2008 Beaune Cuvee Dames Hospitalieres

While I generally omit tasting or writing-up cuvees of which growers have purchased barrels at the Hospices de Beaune, Germain’s 3 barrels of 2008 Beaune 1er Cru Cuvee Dames-Hospitalieres (a cuvee from La Mignotte, Bressandes, and Teurons) are too convincing to overlook. This wine’s ripe plum and cherry – tinged with the bitterness of their pits and wreathed in heliotrope and begonia – caress the palate like silk and it displays delicacy and lift in a long, if not (from barrel at 18 months, anyway) enormously complex, finish. A refined though not especially vintage-typical Pinot, it should be worth following from bottle for at least half a dozen years. Benoit Germain did not begin picking his 2008s until September 29, “by which time,” he claims, “every other grower in Chorey was finished,” though he adds with a wry smile that “last year 2009 I was ahead of everybody.” With a little help from space heaters, all of the 2008 whites here finished their malos by early March (of 2009 that is), but timing for the reds varied widely, and in any case, Germain favors late-bottling, so that most of them were still in barrel when I tasted here in March. That the principal Germain 2007s displayed such vivacity and could hold their own against his 2008 collection surprised me, and since wines from this estate often require considerable cellaring to show their true meddle, these 2007s represent an excellent and immediately accessible introduction to the Chateau de Chorey. A Becky Wassserman Selection (various importers), Le Serbet, Beaune; fax 011-33-3-80-24-29-70 Also imported by Simon N Cellars, Charlottesville, VA; tel. (434) 977-4476 and a Scott Levy Selection, Norcross, GA; tel. (770) 730-0361