Rich, intense, muscular, haunting: there’s a reason some of the best Pinot Noir producers in Burgundy (Prieure-Roch, Liger-Belair, Mugnier) have staked a claim in the “secret” appellation of Premeaux, and are now charging between $150-800+ for their premier bottlings. Although classified under the larger Nuits-Saint-Georges AOC, this hidden locale is clearly home to legitimate cult Burgundy, and it’s fed up with being “slept on.” In that same vein, Moron-Garcia has recently entered the Premeaux arena and is producing some truly sensational wine, with the absolute standout being today’s “Les Grandes Vignes,” an old, 1.7-hectare vineyard shared, or rather scrapped over, by a number of producers. And, if you remember the painstaking “baie par baie” method (where each berry is removed by hand) for their Grand Cru Corton, that’s also employed in today’s just-as-rare Pinot Noir, at half the price!
Honestly, this isn’t just the greater wine right now, it’s the best I’ve had from Moron-Garcia’s entire lineup, both this year and last. Regrettably, only four barrels were produced in total, and we were allowed to bring over the equivalent of roughly half of one. If that wasn’t hard enough to stomach, this cannot be found anywhere else, and it may very well be our last time importing these rare cuvées. Don’t miss your limited chance!
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Baie par baie” literally translates to “berry by berry” and the process is exactly what you think: Every berry is
manually picked off its cluster to ensure that each selected berry is perfectly ripe, flawless, and soundly whole. For today’s devastatingly rare “Les Grandes Vignes,” Moron-Garcia’s small team spent an entire day manually removing each individual berry from 20% of the crop, with the remaining 75% being normally de-stemmed. The result adds yet another dense and opulent layer to the wine. Typically, top red Burgundy must age 7-10+ years before finding a sweet spot, but today’s generous and luxurious Pinot is already firing on all cylinders.
Moron-Garcia is the name to know in modern-day Burgundy if luxurious wine, micro-production, and fanatical attention to detail are among your requirements. According to Burgundy expert Steen Öhman, these are small-batch wines crafted in a way “that best can be described as on the border between crazy, or an extreme focus on quality and detail.” I understand what he’s getting at here—they’re employing practices of old and new, treating each barrel as if it’s a distinct child, and producing wines from specific terroirs that transcend what one thinks they know about Burgundy.
Two thousand sixteen was an eventful year for longtime friends Mathieu Moron and Pierre-Olivier Garcia. When the former’s father gifted him one acre of vines in Nuits-Saint-Georges, they put their heads together and decided to go for it. So, Mathieu and Pierre-Olivier, with their tiny sliver of vines, purchased a house in the center of town and immediately went to work. In a matter of months, they had transformed it into a functioning winery and were prepared for the inaugural harvest of their one acre, as well as a few other leased parcels from around the region. In the vineyard, the duo is determined to add biodiversity and farm naturally at all costs by bringing in various insects/animals to enrich the balance of the land, manually plowing, and using organic mixtures to treat their crop.
Today’s “Les Grandes Vignes” lies downslope of the string of N-S-G Premier Crus, right next to the town of Premeaux-Prissey. Interestingly, it is not classified as a 1er Cru, despite having a lieu-dit within, “Clos des Grandes Vignes” that is. The “clos” Premier Cru lies at ~2.2 hectares, and is entirely owned by Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair, whereas the village-level portion comes in at ~1.7 hectares and is shared by many, including Moron-Garcia.
The allure for Moron-Garcia, for me, is their ability to balance opulence and finesse because these are deeply rich, mouth-filling Pinot Noirs that read full-bodied thanks to optimally ripe fruit from 2018 and a judicious touch of French oak (typically once-used, instead of brand new). And when it comes to today’s “Les Grandes Vignes, sheer liquid luxury pours into the glass: ripe black plums, black cherry liqueur, black raspberry, huckleberry pie, forest floor, purple flowers, crushed stone, and a hint of baking spices. This wine does not go gentle into that good night! With each passing hour, the powerful core of lush dark fruit seems to expand with impressive richness and glides into a long, mineral-flecked finish. If you enjoy the polish of Vosne-Romanée and the muscularity of Corton, imagine this as a hybrid of the two. In other words, it’s a red Burgundy bombshell that will stun those who want grandeur with their Pinot Noir. Enjoy now and over the next 5-7 years. Cheers.
