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Uutiset
Parker 91 points: Domaine de La Romanee-Conti’s Cuvee Duvault-Blochet – in those vintages when this cuvee is essayed (which did not include 2007) – characteristically represents an assemblage from younger vines in Echezeaux, Grands-Echezeaux, Romanee-St.-Vivant, and Richebourg whose fruit did not make the cut for the estates grands vins, but for the 2008 Vosne-Romanee 1er Cru Duvault-Blochet, fruit from the Domaine’s choice parcels in several prestigious Vosne premier crus was included that in past years had ended up discreetly in the hands of select negociants. Musky, bittersweetly-perfumed scents of peony and narcissus mingle with kirsch, almond extract, and fresh black fruits in the nose and carry over onto a bright yet subtly creamy palate, featuring tart-edged dark cherry and cassis tinged with bitter herbal concentrate, vanilla, and caramel. This wine treads a fine line in both texture and flavor between fascinating contrast and counterpoint on the one hand and outright bifurcation of creaminess and tartness, sweet fruit and herbal intensity on the other. (Only half of the clusters for this were destemmed.) But a deep, savory, subtly saline sense of meat broth richness that emerges as the wine takes on air helps to knit it and carries into its long, saliva-inducing finish. I can certainly understand why it was left in barrel after four grand crus had already been bottled, and this will, I feel sure, be fascinating to follow for more than a decade.
Domaine de La Romanee-Conti director Aubert de Villaine perceives both the estate’s 2008 and 2007 collections as vins de garde, and I can’t argue with that assessment, even though when I first tasted the 2007s – soon after they had come out of malo – I harbored reservations, wondering whether to interpret de Villaine’s description of them as “ethereal” to read “ephemeral.” He says holding back the usual 5% share of production for the Domaine’s own cellar was difficult in the greatly reduced 2008 vintage, and that he is already regretting not having arranged to bottle a larger share in magnum. He still had time when I visited in April to reconsider the bottle format for three appellations, which were the only ones I was able to taste, since De Villaine is loathe to show wines in the first 9-12 months after bottling. (I’ll report on the full 2008 collection from bottle at a later date.) If the 2007s here were unusual for that vintage in the degree to which they gained stature in the course of elevage, such behavior was normal when it came to 2008, so that I was not surprised to hear de Villaine remark on a new-found degree of confidence in the stature of that collection. To an even greater degree than in most vintages, success in 2007 and 2008 came down to meticulousness at every stage; to quality of vine material; and to location, in all of which respects no estate in Burgundy has any advantage over the Domaine de La Romanee-Conti. Interestingly, the estate lingered no longer over the picking of their 2008s – from the first of the La Tache on September 27 to the last of the Echezeaux on October 6 – than they had over the 2007s, which were picked from September 1-11. The inclusion of stems was lowered to less than half in 2007, incidentally, but in 2008 was typically closer to three-quarters. Vendange entier is a technique not only time-honored and in continuous use at the Domaine de La Romanee-Conti (even when it fell out of favor at most Burgundy estates in the waning 20th century), but one which de Villaine and cellarmaster Bernard Noblet have subjected to repeated testing, so as to establish in any given vintage the right balance between 100% de-stemmed (“which lacks something by way of complexity,” says de Villaine) and 100% (“which can be too marked by the stems,” he continues).
Viinin Kuvailu
The Story
In 1934 was the introduction of the first vintage of Cuvée Duvault-Blochet, a Vosne-Romanée premier cru produced from the fruit of the grand cru vineyards’ younger vines. Typically sold to négociants, these grapes proved that year to be of such exceptional quality that Edmund de Villaine, Aubert’s grandfather, decided to make a wine to honor his predecessor.
Another 65 years passed before this cuvée reappeared among the domaine’s new releases. Despite spring rain that threatened to infect the vines with mildew, the 1999 vintage benefited from an August heat wave that intensified the sugar levels and acidity of the grapes, which achieved near-perfect ripeness. Once the initial harvest was done, the vineyard team began to collect the remaining fruit. "The grapes from the young vines that we harvested separately in our grand crus were of such exceptional quality," Aubert de Villaine stated in the domaine’s report on the 1999 vintage, "that we decided, if only for this time, to revive the tradition [of Cuvée Duvault-Blochet]." He went on to add that this bottling "in no way should be interpreted as the beginning of a ‘second wine’ from the Domaine, to be produced every year.
But if the bottling of Cuvée Duvault-Blochet was not quite the rule over the next seven vintages, neither was the 1999 vintage the sole exception. The domaine went on to produce this wine again in 2002 and a very small quantity of it in 2004. This spring, the directors announced the release of a 2006 vintage of the Vosne-Romanée premier cru.
Vuosikerta 2008
An indifferent spring caused uneven flowering and mildew risk. At the end of June the weather changed for the better, continuing into July. Apart from local hail in the Côte de Beaune at the end of July, the summer began well. August arrived fairly cold and variable, but fortunately the last week of the month brought fine, warm weather. The lead-up to harvest saw sunny skies, apart from two days of rain in mid-September. A challenging vintage.
From day one the red wines have had a rich, pure fruit character with fine, silky tannins. The whites offer a good balance between ripe fruit and vibrant acidity. A vintage not to be overlooked because the wines deliver potential and pleasure.
