2002 “La Forge” Morey-St.-Denis 1er: Second wine of Clos de Tart. I only bought one of these when they came up on winebid recently because of the grand vin’s heavy handed reputation. What a fucking mistake. This is absolutely spectacular, with a nose that leaps from the glass with textbook red Pinot fruit, roses, just the barest hint of oak and wet clay. The palate is more shutdown, but densely concentrated, laden with apparent minerality - almost like licking iron -, plenty of ripe tannin, and hints of the same rich fruit that shows up on the nose, with a beefy savoriness and a surprising acid backbone that balances the richness. This is textbook Morey. Hard to believe this is declassified - this is as good as any GC or top 1er I’ve ever had. My non-wine geek girlfriend tooK one whiff of this and asked me why I had opened something so special.
It is now priced as a grand cru, sadly.