Domaine Arlaud Morey Saint Denis 1er Cru "Aux Cheseaux"

Cyprien Arlaud made a deliberate choice that inverts Côte de Nuits convention: cap new oak at 20% for Premiers Crus, bottle unfined and unfiltered by gravity on the lunar cycle, and let the site speak without cosmetic intervention. Aux Cheseaux sits at the northern edge of Morey-Saint-Denis, hard against the Gevrey-Chambertin boundary, where the limestone proportion in the clay-limestone subsoil is measurably higher than in neighbouring Millandes — a geological shift that drives the wine's tighter, more angular structure and pronounced mineral tension. Hand-harvested fruit passes multiple sorting tables before gravity-flow transfer into temperature-controlled cement tanks, where cold pre-fermentation maceration precedes a ~20-day spontaneous fermentation with indigenous yeasts; extraction is kept deliberately gentle via remontage rather than pigeage. Aging runs 14–16 months in French oak at approximately 20% new barrique, assembled four to five weeks before bottling. The domaine's biodynamic certification — the first in Morey-Saint-Denis, achieved 2014 — governs every step from vine to bottle, including the bottling date itself. The 2022 vintage produced dense, brooding Pinot Noir with dark fruit character across the Côte de Nuits; Aux Cheseaux in this year carries the structural weight of the warm growing season but the site's limestone spine keeps acidity intact, and the wine is noted as requiring cellaring to 2030 and beyond.