2020 Domaine Camus-Bruchon et Fils, Savigny-Les-Beaune “Aux Grands Liards” Vieilles Vignes, Red Burgundy, France.
Winemaker Guillaume Camus at Domain Camus-Bruchon has been on a roll and this wildly exotic, luxurious rich and deeply colored 2020 Aux Grands Liards Savigny-Les-Beaune old vine Burgundy is on another level with its concentration, depth, complexity and ripe hedonism! This wine thrills the senses with gorgeous aromatics, thick satiny layers of black cherry, plum, fig, forest berries and blood orange fruits, along with rose oil, cinnamon, tea leaf phenolics, subtle wood and delicate earthy/mineral tones. A totally different animal to the last three or so vintages, but wow, this heady stuff, without being over the top and I can imagine this aging fabulously well, it some ways it reminds me of 1990s or 2005s, wines of pleasure and soulfully authentic, though maybe not for the ultra traditionalists. That said, this what the vintage gave and Guillaume Camus put it all in the bottle, yes it is sexy and expressive, but in the best way possible and I wish I had bought lots more. As noted before, these Camus-Bruchon Premier Cru and single Lieu-dit wines are exceptional values and transmit each individual parcel’s personality, first and foremost they are grown in the vineyard, and as Guillaume says, you make wine as good as the grapes that you grow, and he does an excellent job. So it is clear he spends much more time with his vines that he does in the cellar, as it should be, especially when you have the parcels at your disposal like he does, especially this Aux Grand Liards, a favorite of mine, as I’ve said many times. Set on clay and limestone soils and over 90 year old vines, this Aux Grands Liards Vieilles Vignes just might be the best Pinot, in certain years, for the price in all of Burgundy.
Domaine Camus-Bruchon and neighbors Domaine Pierre Guillemot prove this region, Savigny-Les-Beaune has a wealth of quality, and both these houses are producers I try never to miss given the opportunity and you can’t spend your money any wiser when it comes to Burgundy than here. Guillaume, now a fully establish star in the Cote de Beaune, is making an outstanding set wines from his vineyard holdings, as mentioned, here in the Cote de Beaune, with many parcels in Premier Cru sites, especially in the Savigny-Les-Beaune area where he has some almost 100 year old vines, like this wine has. Like his father Lucien, Guillaume, of Domaine Camus-Bruchon, again as noted here, has a light touch and very much a winemaker that makes his wines in the vineyard, rather than in the cellar, everything he does is to showcase each vineyard site and produce wines of raw purity. He uses approximately 15% new oak in any given year, including in his top Premier Cru bottlings, preferring to follow the Domaine’s tradition of crafting transparent, balanced and graceful Pinots. The Camus-Bruchon wines see an extended maceration to fully extract the terroir and structure with about 18 days in total for the period of fermentation. The wines, all de-stemmed, are all done with indigenous yeasts in old school concrete vats before being racked of to the French oak for over a year and then they are bottled unfined and unfiltered to capture every nuance and the full sense of place. All the vineyard sites farmed by the Camus family are dome using sustainable methods and with great respect for the lands and to promote healthy soils, these wines really showcase each site’s distinct micro climates and are really respectful of history of this region. Camus-Bruchon, remarkably still flies under the radar, so the prices haven’t risen like other Burgundies in recent years so I recommend chasing them down!
($48 Est.) 95 Points, grapelive