Domaine Dujac is young by Burgundy’s standards and has been counted among the region’s great estates for nearly as long as it has existed. Jacques Seysses, the son of a biscuit manufacturer, apprenticed under Gérard Potel at Domaine de la Pousse d’Or before buying the rundown 4.5-hectare Domaine Marcel Graillet in Morey-Saint-Denis at the end of 1967 and renaming it for himself: Dujac, as in du Jacques. The first bottling, the 1969, reached restaurant tables across France through his father’s connections, and his insistence on fermenting whole clusters became the house signature at a time when almost no one else beyond the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti was leaving the stems in. His son Jeremy joined in 1998, followed by Jeremy’s wife Diana Snowden Seysses, a UC Davis-trained oenologist from a Napa winemaking family, in 2001, and his brother Alec in 2003. A purchase shared with the de Montille family in 2005 brought Chambertin, Romanée-Saint-Vivant, and two Vosne-Romanée premiers crus into the fold, and the domaine now farms 15.5 hectares, seven grands crus among them, organically and with biodynamic practices since the early 2000s.

The Charmes-Chambertin comes from 0.70 hectares in four parcels, assembled piece by piece from the 1970s onward and split between Aux Charmes itself and the adjoining Mazoyères-Chambertin, which has long been entitled to sell under the Charmes name. Charmes is the largest of the Gevrey-Chambertin grands crus, and the cru’s reputation for softness is one that Dujac’s bottling has never much reflected. In 2020 the fruit was fermented mostly as whole clusters with a very gentle extraction, then aged sixteen months in roughly 70 percent new oak. Charles Curtis MW scored it 96 in Decanter, and James Suckling gave it 95.

Blackberry and black plum lead, then peony, licorice, cocoa powder, and crushed rock. The tannins are firm and the wine surprisingly dense for Charmes, with a sturdy frame and a long finish. A savory, structured wine built for the cellar. Drink 2027 through 2050.