Domaine Dujac Vosne-Romanee 1er Cru Les Beaux Monts 2016

Les Beaux Monts is one of the great premier crus of Vosne-Romanée — and among the wines that most clearly demonstrate how far Domaine Dujac has extended its reach beyond its Morey-Saint-Denis heartland. The Seysses family's parcel sits at the upper reaches of the vineyard, where the soils are thinner and the limestone closer to the surface, producing complex, terroir-driven scents of raspberry, crushed rock, flint and smoke, with concentrated and fairly full flavours of berry fruit, minerals and wild herbs finishing with excellent saline length. The vineyard lies directly below the grand cru band on Vosne's upper slope — adjacent to Échezeaux to the north and carrying something of that vineyard's mineral precision alongside the more overtly spiced and floral character that defines great Vosne premier cru. Whole-cluster vinification is employed here as across the range, with indigenous yeasts and minimal intervention, the élevage in a proportion of new French oak calibrated to support rather than impose on the terroir. 

What the wine delivers across vintages is a thrilling Vosne character — unmistakable, almost impossible to mistake for anything else. Gorgeous spice-filled aromatics, very showy with intense spice and bright black cherry fruit that screams Vosne — pure and seamless, benefitting from and lengthened by bright acidity. In more powerful vintages, exotic, deeply pitched spices meld into dark fruit and crushed rocks with gorgeous fleshiness — a textured, caressing finish that rounds things out in style. A strikingly spicy array of very fresh dark berry fruit, violet, lavender and anise, with more volume and mid-palate concentration, ample minerality and a deep, impressively long finish — a wine that makes you feel the full ambition of what a Vosne-Romanée premier cru can aspire to.