Domaine DUBLERE: 2013s from Cask

Domaine DUBLERE (Savigny-les-Beaune)

2013s from Cask

Blair Pethel was an American business and politics journalist when he decided to give it all up and in moved his family to Burgundy to make wine there. After a year’s study at the lycée viticole in Beaune, he started in 2004, not an easy year. But with good wines from vineyards that he owns and rents, he has built up a successful distribution network in many countries around the world.

The cellar (next to which is a guest house available to rent) is technically located in Savigny-les-Beaune, but it is just off the route nationale heading north and just beyond the Beaune boundary. With sources heavily in Côte de Beaune regions that were hit by hail, Blair has had losses of about 50% of a normal crop in both 2013 and 2014. Nevertheless, as you’ll see, what remains is of high quality.

2013 Bourgogne blanc  Les Millerandes

This wine comes from very close to the Meursault border. The wine is mineral, pure, and racy, an outstanding Bourgogne. (88-91)

2013 Meursault   Les Crotots

The vineyard here is just below the premier cru Porouzots. This wine, too, is racy, pure, and mineral with excellent acidity and a smooth texture. There’s more weight here than in the Bourgogne. (88-92)

2013 Savigny-les-Beaune 1er Cru – Les Vergelesses

To give an example of how dreadful the hail was in Savigny, Blair usually has 15 barrels (4500 bottles) of this wine, but in 2013, he has only 4 (1200 bottles). White Savigny is too little known in the market, but worth investigating for its attractive and very particular character. This wine has an elegant, buttery nose. The mouth is mineral and tightly-wound with very good tension. (89-92)

2013 Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru – Les Chenevottes

This wine is stony and mineral in the nose, and racy, pure and stony in the mouth – just as it should be. (89-92)

2013 Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru – Les Chaumées

This wine, too, is mineral but shows more richness and less stoniness than the Chenevottes. There’s some power here and good length. (89-92)

2013 Meursault 1er Cru – Les Charmes

This wine is from the bottom part of the Dessus lieu-dit, generally considered better than the Dessous lieu-dit.  The wine has a complex almond-based nose, and it the mouth it is racy and edgy with Meursault almonds and some butteriness. (91-95)

2013 Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru – Les Terres Blanches

The Terres Blanches vineyard here has an interesting history. Upslope from Aux Perdrix, Les Forêts, and Les Didiers and south of Chênes Carteaux, it was mostly recovered from the forest in the 1980s and originally classified as Côte de Nuits-Villages, but then reclassified not as Nuits, but as Nuits 1er Cru. This wine contains 15% Pinot Blanc. There’s some oiliness that the Pinot Blanc adds, but the wine holds the raciness of Dublère’s style and has attractive lemon flavors. (90-93)

2013 Corton-Charlemagne

This wine is tightly-wound and concentrated, just as CC should be but all-too-often isn’t. It shows hazelnut aromas and flavors, depth, and purity. This is topflight Corton-Charlemagne. (93-96)

The domaine has made excellent Chablis Les Preuses in the past from a vineyard that was 90 years-old, but alas, those vines were ripped out for replanting.

2013 Chablis Grand Cru – Bougros

The vines here are 20 years-old. The wine is vinified in tank and then transferred to barrel without the lees. The resulting wine is very high in acidity, pure, steely, and tightly-wound. (89-92)

2013 Chablis Grand Cru – Valmur

The vines here are 50 years-old. The nose is lemony and steely, and the mouth steely, austere, and very tightly-wound. It is classic young Chablis. (91-94)

Now for the red wines:

2013 Savigny-les-Beaune   Les Planchots du Nord

This wine is pure, focused, and mineral in its red berry fruit, and there is great concentration here. This is astonishingly good wine from the flatlands of Savigny. (90-93)

2013 Beaune 1er Cru – Les Blanches Fleurs

This rarely-seen Beaune premier cru is mineral and round with good concentration, finesse, and red currant fruit. (88-91)

2013 Volnay 1er Cru – Les Pîtures

This wine is round and pure with the structure one expects from vineyards up against the Pommard border. There red berry fruit has lovely clarity. (91-94)

2013 Volnay 1er Cru – Les Taillepieds

This wine shows Taillepieds structure but is much more compact than the Pîtures, as one expects from Taillepieds. (88-92)

2013 Morey-Saint-Denis 1er Cru – Les Blanchards

This wine is mineral with red currant fruit, wiriness, nervosity, and medium-light weight. (90-93)

2013 Nuits-Saint-Georges  1er Cru – Les Bousselots

Finally, from the Vosne slope of Nuits-Saint-Georges, this wine is round with good structure. The Dublère lightness of touch is here, but there is also some flesh to the red and dark fruit. Some crystallinity, too. (89-93)