The whole nine yards!

Product information

Benjamin Leroux Bourgogne Rouge 2019

Pinot Noir from Santenay, Pommard, Beaune, Côte du Beaune

$82

$78ea in any 3+
$74ea in any 6+
Closure: Cork

Description

A great mixture of sites this year includes 25% villages wines from St-Romain Sous le Château, Savigny and Monthelie. The Bourgogne-level fruit was drawn from the excellent Maison Dieu in Pommard, Mon Poulain in Volnay, Belles Côtes in Meursault and Croix Blanche in Vosne. Then there’s a good glug from the Dames Huguettes vineyard which lies in the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits above Vosne-Romanée.

Make no mistake, these are serious vineyards for a wine at this level. Leroux has always made clear that it is his aim to exceed expectations with his Bourgogne-level wines, and the 2019 just smashes it out of the park. Everything about this release—the fruit intensity, purity, structure and length—screams excellent villages quality. The grapes were entirely de-stemmed, and élevage took place in 2,200 litre, Grenier oak casks, supported by a few 228-litre Burgundian barriques. There was next to no new oak used.

“75% comes from Bourgogne and Hautes Côtes de Nuits Dames Huguettes vineyards, with some fruit from Savigny, St-Romain and Monthelie. Glowing red purple, very exciting lifted fresh dark red fruit. Darker fruit on the palate, but still with a great sense of energy, filling the mouth, balanced fruit and tannins, ready for bottling. Very long.” Jasper Morris, Inside Burgundy

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Check out all of the wines by Domaine Benjamin Leroux

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

Benjamin’s a fascinating character to follow. Every vintage his experience with the different villages and plots he sources fruit from grows. Winemaking is a gamble, every year you roll the dice and use knowledge gleaned over time to harness what nature has presented you in the form of grapes. Ben’s always has lovely touch and it’s showed from day 1 in the Côtes du Beaune.

Over the last couple of years Ben’s touch has extended from the Côtes du Beaune to the Côtes du Nuits. Each year I find the pleasure derived from both Côtes getting closer & closer to one and other.

We’ll see the drop into the typical Burgundy hole and close up in coming years. When they come out we will see wines that have resolved, the insane depth of fruit they have will pull back and reach balance with secondary characters. Tasting these wines today, they almost look a little new worldy. Yet leave a glass on the table for 24 hours and you can already start to see where they are going to go. The acid and tannin build, the fruit pulls back a little, balance falls into place. It’s clear they have all the components to make for delicious aged Burgundies. The wines from the Côtes du Beaune show as being more together now. Their is plenty more to come from the Côtes du Nuits!

The whites are impressive, he’s building textural appeal, has maintained excellent freshness and energy in the wines picking them ripe, not green, and certainly not over the top. The Bourgogne Blanc, 90% Meursault is a great little indicator.

Explore the Epic Line-Up & Enjoy!


Turns out Ben is good mates with Alex Moreau who I’ve spent a fair bit of time within Australia and Burgundy. So much so he’s Godfather to Tom, Alex’s son!

I spent some time with ben a couple of years ago. His high profile has not taken his head from the earth. He’s well and truly connected to the ground, both, by feet and focus. It was fascinating to hear him talk of the experiments he runs, the main influences on his winemaking over the past 10-15 years, his plans for the future, and, of course, the background to each the wines we tried. We recorded the audio for the session and share it in several podcasts below.

How to drink wine with Benjamin Leroux!

The 2019 Vintage at Leroux

“As the scores confirm, I share Leroux’s enthusiasm for the quality of his 2019s and a number of them, especially from the Côte de Beaune are really very impressive.”

Allen Meadows, Burghound

“This was an excellent portfolio of 2019s from Leroux. The reds, which are unlikely to be racked until next March, are studded with some exceptionally finely crafted wines that seemed to be sculpted by a smallest chisel in the set…”

Neal Martin, Vinous

From the Importer

While the climate records may file the vintage under the warm and dry bracket, the growers will tell you 2019 was not a year with the extremes encountered at times in 2018 and 2020. Winter was certainly dry, but the growing season was not especially so, nor was it an exceptionally early harvest. Leroux (officially) picked from the 6th of September—a matter of days earlier than the traditional ‘100 days from flowering’. He brought in super-clean fruit that was ripe (yet not too ripe), with potential alcohols averaging around 12.8%. Indeed, we heard Leroux describe his wines as having the elegance of a “pretty cool vintage”, with a perplexing concentration of tartaric acid balancing the ripeness. So on paper, and in the glass, 2019 looks more like a modern classic than anything else.

Going some way to explain the density and flesh apparent in the wines of 2019 were the low, if not catastrophic, yields. The dry winter and two episodes of frost in April had an impact here, before a period of windy, damp weather at flowering further reduced the crop potential. Leroux estimates he was down 30% on 2018, and around 15% down on an average vintage. Gevrey, Puligny and Chassagne were more significantly affected than other communes. This reality, plus an evolution in sourcing means there is no Corton-Charlemagne or Morey-St-Denis for 2019, and no Gevrey 1er from Goulots, Perrières, or Champeaux. Volumes in Chassagne were also well down. On the plus side, some of these losses were compensated by good yields in Meursault and Vosne Romanée.

For many years, this has been one of, if not the most dynamic cellar on the Côte in terms of winemaking. Leroux works with some 50 appellations, and every wine has its own bespoke treatment according to the conditions of each vintage. This makes it difficult—and sometimes misleading—to try and generalise certain aspects of his élevage. We can say that in the large, the cellar is constantly moving away from traditional, smaller format oak, and towards 600-litre and 1200- to 1500-litre foudre for the whites, and 450-litre to 600-litre barrels for the reds. It is also becoming moot to talk of new oak, of which so little is now used (especially for the whites). Then, we have to make a distinction between oak use in fermentation and élevage. For some years, Leroux has been using his new oak quota to ferment small portions of his white cuvées, whereby after roughly six to eight weeks, the wines are transferred to used, larger format vessels. These ‘new’ barrels are then used to age the reds (which in turn, also leads to less oak impact here). In 2019 only a single white was aged within a portion of new wood, and that was the Bâtard-Montrachet. So, when the notes below may mention “20% new oak” for example, we’d like you to be aware of the ambiguity. [I explore why numbers like the % of new oak used are misleading at best, a complete waste of brainspace at worst in the Wine Bites Mag article Q&A with Paul: “How does the percentage of new oak affect wine?” in summary Don’t get hung up the numbers, the numbers can lie! Taste it, looking for balance!] Likewise, to generalise about Leroux’s winemaking decisions such as the use of whole bunches is like trying to hit a moving target: in 2019 Leroux worked between 0% and 80%.

About Benjamin Leroux

“You may remember that when I asked Allen Meadows, aka Burghound, on this video who he thought might be a natural heir to the late great Henri Jayer of Burgundy, one of the two people he cited was young Benjamin Leroux of Domaine Comte Armand.” Jancis Robinson

“Leroux’s passion, ambition and sheer talent have already resulted in a number of stunning, beautiful wines, but my sense is that the best is yet to come.”  Wine Advocate # 194 May 2011

“I have never heard a more articulate and insightful presentation.” James Halliday on the Leroux 2008s Masterclass with Benjamin Leroux, The Australian, 11th September 2010.

Benjamin Leroux, previously manager/winemaker of Domaine Comte Armand launched his own label with the 2007 vintage. He works from a brand new winery in the centre of Beaune (just off the Boulevard) that he shares with Dominique Lafon and two other wine growers. The operation is very small and will eventually specialise, primarily, in Puligny and Volnay, but with many other appellations also covered. While there are over twenty terroirs produced, this is certainly a ‘micro negociant’ operation with only two to five barrels made of most of the cuvées. Leroux works with vineyards he manages, vineyards he owns and also buys fruit (never juice or wine) from growers with who he can work closely; growers that produce the quality of fruit to match Leroux’s exacting standards.

Leroux’s vision has always been to build an Estate and to this end he has already started buying vineyards. The first stage of his evolution, however, has been to establish the micro negociant business: a phase that has allowed him to establish a winery and refine his ideas and his understanding of the terroirs with which he wants to work. The way Leroux has structured this side of his business is highly innovative. His aim has been to create the same quality standards of the finest Domaines, despite not owning most of the vineyards. He has long-term relationships with the growers that he works with, some of which he pays by the area of land rather than the quantity of fruit harvested. This allows him to dictate lower yields, ripeness, date of harvest, and so on. He only works with high quality growers who plough or do not use herbicides or pesticides. Most are organic or biodynamic. For those that are not there is an understanding that they will move to organics over a five-year period. Leroux’s knowledge of the Côte is encyclopedic and he has been able to unearth some very interesting, previously hardly known sources for his portfolio. It’s important not to underestimate how close Leroux works these growers as that is one of the keys to his ability to coax the finest fruit quality from the vineyards.

A total of 120 barrels were produced in his first vintage, 2007 and some of the cuvees offered had already been produced by Leroux for a number of years at Comte Armand. These wines have now come across to the Benjamin Leroux label. Leroux is considered one of the most gifted and knowledgeable wine growers in all of the Côte d’Or.

Leroux is considered one of the most gifted and knowledgeable wine growers in all of the Côte d’Or. It only suffices to ask any other serious producer about Leroux to realize the respect he has garnered amongst his colleagues in the region. He was always considered a prodigy, studying at the Lycée Viticole in Beaune from the age of 13 and taking the reins at the esteemed Domaine Comte Armand when he was only 26. Leroux’s success with the Domaine’s wines over the last decade has well justified the decision to appoint such a young man to run the show. He continued to manage Comte Armand until 2014, despite now having his own range of wines (another sign of how well respected he is). While his range includes many famous terroirs, Leroux is determined only to work with vineyards that have been well managed and produce outstanding fruit, regardless of whether or not they have famous names. This makes sense, Leroux’s knowledge of Burgundy’s countless terroirs runs deep and producers like him are waking up the wine world to the fact that the reputation of many Côte d’Or vineyards has as much to do with the producers who work them than any intrinsic qualities of the sites themselves.

In the Winery

Throughout the videos above, the videos above, below, and the podcast with Levi Dalton, Ben explores many aspects of his winemaking. One rule reigns supreme it’s all judged by taste, what’s in the glass. Whether it’s use of large wood, stalks, or whole berries he’s constantly experimenting to find ways to evolve.

Benjamin 🎧 spoke with Levi Dalton about the changes that have occurred to winemaking in Burgundy. Enjoy!

Where in the World is Benjamin Leroux?

Leroux has parcels across both Côtes, making wines from Chassagne-Montrachet, Puligny-Montrachet, Meursault, Auxey-Duresses, Savigny, Volnay, Pommard, Corton, Vosne, Chambolle, Morey & Gevrey.

Click to enlarge 🔎
88-89 Points

“75% comes from Bourgogne and Hautes Côtes de Nuits Dames Huguettes vineyards, with some fruit from Savigny, St-Romain and Monthelie. Glowing red purple, very exciting lifted fresh dark red fruit. Darker fruit on the palate, but still with a great sense of energy, filling the mouth, balanced fruit and tannins, ready for bottling. Very long.”

Jasper Morris, Inside Burgundy

Where in the world does the magic happen?

Domaine Benjamin Leroux

Pommard
Santenay
Beaune
Côte du Beaune