There’s no Premier or Grand Cru appellation on the label of this wine, which I find hard to believe after walking the “Les Damaudes” vineyard in Vosne-Romanée. To get there, you leave the village of Vosne and climb up the hill, passing through the heart of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s iconic Grand Cru holdings (“Romanée-St-Vivant”; “La Tâche”) and arriving almost immediately thereafter in “Les Damaudes,” at the top of the hill just above the famous Premier Cru “Aux Malconsorts” (click to see map).
This is one of those vineyards that has you scratching your head wondering how it was left out of the Premier Cru club. Standing in “Les Damaudes” and looking down at the world’s most revered Pinot Noir just meters away, I couldn’t help but think of how Burgundy’s price differences are exponentially greater than its physical distances. But that’s what Burgundy is all about! We talk about these subtleties all the time—about how just crossing a road or cresting a hill can have dramatic implications as to the vinous potential (and market value) of neighboring sites. This 2014 from the under-the-radar Domaine Fabrice Vigot is one of those “game of inches” Burgundies we love so much: It is totally undervalued and encapsulates what we love about Vosne-Romanée, and we’ve reserved what little we could get for our top customers.
The first thing I noticed when tasting the 2014 “Les Damaudes” was its dense, compact structure—a hallmark of the excellent 2014 vintage. The wine has a very regal bearing, needing some time to open but doing so like a flower with time in the glass. It’s a bright ruby-red in the glass with hints of garnet at the rim, with a highly perfumed nose brimming with black cherry, red currant, damp violets, dried orange peel, black tea, underbrush, and crushed stones. It is a refined, elegant style, and yet the mid-palate is generous now and promises to become even more so with time (I don’t think it’ll enter its peak drinking window until its 10th birthday). If you’re checking this one out now, give it a good 30 minutes in a decanter before serving in Burgundy stems at 60-65 degrees. It has a woodsy, refined “Vosne” personality that makes it a good candidate for duck or other game dishes. Attached is a bistro-style quail preparation to try with the “drink now” bottle, but be sure to get a few of these to lay down—this wine is a shrewd investment for anyone building a thoughtful cellar collection. Enjoy!