GIVRY Clos du Cras Long 1er CRU FRANCOIS LUMPP 2023

BURGHOUND : 91-94

2023 Givry “Clos du Cras Long”: Once again the nose is firmly reduced and revealing essentially nothing of interest. There is though a really lovely sense of energy to the detailed and strikingly textured middle weight flavors that exude evident minerality on the precise, moderately austere and persistent finish that is shaped by dense but fine tannins. This is a lovely wine but one to buy and put away for at least 5 years and it should easily repay a decade plus. (90-93)/2033+

As I noted last year, François Lumpp has now completely withdrawn from the day-to-day activities in favor of his daughter Anne-Cécile and her partner Nicolas, even if he was kind enough to stop by to say hello for old time’s sake. Anne-Cécile told me that the 2023 “growing season was a sort of rollercoaster with moderately high disease pressure but a good flowering and excellent fruit set. The season was hot but not blazing though it was considerably wetter than its 2022 counterpart which obviously helped to avoid hydric stress. We began picking on the 4th of September with the chardonnay and continued through to the 14th. The chardonnay was quite clean but the pinot required a fair amount of sorting as there was a bit of everything, which is to say underripe, rotten, sunburned and damaged berries. It’s funny sometimes how the harvest strikes you as you progress day by day and in 2023, I had the impression of seeing several different types all in one. Part of it seemed largely perfect, some of it was good but not perfect and yet another required a lot of work to sort the good fruit from the less qualitative. Ultimately, we realized about 50 hl/ha in white and 48 hl/ha in red. By contrast, the potential alcohols were much more variable as the whites averaged right at 13% but the pinot ranged anywhere from 12.7 to as high as 14%. As to the wines, despite having to sort the pinot much more carefully than the chardonnay, what we were left with has fashioned some really lovely reds because while the whites are perfectly good, I believe there is more potential for the former than the latter.” While I found the whites to be very good, I too found more potential and overall quality among the domaine’s excellent reds. I have said this before but if you’re not familiar with the Lumpp wines,, especially the reds, you’re missing out as they deliver excellent quality for very fair prices, particularly in the context of today’s frothy Burgundy market. Moreover, their 2023s are no exception and I warmly recommend them.