Medium-plus cherry-red colour. The nose starts with a herby, minty element before high-toned raspberry fruit starts to make itself known – really a very nice blend – eventually it settles into a more mineral and herb expression. The palate is 2004 fresh coupled to sweet red fruit, though not quite enough to avoid the mid-palate showing a little hard. The finish, whilst not very long, is very tasty with a real creamy lift.
Pale yellow. The nose launches forward with ripe, citrus edged fruit before settling into a more brioche dominated lime fruit. The palate retains the citrus edge to its sweet fruit, though the key attribute is the mouthwatering acidity. This wine exemplifies perfectly the vintage – lovely aromatics and fresh presentation – yet it also shows the achilles heel, just not quite enough density at the villages level for enjoying on its own – perfect with food though! One glass was left overnight in the open bottle in the refridgerator, it was as fresh as the night before.
Medium colour. A smokey and wide though less intense nose than the Bourgogne; it does deepen with time and shows real (if understated) complexity. Versus the Bourgogne there is a perceptible extra density and length, the acidity is more fully covered. There is just a hint of bitterness though no astringency to the tannin. Long, long, long. It is a seriously interesting and complex wine but I find it hard to reconcile that it should contain Richebourg and Romanée St.Vivant – at least Leroy’s! There is some value here I think, though like the Bourgogne, it is the aromatics that excel today.
Drunk as a counterpoint to the Leroy 2004 Vosne-Romanée – but 24 hours later. Medium-plus cherry-red. The nose is dense with tightly bound red fruit, only faintly spicy, just a trace of cedar, quite wide; totally different and more fruit driven than the complex, forward, smoky stems of the Leroy. The palate has lots of forward acidity, the fruit extract is only-just enough to cover this, but
there is still an element of tartness in the finish. The Leroy had better balance, but this seems to have more fruit, plus a little grainy tannin. Open for several hours this crosses the border from almost good to good and seems to have improved in balance, perhaps not a wine to fill your cellar with, but worthy of a few bottles for future reference.
Medium cherry-red. The nose is interesting with a green herby/spicy element to start. The palate is very interesting and really quite intense. The tannin is there and a little dry for about one second before smoothing-out into a very satisfying red-fruit dominated finish. That you could return to this after either the d’Ardhuy 1er or the DRC 1er that followed it is a compliment.
Despite 75% whole bunch fermentation this is a deep cherry-red colour. The nose shouts aggressively of funk, reduction, sulfur and oak – nothing else – two hours are insufficient to make an iota of difference. If you leave the bottle (sans cork) upright in a ‘eurocave’ for 36 hours you will end up with something that actually smells of wine; dense but pure red fruit – I get the impression that you might need a week to see any oxidation! But why leave in a eurocave for 36 hours? Easy, what the funk might hide on the nose is there for all to see on the palate – cork taint. Now that’s a big shame (at least it wasn’t his Chambertin!) because there is concentration and a really exectutive texture – the tannins are so fine despite what I assume to be significant extraction. Ignoring the taint, this is mightily impressive wine though if you want to drink now I suggest early preparation – 8 hours in a decanter with lots of air would be my starting point or, better still, opening the night before and leaving the open bottle to overnight in the fridge.
Medium yellow. Forward nose that has quite a blast of oak for 5 minutes before fading into a tight oak-free core. Nice texture, lovely acidity that flows into the mid-palate and finsh – providing lift and ebullience. No shrinking violet but also quite measured in delivery. This is a lovely village wine.
You are using an outdated browser. Please update your browser to view this website correctly: https://browsehappy.com/;