Clos de Tart Grand Cru Monopole Burgundy Red 2011
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94
Wine Advocate
Tasted at the pre-dinner vertical to mark Sylvain Pitiot’s retirement from the domaine, the 2011 Clos de Tart Grand Cru has a distinctly more herbaceous and leafier nose than the 2012. Here we are walking in woodland around mid-October, the damp ground strewn with brown leaves. The palate is medium-bodied with slightly more rustic tannins than the 2012, but there is tremendous depth here and it seems to gain complexity toward the finish that gently fans out. It is another elegant Clos de Tart that will drink over the next 20 years.
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Clos de Tart Grand Cru Monopole Burgundy Red 2013
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95
Vinous
The 2013 Clos de Tart Grand Cru was picked from October 8. I prefer the bouquet to that of the more confit-like 2014; this is very fresh and vivacious, offering black cherries mixed with blueberry and light violet aromas, the mineral component more expressive. The palate is medium-bodied with crunchy black fruit on the entry, tinged with graphite. Shows good weight but tightens up toward the back end, suggesting that it may close down. Quite saline on the finish. Give it 7-8 years in bottle. Tasted at Clos de Tart.
A ripe, flamboyant style, boasting cherry, strawberry and baking spice flavors. Balanced and fresh, with firm tannins shoring up the long finish. Best from 2019 through 2035. 2,000 cases made.
Tasted blind at the Burgfest tasting in Beaune, the 2013 Clos de Tart Grand Cru has a well defined bouquet with fine mineralité, very pure and poised with gorgeous ripe black cherries, strawberry and almost flint-like scents. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannin, missing a little delineation on the entry but with good structure. There is plenty of ripe sappy red fruit here with firm tannins, linear at present but showing impressive breeding. A vin de garde that will require several years in bottle before it really struts its stuff. Tasted September 2016.
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Clos de Tart Grand Cru Monopole Burgundy Red 2014
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95-97
Wine Advocate
The 2014 Clos de Tart Grand Cru will contain 40% whole bunch fruit in the final. It was picked from September 17 until September 22. This blend that I tasted included the young vines at the bottom of the vineyard that may or may not be deselected to make a Forge de Tart (the decision will be made next year). It is also the first vintage that does not include old vines at the northwest corner that were pulled up in spring 2014, due to be replanted in four years’ time. It has a very well defined bouquet with cranberry and wild strawberry fruit, fine mineral tones and is quite harmonious with hints of wet limestone. The palate is medium-bodied and I feel this has tightened up since I tasted it in September 2015. The fruit also seems a little darker. Blackberry and wild cherry, with a hint of cola and certainly more tangible mineralité on the finish, as you can feel the mouth tingling long after it has bid adieu.
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Clos de Tart Grand Cru Monopole Burgundy Red 2015
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97
Decanter
There are eight lots here, and this is the likely definitive blend, which will be made final before bottling. Voluptuous red fruit nose displaying power, force and aromatic purity despite the new oak. Lovely attack, packed with fruit and a graceful acidity. Great clarity and precision, but it’s no heavyweight, convincing by its intensity. There’s 13.4% alcohol here but it’s not apparent, and neither are the tannins. Harmonious and very long finish.
The 2015 Clos de Tart Grand Cru is a monumental young wine, opening in the glass with a brooding bouquet of wild berries, peony, orange rind, licorice, espresso roast and spice. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, powerful and multidimensional, with an enormous core of vibrant fruit, an ample chassis of fine tannins and a beautiful line of acidity. While the vintage has brought an extra dimension of concentration and power to this Clos de Tart, it remains wonderfully controlled through the long, palate-staining finish, and the terroir—including its proximity to Bonnes Mares—is front and center. With his first solo vintage at Clos de Tart, Jacques Desvauges has evidently hit the ground running. Cropped at 22 hectoliters per hectare, vinified with 40% whole cluster, and aged in 80% new wood.
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Clos de Tart Grand Cru Monopole Burgundy Red 2016
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99
Vinous
There is a sense of harmony and completeness here that, even over 20 years tasting at this address, I have rarely encountered. You can just feel the frisson in this wine. One of the finest wines from the Côte d’Or in 2016. It’s that simple.
The superb 2016 Clos de Tart Grand Cru confirms the promise it showed from barrel, unfurling in the glass with a striking bouquet of raspberries, rose petals, blood orange, black tea, spices and smoked meats. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, pure and ample, with a deep core of vibrant, searingly intense fruit that entirely cloaks its structuring chassis of satiny tannin, concluding with a long and captivatingly floral finish. More elegant and transparent than the richer and fleshier 2015, this is an exceptional vintage for Clos de Tart. That there are fully 27,000 bottles makes this one of Burgundy’s rare confluence of quality and quantity.
It’s a fresh, refine, polished Clos de Tart with precision and elegance, marking a welcome
break with the past.
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Clos de Tart Grand Cru Monopole Burgundy Red 2017
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96-98
Vinous
The 2017 Clos de Tart Grand Cru was matured in around 80% new oak, the
barrels toasted chauff blonde. Jacques Desvauges mentioned that the wine
needed oxygen ingress during maturation that only new oak can give. I tasted
the component parts (as usual) as well as the blend. This has a very detailed,
delineated bouquet offering mainly black fruit mixed with sous-bois, tobacco,
clove and bay leaf, the typicité of the appellation showing through nicely. It
feels very succinct and yet so fresh. The palate is beautifully balanced on the
entry with a killer line of acidity. Pure black cherry fruit is joined by bilberry,
hints of black olive and a marine/oyster shell tincture that comes through quite
strongly toward the persistent, saline finish, which fans out with confidence. This
is a brilliant follow-up to the benchmark 2016 by Jacques Desvauges and his
team.
Despite what has been written about high yields in the Côte de Nuits in 2017, Jacques de Vauges made less Clos de Tart than he did in 2016. Picked much earlier than it used to be when Sylvain Pitiot was in charge, this is a fine, focussed, nuanced wine that expresses the complexity of this monopole grand cru. With deftly integrated 60% whole bunches and 80% new wood, it’s elegant, floral and precise with chalky freshness.
The 2017 Clos de Tart Grand Cru is a little shut down after its recent bottling, but it is showing beautifully, wafting from the glass with aromas of sweet red berries, plums, wilted rose petals, peonies and dark chocolate, with only hints of the complexity to come with bottle age. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, supple and succulent, with an ample and enveloping core of fruit, powdery tannins and succulent acids, displaying good concentration and concluding with a long and perfumed finish. This is a fine showing for Clos de Tart, and despite its elegance, this 2017 will evidently reward bottle age.
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Clos de Tart Grand Cru Monopole Burgundy Red 2018
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98
Decanter
Absolutely bursting with blue and red fruits, the concentration is deceptive here, as it starts out juicy and full of air, but after a few minutes in the glass you start to feel the weight and the texture, and this turns into an extremely serious wine with real tannic hold. Gorgeous savoury finish, as you get so often in the best Burgundies, where weightlessness is such a brilliant veil to the power behind. 55% whole cluster.
The 2018 Clos de Tart Grand Cru was wonderful from barrel but now it seems to have gone up another level. It has an exquisite bouquet with wonderful mineralité infusing the brambly red fruit. Wonderful focus and quite profound complexity. You could nose this forever. The palate is medium-bodied with finely chiselled tannins married with a killer line of natural acidity. Everything is perfectly proportioned in this wine, very persistent with layers of dark berry fruit laced with white pepper and tea leaf on the finish, Immense. Tasted blind at the Burgfest 2018 red tasting.
The 2018 Clos de Tart Grand Cru opens in the glass with rich aromas of raspberries, plum preserve, ripe berries, warm spices and rose petals, framed by a generous touch of creamy new oak. Full-bodied, layered and concentrated, it’s rich, muscular and extracted, with a brooding, introverted profile that will require—and, one hopes, reward—patience. As I wrote last year, this is a powerful, broad-shouldered Clos de Tart that has more in common with the wines of the Pitiot era than it does with what the domaine produced in 2015, 2016, 2017 or 2019.
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Clos de Tart Grand Cru Monopole Burgundy Red 2021
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96
Decanter
‘Classic Pinot Noir’ according to winemaker Alessandro Noli. He has spared no expense to produce a superb wine, declassifying to premier cru swaths of the Clos that didn’t meet his expectations. The result has a lovely ripe, expressive mulberry and pomegranate fruit with accents of earth and sweet oak spice and a silky precision to the texture that is firm if less powerful than in recent years. The overall result is a beautiful expression of the Morey terroir.
The 2021 Clos de Tart Grand Cru includes 53% whole clusters and 64% new oak. It has a fragrant and open bouquet with brambly red fruit, crushed stone and wilted rose flowers. The palate is lighter than the 2021 with filigree tannins, perhaps airy in style, lightly spiced, quite linear with a saline finish that lingers in the mouth. This grows in the glass over 20-30 minutes, expanding and gaining in terms of nuance. Maybe not in the same class as the previous vintage though frankly, it’s not far off.
Unwinding in the glass to reveal notions of sweet red berries and plums mingled with orange zest, rose petals and sweet spices, the 2021 Clos de Tart Grand Cru is full-bodied, ample and fleshy, with a textural attack that segues into a layered, enveloping mid-palate, framed by sweet, powdery tannins and ripe acids. This combines all the inherent charm of the vintage with rare depth and seriousness.
Just a little more depth of colour than Forges, but not by much. The bouquet suggests a greater depth of classy red fruit, all about subtlety rather than power. This is about the tensile strength rather than overt power. A redcurrant and raspberry fruit, all red berries, fine boned tannins and a good balance with the acidity. Everything in its place, a fine long finish, but absolutely not the more monolithic style of an earlier period. Drink from 2029-2040. Tasted: November 2023.
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Clos de Tart Grand Cru Monopole Burgundy Red 2022
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97
Decanter
The 2022 Clos de Tart is a surprisingly deep colour endowed with pronounced cassis and pomegranate aromas, rose petals, liquorice, and a savoury game note. The texture is silky and fresh but not lacking in body—it is an exquisite balance, made more delightful by the charming sweetness of the fruit on the palate. The best grapes of the Clos were carefully fermented, with just over half of them fermented as whole clusters. The wine is ageing now in cask (60% new), where it will stay for at least 20 months.
The 2022 Clos de Tart Grand Cru includes around 52% whole clusters on average and is aged in 60% new oak barrels. This lies between red and black fruit on the nose, the wood regime obtrusive using their own stemware, yet much more enmeshed when poured into another, much thinner glass, where it shows far more clarity and precision. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins. It is bright and spicy, with peppery black fruit exerting a gentle grip. Fine build in the mouth, quite powerful, yet it remains tightly focused. Again, the second glass elevates that sense of Pinoté. This is an excellent Clos de Tart, though I remain prudent at the moment to see if it will rank amongst the great wines from this monopole.
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