Dom. du Clos de Tart
Clos de Tart Grand Cru Monopole
Morey-Saint-Denis
2016

The producer

Perhaps confusingly the vineyard and the estate are the one and the same … and it is the largest Grand Cru monopole in Burgundy. For several centuries the estate has remained undivided with winemaking and ageing facilities on site.

Originally owned from 1141, and named after, the Cistercian order of nuns of the Abbaye de Tart, who ran the clos until the French Revolution, In 1791 it was acquired by the Marey-Monge family (also the owners of Romanee-Saint-Vivant) who developed its reputation as the best domaine in Morey through the nineteenth century. The estate passed to the Mommessin family in 1932 and languished somewhat until the 1990s when new life was breathed into the 7.53ha vineyard. Work on vineyard mapping and viticulture combined with new winemaking equipment brought the wines of Clos de Tart back to the pinnacle of wines from this commune.

The Pinault family of Artemis Domaines who own such properties as Chateau Latour in Bordeaux and Chateau Grillet in the Rhone purchased the property in 2017. Both the beautiful buildings and the winery are undergoing renovation to write the next chapter of this exceptional domaine.

The wine

The east-facing Clos de Tart is a monopole vineyard, its full 7.22 hectares entirely in the hands of one owner, since 2017 those of the Artemis Group. Vines are around 60 years old on average, the soil is rich in limestone and clay, and the vineyard divided into 12 subplots. The wines are aged in new oak barrels for 18-24 months. These are wines of immense red fruit concentration, with energy, pure vibrant fragrance, and earthy complexity.

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.