2008 Echezeaux

Comprising five barrels from four different growers in Poulaillieres, Les Treux, Grands Echezeaux, and Echezeaux du Dessus – but in total representing less than half of the volume he produced from 2006 – Laurent’s 2008 Echezeaux Vieilles Vignes features fresh rhubarb and red cherry as well as singed, vanilla- and cocoa powder-tinged caramelized pit fruits and baked goods. The tension between fresh berry tartness and caramelized confection; between richness and vivacity, is uncannily synergistic. A creamy richness of texture adds allure and underlying suggestions of peat and tobacco further complexity. The finish here is ravishing and irresistibly insistent that I take another sip … and another. As winsome as this is – especially for its vintage – it harbors energy to take it through at least 15 years of excellence. Dominique Laurent – for more on whose methodology consult my report on his 2005s in issue 171 – purchased very cautiously from 2008 just as he had in 2007, and even then rather radically declassified barrels or relegated them to the second label he sells inside France (as opposed to those labeled “Vieilles Vignes”). Hail, he noted, put his sources in Volnay out of contention. “It is a nugatory vintage that leaves me discontent; one that had to be solely for the sake of cash flow – and, of course, to get access to 2009s” he said, in ludicrous exaggeration and unfairness to himself and the wines he was about to show me. Ripeness was not the issue, he insists (though some wines were chaptalized by as much as a degree – typically a matter on which Laurent doesn’t call the shots) but rather the fact that the vintage did not conduce to the long elevage that is Laurent’s trademark, or at least, the trademark of those wines that have been vinified and are then raised by Laurent in keeping with his notion of methode ancienne (as opposed to those he considers representative of “peasant” or “naive” practice – which could arguably be more accurately termed “do-no-harm” vinification and elevage). “The two things that most differentiate a wine of mine from the same wine raised in the grower’s cellar,” volunteers Laurent, “are more lees and less sulfur. The barrels are secondary.” But he adds that he’s not about to back-off significantly on the share of new wood he uses, seeing its hygienic aspects as critical to precisely his ability to maintain those regimens of long lees contact and low sulfur. The scents and flavors of new wood are sometimes more prominent in Laurent’s 2008s – whether simply due to the contrast they present with the fresh, often tart-edged fruit character this vintage’s wines, or perhaps due to high tartaric acidity literally serving somehow for greater extraction from barrel – yet in most instances I found productive tension and synergy to prevail. While he deemed 2007 to be – like its successor – inferior to 2006 not to mention 2005, and declassified many lots, Laurent also scored impressive results (of which I tasted only a modest subset). In these 2007s, new wood was less noticeable, which Laurent suggests is in part – but probably only small part – to his having utilized a bit less. Having noted Laurent’s skepticism as to the suitability of most 2008 material for long elevage, he still acquired numerous wines that had been fermented with a high percentage of stems and whole clusters; furthermore, save for his two Domaine Laurent Pere & Fils wines, none of the 2008 reds were bottled before last spring when I caught them all in barrel. (Volumes being as small as they are chez Laurent, one misses scarcely a barrel of most lots; thus, a highly reliable impression can be obtained via pipette – although, this years declassification has resulted in some larger-than-usual batches.) Speaking of the domaine that Laurent started a few years ago with his son, and with only modest generic and village acreage, it will blossom with the acquisition (which took place in time for vintage 2010) of the 10-acre estate of retiring Alfred Haegelen (Domaine Haegelen-Jayer, which includes Echezeaux and Clos Vougeot). Imported by Martin Scott Wines, Ltd., Lake Success, NY Tel. (516) 327-0808