South of the Combe, Above the Village
The Clos des Lambrays occupies the southern half of the Morey-Saint-Denis slope, between the Clos de Tart to the south and the outlet of the combe of Morey to the north. Like the commune's three other grands crus, it lies above the route des Grands Crus (D122), in the middle band of the slope, facing east.
Its position in relation to the combe is decisive. The lieu-dit Les Bouchots, at the northern tip of the clos, lies partly at the outlet of the dry valley, on its southern flank: it turns partly towards the north and is directly exposed to the currents of cool air that come down from the plateaus to the west. It is the coolest and latest part of the cru. In the upper part of the clos, a small pavilion and an arch stand against the enclosing wall.
Three Lieux-Dits, Three Unequal Qualities
The clos brings together three lieux-dits: Les Larrets, which in the cadastre bears the name Clos des Lambrays and accounts for 5.72 ha, that is 65% of the climat; Les Bouchots (1.99 ha) to the north; and Meix-Rentier (1.13 ha) at the foot of the slope. This composition is the key to reading the cru, since the historical classifications clearly distinguished them: Jules Lavalle, in 1855, rated Les Larrets "première cuvée", Meix-Rentier "troisième" and Les Bouchots "quatrième" respectively.
The estate takes account of this internal hierarchy: the lots judged insufficient — young vines and the least noble parts, notably in Les Bouchots — are declassified into a second wine sold as Morey-Saint-Denis premier cru. The flattering ranking given to the climat by Camille Rodier around 1920-1930 should, for its part, be treated with caution: the author was related to the owner of the day.
The Terroir: Marls Above, Limestone Scree on Top
In the south of the commune, the Clos des Lambrays and the Clos de Tart rest mainly on the Bajocian crinoidal limestone, the rock that runs without interruption beneath the whole garland of grands crus of the Côte de Nuits between 275 and 310 metres in altitude. But the originality of Les Lambrays lies in the presence, above, of the Marnes à Ostrea acuminata — a soft Upper Bajocian rock, made in roughly equal proportions of clay and limestone, pale yellow-green, riddled with small fossil oysters.
At the Clos des Lambrays these marls are not bare: they are covered by scree of angular gravels. On the southern slope of Morey, limestone gravels produced by the freeze-thaw of the Comblanchien limestones accumulated, filling a slight hollow above the marls. The result is a marly soil above, clay-limestone below, with a water reserve greater than that of the Clos de la Roche: hence wines that are rounder, fleshier, less mineral and less taut than those of the northern slope.
Climate, Exposure and the Combe Effect
The climate is temperate with a slight continental tendency: pronounced winters, hot summers, a risk of spring frost. The easterly exposure gives the morning sun, indispensable for ripening pinot noir on a slope where late-afternoon sunshine is cut off by the wooded crest line.
The combe effect plays a greater part here than in the other clos of Morey. The corridor of cool air from the west touches the northern part of the clos directly, shifting ripeness and bringing aromatic freshness. This internal asymmetry — a marly, cool upper clos, a more clay-limestone, earlier lower part — explains why the estate harvests and vinifies parcel by parcel before blending.
The Style of the Wines and Their Ageing
Clos-des-lambrays shows a dark ruby robe and a complex nose in which one finds cooked fruits, undergrowth, leather and often a spicy note linked to the use of whole bunches. The palate is round in youth, then becomes deep and grave over the years — it is the most suave and the most "perfumed and spicy" of the four clos of Morey, less architectural than the Clos de la Roche, less compact than the Clos de Tart.
It is served between 12 and 14°C when young, 15 to 17°C when mature, with feathered game, glazed poultry, braised veal, roast lamb or washed-rind cheeses. Ageing runs from ten to fifteen years, some twenty in the great vintages. The cru has improved greatly since the restoration of the vineyard undertaken from 1980 by the estate manager Thierry Brouin, who remained thirty-eight years in post until April 2018.
A Cru Stitched Back Together, Classed Late, and Bought Dear
A "Clos de Lambrey" is cited at Morey as early as the middle of the fourteenth century, from the name of a noble family attested in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. But the Revolution shattered it: the clos was sold in lots to 74 owners. Neither Denis Morelot (1831), nor Jules Lavalle (1855), nor Danguy and Aubertin (1892) then cite it as a clos. It is in fact the work of a merchant, Louis Joly, who bought back and stitched together the some 75 parcels of the 1828 cadastre; the whole was sold in 1866 to Albert-Sébastien Rodier, who completed the consolidation and imposed the name "Clos des Lambray" at the end of the nineteenth century.
There followed an episode that would cost the cru dear: bought on 28 November 1938 by Renée Cosson, it stayed forty years in her hands without the classification file — which in the case of a monopole must be submitted by the owner — ever being put together. The clos earned the nickname "clos délabré", the dilapidated clos. Sold in 1979 after the death of its owner, it was at last decreed Grand Cru by the INAO on 27 April 1981 — forty-five years after the Clos de la Roche and the Clos Saint-Denis, forty-two years after the Clos de Tart; until then it had been a premier cru of the village appellation (1943). The property then passed to the German industrialist Günter Freund in 1997, and then to the LVMH group, whose acquisition was announced in April 2014 for a reported 100 million euros. The estate cannot claim the mention "monopole": as recorded by Clive Coates, it farmed 8.66 ha of the cru's 8.84 ha, a parcel of 420 m² in Meix-Rentier remaining with Domaine Taupenot-Merme, which makes a confidential cuvée from it.