2015 Vosne Romanee La Combe Brulee

The 2015 Vosne-Romanée La Combe Brûlées comes from limestone soils particularly rich with marine fossils. It was showing a touch more reduction compared to the Les Hauts de Beaumonts, though underneath lies plenty of red and more black fruit. The palate is medium-bodied with sappy red berry fruit, the 30% new oak neatly integrated and with a gentle grip towards the finish. There is good mass and body to this Vosne-Romanée and I appreciate the subtle salinity on the aftertaste.

(25 hectoliters per hectare; this massale selection was harvested at the end, on September 12): Bright medium red, a bit less saturated than the Hauts de Beaux Monts. Very reduced aromas of strawberry and rose petal show a a freshness from this parcel's cooler exposition and combe influence. In a distinctly juicy, penetrating style but still with the silkiness of the vintage. Strawberry and raspberry fruit flavors are extended by pungent mineral and floral elements on the classically dry finish. In a juicy, lighter style but with no shortage of density.

(a villages level wine from 65+ year old vines). A pungent nose is composed of wood toast and reduction at present. Otherwise there is a slightly finer mouth feel to the delicious and tension-filled medium-bodied flavors that possess excellent detail and punch on the linear, complex and mildly austere finish where a hint of bitter cherry pit appears. This intensely saline effort will need a few years of flesh out but it should be excellent. Dec 2016, www.burghound.com