POUILLY FUISSÉ

2018 Vieilles Vignes Les Crays Domaine Daniel Barraud

EN PRIMEUR

Crisp nose, mineral to the fore - palate is loaded with juicy citrus notes. This has an easy flow though - smooth and velveteen on the palate with just a slowly building mineral scrape towards the finish. Good stuff. From vines on the rock of Vergisson. Behind Verchere. 'Calcaire Rouge' soil here. Top drawer terroir gives such refined complexity in this humdinger of a Maconnais.L&S (Nov 2019)

* This is a pre-shipment/primeur offer. All orders are accepted under the TERMS of this offer which differ from the terms of the rest of the site.

(from 60+ year old vines located in Vergisson). A subtle application of wood can be found on the ripe and mildly exotic fresh white-fleshed fruit and pineapple-suffused nose that exudes a discreet spiciness. There is good verve if perhaps not quite the same density of material to the middle weight flavors that possess a slightly more sophisticated mouthfeel along with mineral hints that add a sense of lift to the clean, dry and bitter lemon-inflected finish. This mildly warm and sappy effort will need at least a few years of bottle age to add a bit more depth. Drinking range: 2024 - Rating: 90 Allen Meadows, www.Burghound.com (Oct 2020)

The 2018 Pouilly-Fuissé Les Crays is another expressive, immediate wine from Barraud this year, bursting with aromas of peach, pear, mandarin orange and white flowers. Medium to full-bodied, fleshy and sumptuous, it's pretty and open-knit, with ripe acids and a saline finish. Drinking range: 2020 - 2027 Rating: 91 William Kelley, The Wine Advocate (Jun 2020)

(from 60+ year old vines located in Vergisson). A more subtle though hardly invisible dollop of wood can be found on the notably ripe yet fresh white-fleshed fruit that exude a discreet spiciness. There is better verve is perhaps not quite the same density of material to the middle weight flavors that possess a slightly more sophisticated mouth feel along with mineral hints that add a sense of lift to the clean, dry and bitter lemon-inflected finish. This will need at least a few years of bottle age to add a bit more depth. Drinking range: 2025 - Rating: 90-92 Allen Meadows, www.Burghound.com (Jan 2020)

Bottled. Honeyed fruit plus a reductive note. Pretty exciting blend of elements all in the right place. Splits the difference between a Mâconnais wine and one from the Côte d’Or. Opulent but not fat. GV Drinking range: 2023 - 2030 Rating: 17 Jancis Robinson OBE MW - www.JancisRobinson.com (Jan 2020)

We still see Daniel Barraud when we visit but today his children Julien and Anaïs are at the helm here now. They have vineyards in Vergisson that are mostly high up under the famous rock (Vergisson lies between the two dramatic cliffs of the rocks of Solutré and Vergisson). The vineyards here are significantly higher than those of Fuissé, and are consequently later-ripening, and the wines often have a more solid structure - but they each have their own distinct characters, from the Puligny-like directness of the La Roche to the fat richness of the 'en Buland', via the mineral force of the Crays.

All the wines are made keeping close to the tenets of bio-dynamics - not for the sake of it - but because over the generations experience has taught them that these principles really are the best way forward - as such they only ever bottle on a waning moon. All the wines see some barrel ageing apart from the Chaintré, which is aged in foudre (2/3) and tank.

As Allen Meadows wrote on www.Burghound.com 'I have said this before, but I will say it again: no one makes better wine in the Mâconnais than Barraud. There are a few domaines that produce wines that are sometimes just as good, ... but none of them surpasses the quality he consistently produces. If you aren’t familiar with the wines, you owe it to yourself and your pocketbook to check them out.'

With the 2022 releases this 11 HA domaine is now officially certified organic. Formalising the way they have been working for years.

The Barrauds have four vineyards that have been upgraded to Premier Cru status: 'En France', 'Les Crays', 'Sur la Roche', and la Verchère, although this last one will change its name to 'La Maréchaude' but retaining the parcel name of Verchère too. It's one of those oddities of such classifications that the vineyard which has consistently produced the Barraud's best wine for all the years that we have known them, 'En Buland', is not classified Premier Cru status as it faces north - this is electric in 2022.

ORDERING VIA OUR WEBSITE:

  • We will respond as quickly as possible with confirmation of your order and your invoice.

Please note that certain wines are on very tight allocations and will first be offered to customers who buy across the range. If you have any queries, please email our primeurs team or speak to your usual L&S contact.

ORDERING VIA EMAIL:

Please feel free to email us at any time. This list can include wines listed as available on the website, as well as those marked 'To Be Advised'. We will reply as soon as possible with confirmation of what we can offer.

STORAGE OPTIONS:

Wines bought en primeur are scheduled to arrive in the UK over the course of the next eighteen months. If you do not wish to take home delivery, you may wish to consider where you would like the wines shipped on arrival in the UK. Lea & Sandeman offers duty paid and in bond storage through a dedicated storage company called Elephant Storage. For more details on the terms and fees associated with storage please go to our Storage Homepage or contact our primeurs team for more information.

While helpful, we do not require a firm commitment on delivery destination to process your primeur order at this stage. Our team will be in contact with you when your wines arrive in the UK to confirm the necessary delivery details.

BURGUNDY EN PRIMEUR FAQ

OFFER: All wines are offered subject to availability and final confirmation.

PRICING: All prices are quoted IN BOND ex-VAT, by the case size stated. Please double check that the desired case size does match what is being offered as wines are variously listed in threes, sixes, dozens, halves and larger formats.

DELIVERY - TIMING: This is a primeur offer so the wines are not yet physically available for delivery. They will be shipped to the UK over the next eighteen months. Generally, wines are shipped to your nominated location once the whole order has landed in our London City Bond account. If you require wines to be delivered by a certain date, please advise us at the time of ordering.

DELIVERY - FEES: In bond delivery to an Elephant Storage account (for more information see 'Storage Options' opposite) is free of charge. Transfer of wines to any third-party bond (i.e. not Elephant Storage) will incur an administration charge of £16.50 + VAT for all orders under £1,000. Please indicate if you would like the wine duty paid and a duty & VAT invoice will be raised once all the wines on your order are available for shipment. Once the relevant duty & VAT has been settled, we will ship the wines to your nominated address as per our normal duty paid Delivery Terms.

PAYMENT: All orders will be invoiced for immediate payment by cheque, cash, debit card or cleared funds to our account. We regret that we cannot accept credit cards for primeur orders. We reserve the right to apply a dunning charge of 2% per month on invoices unpaid after 30 days.