2012 Echezeaux
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Tasting notes
Full medium red. Deep, brooding, slightly reduced nose offers aromas of framboise , sandalwood incense, smoke and minerals. At once silky-sweet and savory, displaying superb depth to its flavors of red fruits, soy sauce and smoky minerality. Still very young and unevolved but already sexy and complex, this large-scaled Echézeaux finishes very long, with thoroughly buffered tannins.
Critic scores
Average Score
Allen Meadows, Burghound
Neal Martin
More reviews and scores
The 2012 Echezeaux Grand Cru has a refined, floral bouquet with rose petals infusing the red berry fruit. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins, crisp and poised with a tender, sophisticated finish. Classy? very classy. It is always a pleasure to visit the indefatigable Mounir Saouma at his hideaway winery just off the Beaune periphique. He is a winemaker you can jest with, and he is often victim of my sardonic Essex humor (for example, when enthusing about obtaining one of five barrels of a premier cru, I dryly enquired whether the other four were sold off for distillation - I would not say that to Aubert de Villaine.) And I appreciate Mounir's wines. They used to taste a little too fat and almost over-powering in their youth, but I think he is fine-tuning his reductive winemaking style, achieving more freshness and vitality. I tasted his 2012 reds since the whites were still undergoing malolactic. Among the tidal wave of opinions, one that he emphasized was that to capture the quality of the vintage under cork, the wines should be bottled late, and not in spring when Burgundy will resound to the clinking of glass. Mounir also told me that he paid 50% more from wines in 2012 than in 2011, but that he intends to keep prices within 15% increase. Importers: Vintus LLC, Pleasantville, NY; tel. (914) 769-3000, Atherton Imports, Menlo Park, CA; tel. (650) 328-6639
(from the lieu-dit en Orveaux): Medium red. Captivating perfume of minerals, rose petal and violet, complicated by a meaty nuance and a hint of white peach. Wonderfully sweet, rich and balanced; not closed but this will need longer elevage to gain in depth and clarity. "We need to destroy the virginity of these wines, to oxidize their oxidizable aspects," says Saouma. Very long and suave on the back end. Outstanding potential.
Explosive and deeply mineral, the 2012 Echezeaux (from En Orveau) graces the palate with massive dark fruit, smoke, tar, licorice, spices and menthol. The 2012 is almost unbelievably rich and intense, with stunning depth and intensity, all supported by vibrant minerality that gives the wine its pulsating energy and tension. Quite simply, the 2012 is superb.