvées over any of the individual ones, as “it gave the best flavor, the characteristic bouquet and the charm of the Clos de Vougeot.” After the tasting, Ouvrard let go of the idea of restoring the practice of making three different cuvées of Clos Vougeot.
For much of the history of the Clos Vougeot, the Cistercians planted white grapes as well as red grapes in the vineyard. Danguy and Aubertin note that as recently as 1820 the vineyard was still planted to three-fifths red grapes and two-fifths white wine grapes. This was customary throughout Burgundy in the past, and the monks made both a red wine and a white wine from the vineyard. Interestingly, ancient records note that the white Clos Vougeot actually sold for a slightly higher price than the red. However, the white grapes planted in the Clos Vougeot were not used entirely for white wine production, as a significant percentage of white wine grapes were also blended into the red wine at this time (as is viognier still blended in with syrah in the making of many examples of Côte-Rôtie). One must remember that wine was drunk very young in the days of the Cistercians, and the most recent vintage was most prized and fetched the highest price. This was because wine was kept in barrel in these days, and inevitably oxidation would begin at some point to begin to compromise the wines in the cellars. It was Dom Perignon (working for better containers and closures for his sparkling wines) who developed bottles and corks that would allow wines to be cellared, and after this Burgundy began to be laid down and the stylistic pendulum began to swing in favor of wines that allowed for positive evolution over a number of years in the bottle. It was also not until the late nineteenth century that pinot noir became the sole grape of Clos Vougeot. The Clos Vougeot cognoscenti of the time noted that as the wine transitioned to an entirely pinot noir-based wine, it lost a bit of its finesse, though they noted that this was in exchange for better body and vinosity in the finished wine.
The most common complaints I have heard about the lower quality of modern Clos Vougeot in comparison to other grand crus generally revolve around a pair of issues. One is that the heavier soils of the flat bottom third of the Clos (next to the Route Nationale) are inconsistent with the needs of the pinot noir to produce wine of true grand cru quality. The poor drainage of this section is often the most cited example of how this really is not grand cru land, with many commentators pointing out that in other villages this flat land at the base of the slope would be “village wine” or generic Bourgogne. To a degree this is certainly true, though one can add questions of vine age and clonal selection, and of course the key factor of the skill and conscientiousness of the particular producer. Who makes the Clos Vougeot may well be of paramount importance in this equation. In their book, Danguy and Aubertin tell in significant detail of the Cistercians’ meticulous and uncompromising approach to the making of their Clos Vougeot, with the implication that all of the wine from the Clos (including the third cuvée) under the monks’ auspices was of the very finest quality and amongst the very best in Burgundy. On this score, I do not doubt that the choice parcels of vines at the upper ends of the slopes are certainly superior to those lower down by the Route Nationale, but if I were a vigneron I would rather have sixty year-old vines from a great strain of “selection massale” down at the bottom of the Clos than five year-old vines from a modern clone in a section up high on the slope abutting Musigny or Grands Echézeaux.
The second major objection to the vineyard as a top grand cru is that there is a certain anonymity to the terroir of Clos Vougeot that makes it one of the lesser grand crus. While I believe that there is more than a kernel of truth to this observation, and particularly when one is comparing Clos Vougeot to certain striking soil expressions such as those derived in Musigny, Romanée-Conti or La Tâche, I find that beyond a scant handful of vineyards, signatures of soil become more confused as the number of proprietors and their attendant stylistic winemaking philosophies comes into play. Would La Tâche be significantly more true to its terroir than Clos Vougeot if we had forty different producers making the wine, rather than just the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti? While there is certainly less of a “signature hook of terroir” in the soil components of Clos Vougeot, one could also look at Clos Vougeot as being a most lovely synthesis of many of the attributes of more assertive and sublime grand cru terroirs (such as Chambertin, Musigny or the great grand crus of Vosne-Romanée). For when tasting blind, while it is often hard to pin down specifically where in the Côte a mature Clos Vougeot hails from, there is never any doubt that this is a mature Burgundy. And in the hands of a great producer such as Domaine Georges Mugneret-Gibourg, there is never any doubt that this is also a great bottle of mature grand cru Burgundy.
It has been my experience that over an extended period of evolution in the bottle (say thirty or forty years), many of these same precise expressions of terroir that we celebrate, from even the very best grand crus, begin to blur a bit, and differences between the most soil-defined vineyards and Clos Vougeot begin to fade. In essence, is it not entirely possible that much of our dissatisfaction with the relative indistinctiveness of Clos Vougeot’s terroir might have more to do with our modern desire to compartmentalize, identify and group attributes, particularly given our modern penchant to attempt to somehow quantify so many sensory experiences, rather than any inherent shortcomings in the terroir of the Clos Vougeot vineyard? Clos Vougeot is located near the geographical center of the Côte de Nuits, and I find that when one approaches Clos Vougeot from the perspective of savoring what it shares in common with its most illustrious neighbors, rather than trying to isolate the characteristics of Clos Vougeot that distinguish it from the same, many of the stylistic reservations about the vineyard dissolve. What remains, particularly if the Clos Vougeot is from one of the top producers, is a wonderfully deep, complex and refined bottle of grand cru Burgundy that is indisputably of grand cru quality and often a profound experience.
Of course, all of this defense of the terroir of Clos Vougeot does not address Remington Norman’s complaint that most of Clos Vougeot is disappointing- “lumpen and tannic without the promise of ever blossoming” when it is not “dreadfully thin and acidic.” That there is certainly no shortage of bad Clos Vougeot out there to catch the unsuspecting wine enthusiast is indisputable. Much of this can be attributed to the renown of the wine in the past, and the recognition of a “brand name” of Clos Vougeot amongst a much broader spectrum of people than the usual suspects that comprise the Burgundy cognoscenti. The fame of Clos Vougeot that dates back to the Cistercians helped find buyers for the wine in the last few centuries, but this same fame also can be seen as a bit of a curse, for it allowed for shoddy winemakers and unscrupulous merchants and négociants to abuse the name of Clos Vougeot with oceans of dreadfully made and/or adulterated bottles of wine proudly wearing the Clos Vougeot label. While these days have seen a significant improvement over the bad old days when négociants (not all as principled as the best négociants of today) ruled the region and fraud was much more common, the reality is that there is still plenty of shoddy Clos Vougeot to be had. However, I would suggest that in this regard, the state of Clos Vougeot today is no worse than is the case in the vineyard of Chambertin, and the possibilities of finding a great example of Clos Vougeot are nowhere near as remote as they are made out to be by those who are not fans of the vineyard.
A great example of Clos Vougeot is a sturdy grand cru, with outstanding depth, complexity and potential for longevity. While it is a rare example of Clos Vougeot that I would rank at the very pinnacle of grand crus, I find that when fully mature, a top example is a wine that consistently performs within the top ten of grand crus in the Côte de Nuits. Clos Vougeot in a strong vintage from the likes of top producers in the vineyard, such as Georges Mugneret, Joseph Drouhin, Hudelot-Noëllat and the like is a very age-worthy and broad-shouldered wine, that I would typically rank above top examples from grand cru vineyards such as Latricières-Chambertin, Charmes-Chambertin, Mazis-Chambertin, Chapelle-Chambertin, Clos des Lambrays, La Grande Rue, and the various red Cortons, not to mention the most exalted premier crus such as Clos St. Jacques, Boudots and Les St. Georges. At its best, Clos Vougeot to my palate belongs in the second group of the best grand crus, alongside Clos de la Roche, Clos St. Denis, Grands Echézeaux and Echézeaux. In my experience it is generally more complex, though not as grandiose as Richebourg, and fuller, but not as ethereal as Romanée-St.-Vivant. However, in qualitative terms I would suggest that top Clos Vougeot captures some of the best attributes of each of these vineyards, and is very nearly comparable in quality with both Richebourg and RSV. In fact, I am hard pressed to think of a bottling of Richebourg or Romanée-St.-Vivant today that I would rather cellar over the Mugneret sisters’ sublime Clos Vougeot- even if they were all priced the same, which they emphatically are not.
The style of Clos Vougeot at its finest is a very complex and relatively full-bodied wine. The fruit tones can run the gambit from red berries and cherries all the way to plum, black cherry and even cassis. It is often a fairly gamey wine, with notes of venison (à la Clos de la Roche, Clos St. Denis and Bonnes-Mares) usually more prevalent than beef, duck or gamebirds. There is often good spice and herbal tones in the wine, and with bottle age it develops a pretty strong autumnal signature of sois bois. On the soil front, Clos Vougeot does not possess the same homogeneity of a vineyard signature such as for example displayed by Musigny or Romanée-Conti (not that many other grand crus can match these either), but it is unquestionably a wine that speaks of the Burgundy earth. This is not surprising, given the size of the Clos and the variety of soil composition that invariably occurs over such a 125 acre vineyard. I find that the examples that hail from the area closest to the Château often can have more than a bit of Musigny about them, with more striking minerality and a florality that is more the exception than the rule in Clos Vougeot. In short, I find this one of the most compelling vineyards in the entire Burgundy firmament when placed in the right hands, and certainly deserving of a bit more respect than is customarily given the vineyard in most circles these days.
![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
: