Clos De Tart Grand Cru 2017 (1.5L)

96-98 VM / 96 JM / 96 DE / 95 WA / 93 BH

The 2017 Clos de Tart Grand Cru was matured in around 80% new oak, the barrels toasted “chauffe blonde”. Jacques Devauges mentioned that the wine needed oxygen ingress during maturation that only new oak can give. I tasted the component parts (as usual) as well as the blend. This has a very detailed, delineated bouquet offering mainly black fruit mixed with sous-bois, tobacco, clove and bay leaf, the typicité of the appellation showing through nicely. It feels very succinct and yet so fresh. The palate is beautifully balanced on the entry with a killer line of acidity. Pure black cherry fruit is joined by bilberry, hints of black olive and a marine/oyster shell tincture that comes through quite strongly toward the persistent, saline finish, which fans out with confidence. This is a brilliant follow-up to the benchmark 2016 by Jacques Devauges and his team. Drink 2024-2050. - Neal Martin, Vinous Media

Bright crimson purple, with an excellent weight of fruit. Some brambly notes, a little bit of spice, quite complex. Fills the mouth and builds well to the back. Not one of the riper wines as red fruit dominates, but no complaints about that in these warmer times! Tasted: September 2021--Jasper Morris, Inside Burgundy

Despite what has been written about high yields in the Côte de Nuits in 2017, Jacques de Vauges made less Clos de Tart than he did in 2016. Picked much earlier than it used to be when Sylvain Pitiot was in charge, this is a fine, focussed, nuanced wine that expresses the complexity of this monopole grand cru. With deftly integrated 60% whole bunches and 80% new wood, it's elegant, floral and precise with chalky freshness. Drinking Window 2023 - 2032 - Tim Atkin MW, Decanter

The 2017 Clos de Tart Grand Cru is a little shut down after its recent bottling, but it is showing beautifully, wafting from the glass with aromas of sweet red berries, plums, wilted rose petals, peonies and dark chocolate, with only hints of the complexity to come with bottle age. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, supple and succulent, with an ample and enveloping core of fruit, powdery tannins and succulent acids, displaying good concentration, and concluding with a long and perfumed finish. This is a fine showing for Clos de Tart and despite its elegance, this 2017 will evidently reward bottle age.. - William Kelley, Wine Advocate

A much more floral-inflected nose is equally fresh and ripe with a broader range of spice elements adding breadth to the pretty red and blue pinot fruit aromas that are trimmed in noticeable if not invasive wood. The caressing and wonderfully vibrant medium-bodied flavors possess better mid-palate density before concluding in a lingering, balanced and much more complex finale. I like the focused drive of the finish; indeed this could aptly be described as a wine that delivers power without weight. I would further note that the 2017 is a relatively elegant example and, like the La Forge, a wine that could be approached on the earlier side, which is to say after 7 to 8 years.

Producer note: I occasionally meet people who think that Burgundy is a region of long-standing tradition where things rarely change. While there is a grain of truth in this line of thinking, it would be incorrect to believe that domaines do not occasionally change hands or that key players in Burgundy don't change employers. Clos de Tart would be a great, if somewhat head spinning, example of both of those agents of change. I say this because, as previously reported, Clos de Tart was sold in 2017 to Artémis Domaines which is owned by François Pinault. Artémis also owns Domaine d'Eugénie (see herein), Château Latour and Château Grillet, all of which are administered by Frédérique Engerer. Readers may recall that long-time Clos de Tart régisseur Sylvain Pitiot (1996 to 2015), retired in favor of the former régisseur of Domaine de l'Arlot, Jacques Devauges. Fast forward to the spring of 2019, it was announced that Devauges was leaving to become the régisseur of Domaine des Lambrays (see herein as well). His replacement is Alessandro Noli, who was the prior régisseur of Château Grillet. Now that we have a scorecard with which to identify the players, Noli noted that, in addition to the construction of a brand new state-of-the-art cuverie, that two other significant changes have been made. The first is that rather than having six or even seven separate cuvées from which to create the final blend that is finally bottled as Clos de Tart, that the blend will be made at least 12 months in advance of the bottling. The idea is that the wine is more harmonious once it is finally released. The second change is that the amount of new wood is being reduced from around 80% to approximately 65%. To me, both changes make sense because as much as I have admired the quality produced at Clos de Tart, I always found the wines to be a bit oaky. While Noli explained that Devauges harvested and vinified the 2018s, he had some of the significant details. Specifically, the fruit was harvested between the 30th of August to the 3rd of September 2018 and that yields for the Clos itself were approximately 33 hl/ha with a potential alcohol of 14%. No whole clusters were used to ferment the young vines Morey villages and La Forge de Tart 1er, though about 65% was used for the Clos. Lastly he noted that the 2017 Clos de Tart and the La Forge de Tart, both reviewed below, were bottled in April and May 2019. - Allen Meadows, Burghound