Domaine de L’Arlot vertical: four climats from 2015 – 2019

Quantities of top Burgundy wines are, by their very nature, extremely limited.

A vertical tasting of renowned Domaine de L’Arlot provided a rare opportunity to compare vintages, as well as assess how the style of the estate has developped under relatively new winemaker, Géraldine Godot.

Held in London in October 2021, the tasting covered, quite intriguingly, four top climats from the property:

• Nuits-St-Georges Premier Cru Clos de l’Arlot;
• Vosne-Romanée Premier Cru Les Suchots;
• Nuits-St-Georges Premier Cru Clos des Forêts St Georges;
• Romanée-St-Vivant Grand Cru.

Five vintages of each climat were tasted in order from oldest to youngest: 2015 to 2019.

Scroll down for Andy Howard MW’s tasting notes and score of 20 Domaine de L’Arlot wines

The background to the estate

Domaine de l’Arlot was taken over by AXA Millésimes in 1987, and Godot was joined at this tasting by AXA Managing Director, Christian Seely.

Today the estate has 15ha in the Côte de Nuits, 86% planted to Pinot Noir and 14% Chardonnay.

The earlier style of the estate’s wines was wonderfully captured by Clive Coates MW in his classic book, The Wines and Domaines of France: ‘this is an address for those who wish to be seduced by a lighter style of Nuits wine, not for those who seek hand-to-hand combat’.

The renowned Jean-Pierre de Smet was the winemaker for 20 years until 2007, before being succeeded by Olivier Leriche, who oversaw vintages 2008 to 2010, and then Jacques Devauges.

When Devauges left for Clos de Tart, Géraldine Godot took over and has made the wine since 2015.

The tasting

This was the first opportunity for Godot and Seely to look at the range of wines in this format. Godot was praised for taking the precision and finesse of the estate to an even higher level.

She explained that her approach was to ‘take time to observe, don’t rush anything’. Clearly a very thoughtful winemaker who seems committed to carrying on the tradition of producing wines with restraint and delicacy; these are not blockbuster wines.

Nuit-St-Georges Premier Cru ‘Clos de L’Arlot’

Perhaps Domaine de l’Arlot’s most famous wine is the monopole Clos de l’Arlot, and it was the first wine tasted. It was delicate and refined by any standards, even more so when compared to many burly Nuits-St -Georges.

According to the notes provided for the tasting, this premier cru site is a unique plot with steep slopes giving an almost amphitheatre shape. The terroir is complex with varied soils: marl with a high-proportion of fossilised ostrea acuminata, Prémeux limestone and white oolite. The site is also unusual in that the monopole is planted half to white and half to red grapes.

Vosne-Romanée Premier Cru ‘Les Suchots’

Godot observed that, although it is positioned right in front of Domaine Romanée Conti Richebourg, Les Suchots is ‘a charming Vosne-Romanée, with very elegant tannins’.

AXA purchased the plot, which covers just 0.85ha, in the 1990s. The average vine age is 45 years, with limestone soils dominating here.

Les Suchots sits adjacent to Romanée-St-Vivant and is renowned for its lingering fragrance and length on the palate.

Nuit-St-Georges Premier Cru ‘Clos des Forêts St Georges’

Reverting back to Nuits-St-Georges Premier Cru, next in the tasting line up was the relatively large monopole Clos des Forêts St Georges.

This significant premier cru comprises 7.2ha and, according to Godot, covers the full geological range of Nuits, with white oolitic limestone in the upper part, Prémeaux limestone in the middle sector and Ladoix limestone at the bottom.

Clos des Forêts could hardly be more different to Clos de l’Arlot, despite being only 900m apart. This is a much bigger, weightier and powerful wine, although everything is relative – compared to many other Nuits-St-Georges Premier Cru wines, this still retains a lot of class and elegance.

Romanée-St-Vivant Grand Cru

On fairly deep soils – 90cm – and rich in both clay and chalk, this is often considered the most delicate of the Vosne grands crus.

Domaine de l’Arlot’s Romanée-St-Vivant is undoubtedly a wine with the desired grand cru qualities – persistence, purity, structure and ageing potential.

Once again, this wine is certainly no massive blockbuster, but there is a power and intensity which lifts it above the premiers crus.

The younger wines are still very embryonic and will need some years to flesh out, whilst each of the vintages tasted has a long future ahead. Domaine de l’Arlot’s holdings within this grand cru are very small – just a tiny plot of 0.25ha, with only three to four barrels produced.

Of the vintages, 2019 seems very young, primary and a little raw at the moment, as does 2018. However, the latter has a ripeness and roundness which suggests it will give universal pleasure for many years to come.

2015 remains a bit of an enigma with plenty of concentration but some drying tannins in some bottles. 2016 was a very difficult vintage and was thus more variable, but the best wines were delicious.

Finally, 2017 showed again that this is a delightful, pure-fruited vintage which has wonderful aromatics. It will also be more approachable than some of the other years.

See Andy Howard MW’s tasting notes and scores for 20 Domaine de L’Arlot wines:

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