The 2014 Clos Saint Denis Grand Cru has a withdrawn bouquet at first, only gradually unfolding with light cranberry leaf, bay leaf and strawberry scents, a cold stone note emerging later. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, quite focused and poised, although I would like to see more weight and body develop on the finish. It seems to have stage fright compared to the Clos de la Roche.

The 2013 Clos St Denis Grand Cru was distinguished by simultaneous alcoholic and malolactic fermentation. It has quite an exuberant bouquet with kirsch and Morello cherries that develop with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with sappy red fruit, good density, but it needs to develop more precision on the finish. This will require several years in bottle and in the interim, I would like to see just a little more pixelation.

The 2012 Clos Saint Denis Grand Cru has a primal, animally bouquet with broody dark berry fruit - bouquet with intent, yet tightly coiled and broody. The palate is very precise with touches of balsamic and spice. It unfolds in the glass and leads naturally toward the long finish that fans out beautifully. Excellent. It is always a pleasure to visit the indefatigable Mounir Saouma at his hideaway winery just off the Beaune periphique. He is a winemaker you can jest with, and he is often victim of my sardonic Essex humor (for example, when enthusing about obtaining one of five barrels of a premier cru, I dryly enquired whether the other four were sold off for distillation - I would not say that to Aubert de Villaine.) And I appreciate Mounir's wines. They used to taste a little too fat and almost over-powering in their youth, but I think he is fine-tuning his reductive winemaking style, achieving more freshness and vitality. I tasted his 2012 reds since the whites were still undergoing malolactic. Among the tidal wave of opinions, one that he emphasized was that to capture the quality of the vintage under cork, the wines should be bottled late, and not in spring when Burgundy will resound to the clinking of glass. Mounir also told me that he paid 50% more from wines in 2012 than in 2011, but that he intends to keep prices within 15% increase. Importers: Vintus LLC, Pleasantville, NY; tel. (914) 769-3000, Atherton Imports, Menlo Park, CA; tel. (650) 328-6639

Walking up the slope further, the 2011 Clos Saint Denis has a lively, vibrant bouquet not that dissimilar from the Clos de la Roche, but perhaps less well behaved. The palate is brimming over with fresh red cherries, strawberry and orange zest while the persistency in the mouth is just wonderful. It does not quite possess the sophistication of the Clos de la Roche but in a way, it is more fun in your glass. I have intermittently encountered the wines of Lucien Le Moine over the years and even spent an evening dining with the man behind it, Mounir, on one admittedly inebriated dinner a few years ago. But it was time to visit the winery tucked away down a side-street in Beaune, and taste through an enormous selection of wines with the man himself. Since his first vintage in 1999, he has focused on buying fruit that expresses individual lieux-dits, so that his cellar consists of dozens of micro-Cuvees that take a whole morning to taste through. He is an extremely principled winemaker with strong, some might say controversial beliefs. Even before entering the barrel cellar, he opined that too many white Burgundies are picked too late and that both the alcoholic and malolactic fermentations are completed too rapidly. Mornir likes two summers to complete the elevage and feels that too many vignerons bottle too early. He also used minimal sulphur for his wines, informing me that though his wines often start out deeper in color, they tend to become paler as they mature in bottle. I asked him about his opinion on the two vintages that we tasted together, the 2010 and 2011. “The 2010 and 2011 vintages have a lot of common points: low yields, fresh summer, both starting fruity and perhaps a little uniform,” he explained. “Then a year later, their personalities started coming out. The evolution of both vintages is similar. After a year and half they began to gain depth. When we picked 2010, people were talking about a light vintage, but now that is forgotten because they are so powerful. In 2011 they did the same. The 2010s achieved maturity naturally, but in 2011 we had to chaptalize most of the wines a little. I think it is an old style of Burgundy, how the wines were made before 1995. In 2010 we talk about tannins, but in 2011 we talk about more dry extract. You feel the presence of the wine but they are not dry. The 2010s finish with firm tannins, so in terms of longevity I think they will close down in a couple of years and then need another eight years. But I don’t think this will happen with the 2011. They are more like 2001 and 2007 that show their harmony early. They will be enjoyable over the next 15 years. The purity of the terroir in 2011 is exceptional, whereas in 2010 you have the power.” Apart from my marathon morning journey through Lucien le Moine’s 2011s, we sashayed over to the 2010s to see how a dozen were shaping up in bottle. These were bottled around August 2012 with a little sulphur in June. The bottles were double decanted at 90 minutes before tasting. Importers: Vintus LLC, Pleasantville, NY; tel. (914) 769-3000; Atherton Imports, Menlo Park, CA; tel. (650) 328-6639

The 2010 Clos St. Denis is all about textural finesse and effortless grace. Layers of sweet perfume emerge from this harmonious, understated Burgundy. White flowers and licorice add dimension and volume on the finely knit finish. Anticipated maturity: 2020-2030. It is always fascinating to settle in for a tasting with proprietor Mounir Saouma. With the exception of Jadot, I can-t think of a single maison that draws across such a broad range of top vineyards. When taken together, the whites and reds provide insight to the performance of dozens of the finest sites in the region. Saouma is not much for comparisons when discussing 2010, saying quite simply, -2010 is 2010.- The vintage was not without some disappointments. Because of the miniscule yields, there is no 2010 Romanee St. Vivant or Richebourg. As always, these are some of the most unmanipulated wines being made in Burgundy. When I tasted the 2010s in November 2011, the wines had never been sulphured or racked. Saouma had just finished bottling his 2009s (a vintage many bottled on the early side) in October 2011!Importers: Vintus LLC, Pleasantville, NY; tel. (914) 769-3000, Atherton Imports, Menlo Park, CA; tel. (650) 328-6639