Tasted in Moulin à Vent with Nadine Gublin & Michel Rovere chef de culture and 38-year veteran here at Labruyère, 22 February 2021.
Domaine Labruyère
310 Des Thorins
71570 Romanèche-Thorins
Tel: +33 3 85 20 38 18
www.domaine-labruyere.com
More reports for Domaine Labruyère
Nadine and Michel on 2020:
“2020 – our harvest started very early, about Friday the 22nd August but in good conditions – hot for sure but with lots of maturity and a richness of sugar – at the same time lots of tartaric acid – a phenomenon of concentration. It was a small volume, just a bit more than in 2019 which itself was over 40% less than was produced in 2018 – unsurprisingly, lots of dry material in these grapes. Plenty of whole clusters used too, despite that the colours came out practically black. Long fermentations though – quite laborious – not all are done just yet but they haven’t stopped.”
Nadine and Michel on 2019:
“We started harvesting 13th September a bit later than 2018 or 2020 – that was really due to the cold of April. We finished 29 September. The frost wasn’t visible but certainly the cold braked the development of the vines. The flowering was longer than usual due to the cold at the start but it finished hot – a bit of a brutal temperature change. The summer temperatures were very positive for achieving maturity though – and with no lack of acidity. Nothing is in bottle just now, we will start in April. Lots of 600-litre barrels are being used in elevage – they account for more than 60% of the elevage in a small volume vintage such as 2019, the amount of new barrels being a little more than 5% of the total.”
The wines…
Wines of depth and density – wines you could keep as long as you like – the Le Clos is brilliant…
Nothing in bottle yet – so these were tank samples:
2019 Moulin à Vent Coeur de Terroirs Vieilles-Vignes
This label since 2012, a blend of parcels of 8-10 ha depending on the vintage. Currently racked into in Cement for last part of elevage. Predominantly from granite soils rich in quartz.
A deep and dark nose, accented with a faintly reductive side. Round, concentrated but open too – a baseline with a little grain of tannin. Concentrated, mineral finishing, slowly mouth-watering here, still with some darker fruit. Finishing really well.
2019 Moulin à Vent Champ de Cour
1.7 hectares worth, of south-east facing granitic plot with clay. Single parcel. Recently racked. About one-third of whole-clusters retained for this wine.
A more open freshness with an added aromatic complexity of fine herbs. More open though similarly concentrated to the previous wine – here with a little more overt energy and complexity, a very lovely finish here – much more open and accessible than the previous wine.
2019 Moulin à Vent Le Carquelin
Share this clos with Jadot – on granite rose and sand direct south-facing, taking the name of the parcel like the last wine. 1.75 hectares worth. 70-75 years-old vines. This was all destemmed.
Hmm, a very attractive dark note of fruit here, darkly mineral at the same time. The oak is a bit more visible, but always the spicy kind here, not with vanilla or cream. A depth of graphite mineral and almost a granular complexity. Extra long.
A monopole. O.92 ha, 70-year-old vines (the rest were all 50), sometimes worked with a horse. From the top of the parcel on what is basically decomposed rock – there’s no real soil. The vines sit below the Moulin. Also all destemmed, this racked a couple of days ago.
Like all of these, there’s plenty of colour. A nose that’s like diving from a cliff into a depth of dark-fruited aroma – cooler fruit – but not just that, growing with a floral perfume too – extra-special. Fresh and direct, the finest of tannin, faintly with a dryness but also a growing intensity of great fruit and mineral flavour. But flavour that eases over the palate into such a comfortable and accessible, super-long finish. That’s easily a great wine – one with a long future ahead of it.