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.
Aux Malconsorts is the premier cru that runs up against La Tâche, and Dujac’s 1.57 hectares sit at its northern edge, close enough that a sliver of the parcel crosses into Les Gaudichots without ever reaching the label. The vines were planted in the 1960s, in 1976, and in 1995. Since 2020 Jeremy Seysses has pulled back on extraction here, having concluded that Malconsorts will always have firmness to spare. The 2022 harvest opened on 29 August after a hot summer whose nights stayed cool enough to preserve acidity, and this was the first vintage made in the domaine’s new cuverie. This cuvée went in at 85 percent whole cluster. Neal Martin gave it 97 in Vinous, William Kelley 96 for The Wine Advocate, and Allen Meadows of Burghound called it potentially the best Dujac Malconsorts since the 2015.
Luminous aromas of red cherry and wild strawberry over plum, rose petal, smoked duck, and crushed stone. Full-bodied and layered, with filigree tannins and a focused finish that builds in the mouth; it has the depth for a few decades of cellaring. Drink 2030 through 2050.
