Domaine Machard de Gramont is a 200 year old Domaine located just south of the town of Nuits-St-Georges in the small village of Premeaux-Prissey. The modern, well-equipped cellars are capable of housing many oak barrels. Vinification is very traditional with an emphasis on the elegance of the Pinot Noir fruit instead of alcohol or power.
Run by Arnaud Machard de Gramont and his two sons this 20 hectare estate is situated in Prissey, a hamlet close to Nuits-Saint-Georges. The Domaines wines are styled so that fruit and elegance are the main charateristics rather than weight and alcohol. This has produced a forward styled Pinot Noir showing ripe fruit and aromas of coffee that complement the oak. Complex and elegant with good length this is a wine to savour.
Dominated by the hill of Corton, Aloxe-Corton is a charming village at the northern end of the Côte de Beaune, the first references to which date back as far as 696. The Corton vineyards, covering 445 acres, grow the powerful, tannic Pinot Noir grape, producing rich, meaty, deep-coloured reds that are long lived and slow to develop.
The question is not 'good or bad?', the question is 'how good?'. Shortly after harvest the growers and winemakers were invoking many superlatives; 1999 but better, 1990 etc., etc. That some measure of indecision and revisionism was noted in recent weeks seems a little odd, that is until you look at the wider context - they are about to embark on a potentially 'testing' 2004 campaign, and, given the early promise of 2005 these wines should be easy to sell - but they naturally don't want you and I to miss a vintage (2004) by over hyping 2005 - at least not yet...!
Apart from a few patches of hail very early in the year - before most grapes had formed - this was a year that was characterised by the sun and the rain - or rather the lack of rain. Whilst it was a hot one, the vintage didn't come close to 2003-type conditions - almost no sunburned grapes this year. There was, however, some concern as there was very little rain and many vines were stressed by this. Two weeks before the harvest there was finally some rain, not enough to significantly affect the concentration of the grapes, but just enough to ripen the tannins in the skins and pips - almost all the grapes that I triaged had ripe brown pips.
When compared to 2004, the grapes were fantastic, only needing the removal of the occasional spot of rot - triage was minor and required fewer people to man the table. At this time the whites seem equally 'endowed' to the reds. Only one thing of note in the cuverie; for many, the wines just zoomed straight into malolactic fermentation, some are already expected to finish by the time you read this!
With this 2005 vintage I expect that I shall be buying both red and white, and across the hierarchy, but I'll leave a few last words about the vintage to Aubert de Villaine - '2005 was actually much more like 1976 than 2003 was, except that there was more rain in 2005... these are easily the best grapes I've seen since 1999, the wines will have great potential, perhaps though, the rain came just a little too late to provide the same elegance in the tannins that we can see in 1999, but we shall see...' The Burgundy Report
Shipped to Australia in a temperature controlled container.
