Domaine Lignier Michelot - Lignier Michelot Clos St Denis Grand Cru 2012 750ml (750ml)

Elegant and racy, the '12 Clos St Denis leaps out of the glass with a perfumed profusion of berries and cherries, black tea, sun-warmed wildflowers, crushed river rocks, and generous spices. This nicely tannic wine feels dense yet animated as it powers to a complex, sustained finish that revels in this wine's balance and harmony. Lignier-Michelot replanted its Clos St Denis site in 2003; mostly whole clusters of grapes ferment in temperature-controlled tanks, and the wine ages in barrel, half to fully new, for about sixteen months before bottling, unfiltered. About 24 cases made yearly.

When you consider how successful this estate is at creating pure, opulent and emblematic expressions of its Morey St. Denis' terroir, Lignier Michelot's relative newcomer status might feel surprising. The estate only began bottling its own wines in 1992, the year that Virgile Lignier joined his father Maurice at his estate; previously, the estate sold its grapes to negociants, a twentieth-century shift not uncommon to the estate's Cote d'Or neighbors. Virgile, who assumed control of Lignier Michelot in 2000, takes exacting pains in the estate's 21-acre vineyard, where he uses a noninterventionist approach as much as possible and prunes the estate's vines, which mostly age upwards of forty years, to ensure high-quality berries. Regardless of whether the vineyard is Grand Cru, 1er Cru, Village, or Bourgogne, Domaine Lignier-Michelot treats all vines and fruit the same, and because of this equanimity and meticulousness, Virgile Lignier's wines are among the most elegant and beautiful wine