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Along with her husband Jean-Yves Bizot, Claire Naudin produces reds that number among Burgundy's most hedonistically gratifying. And like her husband's, Claire's have a foot in the natural/low-sulfur/whole-cluster camp, though that foot was planted long before it was 'cool' to self-define along these lines. Hers do not present as 'natural' in a predictable or insubstantial sense, but instead as serious, age-worthy wines that happen to be, well, produced naturally. Above all, they are aromatic feasts, and to their vivid, organic fruit profiles bring deeply resonant and wide-ranging notes that oscillate through the broadest imaginable spectrum of flowers and spices.
Claire's top cuvées - Echézeaux, Nuits 'Damodes,' and this Ladoix - are produced in quantities as limited as Jean Yves', though her wines remain priced within reason, provided you can find them. The Ladoix 1er Cru 'La Corvée' comes from a .5 hectare parcel of 65 year-old massale-selected vines. The vines produce small berries and yield miserly, even under the best of circumstances; there are just 1500 bottles in 2019.
The wine has the firmest frame in the cellar and is a model of density-without-weight, a normative feature chez Naudin. The nose offers up loads of earthy black cherry fruit and very evocative Indian spice notes; in fact, it is the most insistently spicy wine I can remember from her, almost giving the impression of a spice market in its full range and abundance. There is a liveliness and energy to the fruit that is just irresistible. Very '19!
Since there is not much wine, and since so many of you already know how good these can be, I'll happily leave the rest to the imagination. But if 'stylishness' and 'Ladoix' somehow strike you as irreconcilable opposites, I'd urge you to snag a bottle and look forward to deliciousness and fascination in equal measure. A true vin joyeux.
'Fine mid crimson-purple, with a really delicious perfumed nose, floral on top, sweet fresh strawberry and raspberry below. The oak shows rather more here before the depth of fruit takes over. Some dark fruit notes arrive at the back. Complete and fascinating.'
Jasper Morris, Inside Burgundy
Cheers,
Jason
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