The 2024 Clos de la Roche Grand Cru might be Dujac's standout this vintage. It has a touch more lift and fruit intensity compared to the Charmes-Chambertin. It is not opulent but would like to be. Lovely pure wild strawberry and raspberry scents, veins of blue fruit, becoming more floral in style with violet and peony. The palate is medium-bodied with an overtly spicy, curry leaf-tinged opening. Very cohesive, fine weight, the whole bunch vocal on the finish but simpatico with the fruit underneath. This will be very tempting in its youth but is one of the minority of 2024s that might repay cellaring.

As they have done in recent years, Dujac only conducted group tastings this year. Of course, I much prefer one-on-one visits, but that is compensated by the fact that Jeremy Seysses offers valuable insights on the vintage and a frankness that you do not see elsewhere.

“Some cuvées are one barrel in quantity and so are not being shown,” he forewarns, though his portfolio was not as curtailed as Cécile Tremblay’s an hour earlier. “For the négociant side, there is now just our Nuits Saint-Georges Les Cras because we want to continue that contract, but again, it amounts to just one barrel in this vintage. In 2024, there were 65 high-pressure rain events that could contaminate the vines with mildew, and that is uncontainable. Nevertheless, we stuck to organic viticulture and did 18 or 19 treatments. Our results are no worse than those who conducted systemic spraying. Picking was from September 19 to 25. I originally planned on starting on September 12. Part of me just wanted to get it over and done with, but my vineyard manager [and brother] Alec persuaded me to wait for a week and get more from this vintage. This did help accumulate more sugar, and everything came in between 12.3 and 12.7%. No grapes stayed in tank for more than ten days. There was minimal extraction, with just three punch-downs and a small pumpover to wet the cap, then it was pressed off. We averaged at 18.5 hl/ha, around half a normal crop. I ran out of small tanks, which makes it more difficult to punch down.”

Before discussing the important topic of whole bunch, Jeremy Seysses took the conversation in a much more personal direction. He mentioned that his father, Jacques, became seriously ill just before harvest, adding to his stress. It was his first harvest without him. He admitted that he wavered about using less whole bunch, but with everything going on, he threw caution to the wind. He used almost 100% whole bunch, and only slightly less for the Charmes-Chambertin. I suppose in the context of everything, Jeremy Seysses felt he had little to lose. So, why not take that gamble? In any case, he was intrigued by whole bunch in a cooler vintage, and he mentioned that he has done the same in 2025.

“The pH was 3.2-3.3. There was less malic acid than I expected, so the malo was only slightly prolonged. The wines are on their fine lees, which we lightly stirred last week, and we will bottle in the first week of March. I was expecting the 2024s to be disastrous, but they are not. There is greenness, but not from underripeness, more from the whole cluster. There is some reduction but there is good purity of fruit.”

I will confess that when Seysses told me he had used almost 100% whole cluster, I wondered if he was bracing me for wines that were out of proportion. On the contrary, as I told him afterwards, the gamble quite simply paid off. Despite the high proportion of stems, they just added seasoning to the cuvées in barrel rather than defining them. It could have been very different and trust me, like elsewhere, I would not have pulled any punches if that had been so. The standout for me this year is the Clos de la Roche, but the Echézeaux and the Vosne-Romanée Aux Malconsorts also shine. Emblematic of 2024’s inequality and attesting to those that describe it as a terroir vintage, the latter was superior to the Les Beaumonts, which lacked a bit of stuffing by direct comparison.

So, Dujac’s 2024s pulled victory from the brink of defeat and, most importantly of all, Jacques Seysses made a full recovery. - Neal Martin January 2026

93-96 points Inside Burgundy (Jasper Morris)
Bright purple. A mix of red fruit and stem influence on the nose. The Clos de la Roche becomes more perfumed, with middleweight fresh red berries on the palate, then a stronger white pepper behind. The stems are more influential than the fruit and terroir just at the moment, but all the components are there and will deliver. Drink from 2032-2040.