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2021 was a disastrously small vintage for white wines in the Côte d’Or, and Domaine de l’Arlot was no exception. Overall volume was down 65% from a full year. As a result, only two white wines were produced.
All wines below, including the reds, excepting the Bourgogne-Hautes Côtes de Nuits which is bottled with DIAM, are bottled with cork. Alcohols are in the 13 to 13.5% range.
White wines:
2021 Bourgogne-Hautes Côtes de Nuits Le Mont
This wine is from vines planted in 2012. The wine shows lovely harmony, purity, and finesse with white fruits. It is light and fresh. 90/A
2021 Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Clos de l’Arlot
The white Clos de l’Arlot displays purity, finesse, length, elegance, white fruits, and good minerality. It’s a pity that the quantity is tiny, but those who have access to it will find a wine that should drink well young. 92/A
Géraldine Godot, technical director at Domaine de l’Arlot said that in 2021 and 2022, she made the red wines without any whole clusters. Her reasoning is that she thinks the wines show terroir better this way.
In making this change, she abandoned a practice that had been in place here since at least 1986, and as a result, it is more difficult for me to assess these wines young because my prior experience with tasting the estate’s wines young and seeing how they develop in bottle is based on wines made with whole clusters. So take my notes with yet an additional grain of salt.
Yields for the red wines overall were about 20 hl/ha. Harvesting took place 20-24 September.
Red wines:
2021 Bourgogne-Hautes Côtes de Nuits Le Mont
The vines here date to 2006 and comprise 1/3 of l’Arlot’s holding in this vineyard (the other 2/3 being the Chardonnay above). This wine is light and fresh with red fruits, but it still seems a bit unfocused. 86(+)/B
2021 Côte de Nuits-Villages Clos du Chapeau
The Clos du Chapeau is a 1.5 ha monopole of domaine de l’Arlot. The nose is floral. In the mouth, the wine is fresh and elegant with good intensity, red fruits, a bit of rose, and persistence in the mouth. 90/A
2021 Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Les Oiseaux
This wine is made from younger vines in the upper part of the Clos de l’Arlot vineyard. The soils here are white limestone (Oölite blanche), different from those of the rest of the Clos. This wine shows more substance than the Côte de Nuits-Villages, but it still is quite elegant. The wine has some salinity, good length, and a smooth texture. 90+/B+
2021 Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Clos de l’Arlot
Here there is still more substance to the wine along with more structure and extraction. The wine is persistent in the mouth and shows fine tannins. This is a wine that can be drunk no but that will be able to take substantial aging and should improve from it. In contrast to the Les Oiseaux above, here the soils are white marl. 40% new oak on this wine. 91+/A-
2021 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Les Suchots
The Suchots continues the increasing substance trend. The wine is smooth with a creamy, velvet texture and shows purity, finesse length, and some succulence. I’d suggest giving this wine some years in the bottle before consuming. 92/A
2021 Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Clos des Forêts Saint-Georges
Arlot’s monopole Clos des Forêts Saint-Georges shows more structure but less depth and substance than the Suchots. The wine is saline with red fruits, especially strawberries, and it has fine tannins. The wine drinks well already, but should still improve with aging. 93(+)/A
2021 Romanée-Saint-Vivant
Red fruits dominate the nose of the Romanée-Saint-Vivant. The mouth is smooth and medium-weight with some minerality, strawberry fruit, a velvet texture, and fine tannins. This is a wine that needs still more time to achieve its maturity. 94+/A-