Domaine Ponsot, Clos de la Roche Grand Cru, "Cuvée Vieilles Vignes"

The historic and emblematic wine of Domaine Ponsot – the grapes come from old vines located 2/3 in the original “Clos de la Roche” climat and 1/3 at the foot of the hillside in the “Clos des Monts-Luisants”. Grand Cru Clos de la Roche combines power and elegance. Complex and perfectly balanced, it is a great wine for laying down, structured, with extremely silky tannins.

The bouquet is deep, sappy and very pure, delivering scents of red and black cherries, plums, raw cocoa, gamebird, woodsmoke and a magically complex base of soil tones. On the palate the wine is pure, sappy and very transparent in profile, with a great core of fruit, impeccable focus and balance, suave, ripe tannins and a very, very long, complex and vibrant finish.

Winery: Domaine Ponsot
Appellation: Burgundy, Clos de la Roche Grand Cru
Average age of vines: 65 years old
Farming Methods: Sustainable agriculture, Cordon pruning
Maturation: 18 months in French oak barrels. No new barrels. Average age of barrels: 20 years
Soil: Lean, clayey soil with limestone scree on a base of fine Premeaux and Comblanchien limestone.
Varietal: Pinot Noir
Vineyard Orientation: N/A
Vineyard Size: 3.2 ha

Wine	Scores	Downloads
Domaine Ponsot, Clos de la Roche Grand Cru, "Cuvée Vieilles Vignes" 2016	97 Wine Advocate The 2016 Clos de la Roche Grand Cru Cuvée Vieilles Vignes is superb, bursting from the glass with aromas of juicy cherries, peonies, blood orange, licorice, raw cocoa and espresso roast. On the palate, it’s full-bodied, deep and succulent, with a concentrated, layered mid-palate, satiny structuring tannins and vibrant underlying acidity, concluding with a long finish. Harvested on October 7 at a comparatively high yield by Ponsot’s standards of 38 hectoliters per hectare, this year seems to have been perfectly adapted to Ponsot’s style. Vibrant, elegant and expressive, the 2016 is quite different from the richer, more powerful 2015, but in the fullness of time, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it surpassing its brawnier elder sibling.	Bottle Image Label Image Shelf Talker Tech Sheet
Domaine Ponsot, Clos de la Roche Grand Cru, "Cuvée Vieilles Vignes" 2017	96 Wine Advocate The 2017 Clos de la Roche Grand Cru Cuvée Vieilles Vignes is also showing very well from bottle, unfurling in the glass with a deep bouquet of sweet red berries, plums and cassis, complemented by sweet soil tones and lifted top notes of orange rind and peonies. Full-bodied, layered and multidimensional, it’s deep and concentrated, its velvety tannins and succulent acids cloaked in an ample core of fruit. This is a brilliant wine from Domaine Ponsot.	Bottle Image Label Image Shelf Talker Tech Sheet
Domaine Ponsot, Clos de la Roche Grand Cru, "Cuvée Vieilles Vignes" 2019	96+ Wine Advocate Ponsot’s 2019 Clos de la Roche Grand Cru Cuvée Vieilles Vignes was picked in multiple passages, beginning with earlier-ripening massale selections on September 17, followed by the rest of the domaine’s holdings on September 22–23. Wafting from the glass with aromas of sweet raspberries and plums mingled with licorice, peony and cinnamon, it’s full-bodied, fleshy and seamless, with a rich core of fruit, lively acids and a long, saline finish. This is aging gracefully and underlines the additional precision Alex Abel has brought to Ponsot’s winemaking in recent years. 98 Decanter There is a lovely deep colour here (as with many of the 2019s) and marvellous aromas of ripe cassis. The purity of fruit is impressive – chief winemaker Alexandre Abel relates that, despite the heat, there were no shrivelled grapes or sunburn. The texture is silky and fine, but there is also remarkable power and length. Don’t be fooled by the apparent approachability here – this is a wine built to age for decades. Picked in several passes on the 22nd and 23rd of September and bottled in July 2021. 94 Vinous The 2019 Clos de la Roche Cuvée Vieilles Vignes Grand Cru (picked from 17 September) is 100% de-stemmed and was racked in May and then bottled in July 2021. It has a very perfumed bouquet of cranberry and boysenberry. It’s slightly confit in style, with just a splash of balsamic in the background. The palate is medium-bodied and taut on the entry, with slightly grainy tannins and a subtle balsamic vein that keeps it on its toes. A light touch of black pepper emerges after five minutes. Not enormous depth on the finish or grip, yet considering the growing season, there is appreciable crunchiness and bite. Tasted at Ponsot’s 150th anniversary vertical at the Domaine	Bottle Image Label Image Shelf Talker Tech Sheet
Domaine Ponsot, Clos de la Roche Grand Cru, "Cuvée Vieilles Vignes" 2020	94-96 Wine Advocate The 2020 Clos de la Roche Grand Cru Cuvée Vieilles Vignes is brooding and powerful, unwinding in the glass with aromas of dark berries and cassis mingled with sweet spices, licorice, smoke and orange rind. Full-bodied, deep and muscular, with a broad attack that segues into a sweet core of fruit framed by ample reserves of rich, powdery tannins and lively acids, it concludes with a long, resonant finish. Predictably backward, this will require over a decade’s patience. 98 Decanter A stunning wine. One sees the richness of the year in the ripe, dense, plummy fruit, yet it avoids over-concentration and has a lovely freshness as well as impressive depth of flavour. Superb. This wine is one of the touchstones of Morey-St-Denis. Ponsot is the largest landowner in this grand cru, with 3.4ha, two-thirds of it in the historic Clos that forms the core of the appellation. The average age of the vines is 65 years and they were planted using massal selection.	Bottle Image Label Image Shelf Talker Tech Sheet