Lucien le Moine Bourgogne Rouge 2021

Product Information: Lucien Le Moine is a small House of Grands Crus in Beaune, committed to producing wines of excellent purity. Lucien Le Moine produces only Grands and Premiers Crus from Côte d’Or. Previous iterations have featured Givry fermented by carbonic maceration, Hauts Côte de Nuits, some beautiful Cote de Nuits village, Fixin, Marsannay, and Pernand. Both the Bourgogne red and white spend a full 2 years in barrel, with some Premier and Grand Crus even bottled before them. Winemaker Mounir aims to source the most Beautiful Crus in each Village, renewing their selection every year, producing 1 to 3 barrels from each selected cru an never producing more than 100 total barrels in a year, averaging around 60. All oak for the winery comes from the Jupilles forest and is slowly toasted on coals individually adapted to suit each cru and vintage. All wines are aged on their lees, with gentle stirring occurring three to four times a month putting the lees in suspension in the wine, the wine than feeds upon the lees gaining in balance and complexity. The wines are kept on their lees until bottling never racking during aging. The wines are bottles unfined and unfiltered by gravity with no filtration or pumping, this ensures maximum freshness and a high level of CO2. For those same reasons, it is recommended decanting this wine for an hour or more before drinking. Maker: Lucien le Moine means ‘The Enlightened One’, a tongue in cheek tip of the hat to his origins. Mounir, the name of the founder is Lebanese and in their language Mounir means ‘light’, the french equivalent is Lucien. Moine – The Monk. Refers to his intro into wine at a monastery in the Middle East. In the late 1980s, Mounir Saouma’s visit to a Trappist monastery in the Middle East led to a prolonged stay during which he worked in the monastery vineyards and first learned to make wine. Studied Viticulture and Oenology in Montpellier, followed by six years working in Burgundy, other areas of France, and California. Lucien le Moine was founded in 1999, a partnership between Mounir and his wife Rotem. Rotem comes from a cheese making family, studied agriculture in Dijon and after taking a national prize from the French academy of Agriculture for her study of the Cote d’Or she focused on wine full time. It’s important she has a seriously good palate to match, they make quite the couple. Vineyard: It’s important to understand how very unique their operation is. Mounir sums it up so well when he describes their dream of creating “a library of some of the greatest 1er and Grand Cru vineyards in the Cote d’Or, every vintage”. It’s an incredible array of some of the most sought after sites in Burgundy. They are a ‘micro-negociant’, buying between one to three barrels of each site, sometimes making over 50 different Cru’s. Each year this selection can change based on what they taste. Of course some of their grower relationships have been established over last 20 years so each year it’s mix of wines I have come to love/expect them to be bottling and some new ones. A common question I am asked is how do they source such iconic vineyards and how do they choose new wines each year. If you have or ever get to meet Mounir he is one in a million, a man of rare talent, both highly intelligent and charming all at once. Andrew Jefford put’s it best with this quote; “I know of no one in Burgundy who speaks with more passion, articulacy, exuberance, irreverence and sometimes wild poetry about different vineyard sites than Mounir Saouma”. The distinctive style and critic acclaim of Lucien le Moine’s wines along with Mounir’s personality has undoubtedly meant many growers genuinely want Mounir to vinify their grapes despite him being a relative newcomer in Burgundy, they are of course proud vignerons of some of the most sought after grapes in the world. Mounir seems to so often be labelled a ‘modernist’ due to his long elevage technique, lack of sulphur use during elevage and no racking hence a lot of work with the lees. In fact, as he says himself its “as traditional as it gets” given the winemaking history of Burgundy as explained further below. They visit growers and taste the wines very early just after the press, in the case of whites taking the juice straight to barrel and the reds working alongside the grower with the vinification process of the primary ferment. Nose – Complex, Black Cherries, Earth A fragrant bouquet of high toned red fruits, morello cherries and wild strawberries. Turned earth and spice. Palate – Intense Fruits, Vibrant Acidity, Plum A good level of acidity, supple yet fine tannin structure, intense berries, plum and licorice notes. Finish – Supple, Rich, Endless Subtle vanilla and sandalwood. Complex long finish. The quality ranges from excellent to