Dom. Dugat-Py
Lavaux Saint Jacques Premier Cru
Gevrey Chambertin
2005

The producer

With 10ha of meticulously cared-for, organic vineyards predominantly in Gevrey-Chambertin, and holdings in four of the Grand Crus, Dugat-Py has developed a cult following worldwide. This is amazing on two counts – they only started bottling their own wines in 1989, and the wines aim at elegance rather than opulence.  They also have holdings in Pommard.

Meticulous work in the vineyards with an average age nearing 7 years is followed by low intervention winemaking. The surprise is the use of almost all new oak for the ranked crus, but this is handled so judiciously it results in balance and harmony. Perhaps there is more to great winemaking in this approach because these are extremely polished wines that combine concentration with extreme finesse and elegance.

The wine

Dugar-Py has two vineyard parcels in the Lavaux-Saint-Jacques 1er cru vineyard, with vines 40-50 year’s old growing in shallow rocky soils. Farming has been done according to organic principles since 2003. Usually fermented with a relatively high percentage of whole bunches, depending on the fruit’s condition, Lavaux-Saint-Jacques is then aged for 15-18 months in up to 100% new oak barrels.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.