From 6 plots whse vines average about 35 years old – there is some vine disease, but the payoff is lower yields and smaller grapes and clusters. Medium, medium-plus colour. A similar, slightly sweet aromatic profile but the fruit is darker. Supple, with good concentration. Very well balanced. The tannin shows together with the dark flavours as you head into the creamy finish. Very successful villages!
Ardhuy
2007 Ardhuy Corton Les Hautes Murottes
Picked quite late, requiring lots of sorting. Medium, medium-plus colour. It’s a cherry-compote nose that’s edged with cream. After the Gevrey villages there is an obvious increase in flavour intensity. Reasonable tannin, good freshness and a long finish that shows lots of very fine red-fruit character. Very pretty today, but serious at the core.
2007 Ardhuy Beaune Les Teurons Blanc
2005 Ardhuy Pommard Les Fremiers
Medium, medium-plus cherry-red. The nose is pregnant with dark oak and soft spice, quite sweet but avoiding toast and only hinting at vanilla – all this covering black cherry and berry notes. The palate is concentrated without fat, intense in the mid-palate, and with acidity that pushes the finish quite some way. The fruit has dark oaky elements for the first minutes, but the tannins are completely buried. I’d leave this a couple of years to lessen the oak-derived aromas, but it is a medium-weight, complex and rather cultured Pommard.
2005 Ardhuy Vosne-Romanée Les Chaumes
Medium cherry-red. You are greeted by wide, concentrated and bright nose, faintly alcoholic with red and black fruit and a gradually developing creamy background – perhaps a hint of green pepper is the only clue to ‘vosne’. Lovely texture and concentration, the tannins are completely enveloped by the ripe fruit, but enough freshness remains. A slow diminuendo of a finish rolling on with the acidity. At the right price, this is an easy rebuy.
2004 Ardhuy Pommard Les Lambots
A shiny medium cherry-red. The nose is pure pine-needles and cedar – slowly a more fruit-driven effect comes into the mix but over about 20 minutes it is never more than a secondary characteristic. The palate is acid forward, seemingly it needs just an edge more ripeness. The best part of this wine is its texture – very nice finely grained tannins – the finish is not too bad and seems riper than the rest of the wine. Works reasonably well with food, but the borderline ripeness means it would be challenge on its own.
2004 Ardhuy Pommard Les Fremiers
Medium, medium-plus cherry-red. The nose has faint cedar and a powdery red fruit aspect of quite some width, depth develops only slowly though I’d like more precision. The palate has just an edge to it, like the acidity is only-just ripe – which would be a surprise considering it was picked at 13.9° natural – on the positive side here you can easily see why this is a premier cru; for the first time we have a wine with more than one dimension on the mid-palate, and nice fruit it is too. There is nothing like the density of the previous Dugat-Py wine, but then this 1er cru is less than half the price of that villages wine!
2005 Ardhuy Pommard Les Fremiers
Medium, medium-plus cherry-red. Soft and round, this has a lovely high-toned nose and a very faint caramel-coffee edge. Ripe and sweet palate – again with a lovely extra 1er cru dimension to the fruit. Well balanced with some faintly astringent tannin and a super finish.
Rebuy – Yes – and actually I did!