Tasted in Moulin à Vent with Edouard Labruyère, Nadine Gublin & Michel Rovere, 27 February 2023.
Domaine Labruyère
310 Des Thorins
71570 Romanèche-Thorins
Tel: +33 3 85 20 38 18
www.domaine-labruyere.com
More reports with Domaine Labruyère
Nadine on 2022 and 2021:
“2022? – Oh yes – absolutely happy – though more from the perspective of quality than quantity – again! We had a good harvest but below 40 hl/ha. For context, in 2021 we lost about 70% of the harvest – the morning of the 8th April was the worst – and then there was the wet weather for whole of the spring and early summer – not just the rain but the lack of sunshine too – mildew and black rot were the results… We can just be happy that the flowering went through in nice conditions and quite quickly too – and that August was ‘correct.’ We started to harvest the 18th September but had to stop as the rain came. It was the second vintage of our conversion to organic – we won’t forget it for a while – but from this coming 2023 vintage, all will be labelled AB.
“We didn’t have enough grapes to isolate all our normal cuvées – so we made a ‘general’ cuvée and our Clos as we have a hectare for the latter. Just 4 tanks for the elevage this time round. The wines are racked and we are planning for mid-April bottlings – so just a little earlier than normal. Not just here but also our pinots further north – I was a little sad tasting when we made the decuvages after the fermentations but the wines stabilised and reinforced as their elevage continued. I can honestly say it was a really good surprise. We made wines with power in the last years – here is some elegance that also refreshes.”
The wines…
I noted, last year, that their 2020s were ‘possibly the best set of wines I ever tasted here’ – well the 2021 Clos is next-level – a great wine. For years I found the wines brooding and concentrated but without overt interest – that’s changed. It’s such a shame that there are so few bottles.
2021 Moulin à Vent Coeur de Terroirs Vieilles-Vignes
This label since 2012, a blend of parcels of 8-10 ha depending on the vintage. Racked last week. All was destemmed, a big work for the triage too – to remove the small dried grapes
The colour is quite good here. Hmm – a lovely, airy width, lots of red berries. Round, silky – juicy – saline. Broad finishing. That’s a simply excellent wine…
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 plenty of colour. Hmm – a lovely, more vertical, nose but of purity and freshness – elegance too – even a faint white pepper accent to this pretty red fruit. Here is the same silken width as the first wine but with an extra depth of flavour and an extra suggestion tannin but with no grain. Broad finishing with faint bitters – that’s a top wine in 2021 – it has a modest intensity of flavour in the finish but it hangs around for a long time – bravo – one of the wines of the vintage!