“What’s going on here! a lowly Bourgogne . . . this is supposed to be about the next cult wines, have we just been had?” You are about to ask me. I’ll let you answer the question yourself, but please wait until you’ve tried this wine.
David Clark was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Scottish Parents (I know, still not promising). They sent him back to the United Kingdom for school, and he finished up with an engineering degree from Cambridge. He worked for a brief time for IBM, but became infatuated with wine, and after drinking his way through France decided to pursue winemaking. He worked the 1997 harvest at Mayacamas in Napa Valley, and the 1998 Harvest at Tahbilk in Australia. While in Australia, he became a software engineer for the Williams Formula One Team. He traveled the world with them for four years, eventually becoming the director of pit stop strategy. In this time, he saved enough money to go to enology school. In 2003 he attended the one-year course that the Lycee Viticole in Beaune. Upon graduating, he purchased a tiny plot outside the village of Morey-St.-Denis. Thus Domaine David Clark was born.
By 2005, an outstanding vintage on all accounts, David had accumulated a bit (1.5 ha) of land, and made nearly 6,000 bottles of wine (bottles, not cases). The wines are stunning. His meticulous vineyard practices and hard work (he is his only employee) have endeared him to his neighbors, and some of the best vignerons in Burgundy sing his praises, no small feat for a foreigner in France, much less the hyper-insular world of Burgundy. Christophe Roumier even sold him a small plot of Gamay to use for his Bourgogne Passetoutgrains, which is the best wine of this appellation that I have ever had.
This wine is from the single vineyard Au Pelson, which David Clark farms organically (he will be certified beginning in 2009). 1888 bottles were made
(157 cases) were made, of which only a few boxes made it to the US. The vineyard yielded 28 hl/ha in 2005, and David made no additions of any sort to the wine (everything here is 100% natural). The wine was aged in 1 four year-old barrique, and one new barrique, though the wine from the new barrique was racked to another old barrique after four months. The resulting “humble” Bourgogne has a depth of flavor, and a focus of fruit and earth that is rare even among Grand Crus, and an aroma that is slow to develop, but haunting when it arrives. In a 2007 interview with Jancis Ronbinson, David said that he is now “getting to the point where [he] wants some more glamorous vines.” (update: he has 4 Ouevres of Vosne-Romanee). The good news here is that the wine is produced in such miniscule quantities that it will take a while for anyone to find out about it. The bad news is that it is awfully hard to get even now.
Although this is a shoe-in for classic red Burgundy pairings like wild mushrooms, braised beef, and anything with truffles, it is also stunning by itself, and probably deserves a little contemplation before being tossed around with food. This is a wine that is drinking wonderfully now, but will also age admirably through 2015 and beyond: I am conservative here, because it is the first vintage, and has no track record.
