Clos de Tart: 1947-2019 vertical tasting

‘The Clos de Tart is a dream,’ explained Frédéric Engerer at a recent vertical tasting of its wines. Engerer is the managing director of Artémis Domaines (owner of Château Latour) which purchased Clos de Tart in 2018. As Engerer said: ‘When you own Château Latour, you need to have a very special vineyard in Burgundy. Clos de Tart was number one on the list’.

Engerer has put together a cohesive team with lightning speed and managed a staggering investment from Artemis’ principal François Pinault, turning this ancient property into one of the stars of the Côte de Nuits.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 15 Clos de Tart wines from 1947-2019

There are five wholly owned grand cru appellations in Burgundy (as distinct from climats such as the Corton ‘Clos des Cortons Faiveley’). These include Romanée-Conti, La Tâche, La Romanée, La Grande Rue, and Clos de Tart; this last cru is the largest of these monopoles and the only one not located in Vosne-Romanée.

The first three of these are legendary wines, with stratospheric prices: the average retail price in the UK for Romanée-Conti across all vintages is more than £21,000; La Tâche averages more than £6,000 per bottle and La Romanée just over £5,700. La Grande Rue is a comparative bargain at just under £500, while the current vintage of Clos de Tart averages £583. This has been slowly increasing in recent years: five years ago, it was barely above £300.

The Vineyard

The vineyard itself is 7.52ha and fully enclosed by walls. The average age of the vines is 60 years and massale selection is used to replace any vines that need replanting. In this process, cuttings from the vineyard’s old vines are grafted onto rootstock in their own nursery.

The domaine began organic conversion in 2015 and was certified in 2018; the following year it was certified as biodynamic. Yields are kept low, with vines generally pruned to five bunches each and production limited to 30 hl/ha.

The vineyard is bordered to the north by Clos des Lambrays grand cru (almost, but not entirely, a monopole of its own) and to the south by Bonnes-Mares grand cru. Up the slope is En la rue de Vergy, and at the base of the vineyard lies Morey-St-Denis premier cru Les Ruchots.

According to author and merchant Remington Norman, the final shape of the vineyard came into place in 1956 when 0.28ha of Bonnes-Mares that lay within the walls of the Clos de Tart were officially included.

The Soil

Although it is a compact vineyard, the subsoil varies. There are three main types of terroir: at the base of the slope on the southern edge by Bonnes-Mares, the vines are planted on calcaire à enroques (‘crinoidal limestone’), formed from the remains of sea lilies.

Engerer feels this gives a wine with much more body (‘huge shoulders’ is his description). The vines at mid-slope are on roughly 30cm of clay over Premeaux limestone which produces a wine with tension and a saline minerality to the bright red fruit. The vines at the top of the slope are on white marl known as Ostrea acuminata because it contains the remains of oyster shells that give a feminine, crisp and elegant wine.

Clos de Tart at a glance

Founded 1141

Appellation created 1939

Size 7.52ha

Location Morey-St-Denis, Côte de Nuits

Ownership Artémis Domaines (François Pinault)

Winemaker Alessandro Noli

Annual production 2,000–2,400 cases in a normal year

The History

The vineyard has only changed hands four times since it was established in 1141 by Abbaye de Tart. The abbey was the female counterpart to the exclusively male Abbaye de Cîteaux, the reformist off-shoot of the Benedictine Abbaye de Cluny in the Mâconnais.

The Abbaye de Tart was located a few kilometres east of the Côte d’Or, not far from the monks of Cîteaux. The charter establishing the abbey was drawn up in 1132. Ducal donations followed and the nuns began by purchasing the central parcel in the lieu-dit of La Forge from the Hospitaliers de Brochon in 1141, adding slowly over the centuries to form the present vineyard.

The abbey welcomed travellers and pilgrims, and accepted the daughters and widows of the nobility, who did not always share the austere discipline of the nuns; at times, the nuns were accused of leading a scandalous and dissolute life.

The lax conditions that followed led to reform in the 16th century, and the nuns were relocated to a poor quarter of Dijon during the wars of religion. Throughout these changes, however, the nuns maintained control of their clos.

The independence of the nuns came to an abrupt end after more than 600 years when the government of the French Revolution sold the property to an associate of Nicholas-Joseph Marey, founder of the Marey-Monge dynasty of vignerons.

The Marey-Monge heirs held on to the clos for over a century, but in 1932 it was sold along with most of the family’s vineyard holdings to settle estate taxes. It was purchased by the Mommessin family, who were négociants like Marey-Monge.

During this time, the vineyard was overseen by metayeurs (‘sharecroppers’), including Champy and Chauvenet. The wines were often sold in barrel, and it is possible to find many négociant-bottled wines from the clos, including Vandermeulen and Nicolas.

Today’s Clos de Tart

Mommessin appointed noted winemaker and cartographer Sylvain Pitiot as régisseur (‘general manager’) in 1996, and he remained in this post through the 2014 vintage when he retired. Pitiot had a reputation for picking late and making powerful, concentrated wines aged entirely in new casks.

The wines were fermented in cement until 1998 when Pithiot introduced fermentation in temperature-controlled stainless steel. He fermented in fairly large lots, with six vats that correspond to the sizes of the principal subdivisions of the vineyard.

On his retirement, Pitiot was replaced by Jacques Devauges who had come from Domaine de l’Arlot and had worked at Domaine de la Vougeraie, among other properties. Devauges began the organic conversion and continued the work of Pitiot in analysing the complexities of the vineyard.

In 2017, however, the Mommessin family decided to sell Clos de Tart to François Pinault, and shortly after this Devauges announced his precipitous resignation. He was replaced by Alessandro Noli, who had been the director of Château Grillet after tenures at other prestigious Pinault properties including Château Latour and Domaine d’Eugénie.

Clos de Tart timeline

1141 The nuns of Abbaye de Notre-Dame-de-Tart purchased the lieu-dit La Forge from the Hospitaliers de Brochon.

circa 15th century Walls of the clos constructed.

1570 Wine press (‘pressoir à perroquet’) installed that was in use until the 1920s.

1623 The nuns leave Tart and move to Dijon.

1791 Dijon closes the convent; the clos is sold to Nicolas-Joseph Marey.

1932 Joanny Mommessin purchases the Clos de Tart at auction.

1939 Clos de Tart decreed a grand cru by the INAO.

1996 Sylvain Pitiot named regisseur by Mommessin.

2014 Retirement of Sylvain Pitiot; Jacques Devauges named régisseur.

2017 Mommessin sells Clos de Tart to Artémis Domaines.

2019 Jacques Devauges resigns his post as régisseur and is replaced by Alessandro Noli. New winery opens.

The Winemaking

Pinault has invested vast sums in the Clos de Tart. The winery and premises were completely renovated in a process completed in time for the 2019 vintage. The estate had been very well managed under Devauge who had modernised the style, but Noli can now do an even more exact vinification by parcel in the smaller vats Pinault purchased.

For the 2019 vintage, Noli divided the vineyard into 16 plots, each of which were all picked, vinified and matured separately before blending.

There are two pre-blends (‘Jeanniard’ and ‘Cîteaux’), and two declassifications: some of the wine is sold as premier cru La Forge de Tart, and the wine from the young vines is sold as village-level Morey-St-Denis. There is also a parcel in the northwest corner of the clos that was replanted in 2018 that is not yet in production.

The proportion of each lot fermented as whole clusters is decided separately (either none, one-third, or two-thirds), and fermentation is done in open-top wood vats on ambient yeasts. Noli extracts colour and tannin with a gentle combination of punching down and pumping over.

The grand vin is aged in new casks from the cooper Sylvain, while the premier cru La Forge de Tart is aged half in new casks and half in used; the village-level Morey-St-Denis generally sees no new wood. The style of the Clos de Tart today has been thoroughly modernised. Noli is picking earlier – ‘We don’t want prune juice,’ he says – but not too early.

Now that the new winery has been finished and biodynamic certification obtained, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for the Clos de Tart. A gambler might hazard the guess that one item that will not feature prominently is lower prices.

Pinault’s other notable investment in Burgundy was the purchase of the former René Engel estate in 2006, which he renamed Domaine d’Eugenie. This estate is now among the hottest properties in Burgundy, and prices have continued to edge higher.

It was once the received wisdom in Burgundy that Pinault and Engerer were outsiders who produced wines that lacked regional typicity. This is an outdated view that should change, and smart buyers will stock up on Clos de Tart before prices rise any further.

The wines today have an accessible, forward style underpinned by elegant extraction of tannin and colour. The aromas are fairly bursting with ripe red and black fruit, and coloured with floral notes and a firm minerality from the limestone.

These are wines that have the purity of fruit and elegance that has made Burgundy’s renown – one has to feel that the nuns would be proud.

See Charles’ tasting notes and scores for 15 special Clos de Tart wines from 1947-2019

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