2006 L'Etoile Cuvee Speciale

Deriaux’s 2006 L’Etoile Cuvee Speciale – which I tasted in a restaurant and hence described in relative haste – is pungently and intriguingly nutty and stony; displays a surprising and lovely sense of lift considering its breadth and grip; and should be well worth savoring for at least another 3-5 years. Nicole Deriaux’s Domaine Montbourgeau began its viticultural life under her grandfather, whose vine legacy from the 1920s remains. All of the vineyards are proximate to the estate and within the L’Etoile appellation, which however does not apply to red or sparkling wines, both of which Deriaux also crafts. White vines at Montbourgeau are planted in a two-to-one ratio of Chardonnay to Savagnin, mostly in small, interlocking parcels surrounded by woods and pasture; but with the exception of a single bottling from adjacent stands in the same named vineyard, the finished wines are informed almost entirely by either one cepage or the other. Positioned along a small, winding valley, the various, generally steep parcels – while relatively uniform in soil (grey and blue marl littered with tiny star-like fossil sea creatures that lent L’Etoile its name) – are quite varied when it comes to exposition, a factor that plays into the virtues of assembling multiple lots. Vinification here is in stainless steel, after which the wines sojourn leisurely in older barriques or demi-muids, and are eventually assembled into foudre for further aging, with any given vintage and cuvee of L’Etoile being subjected to multiple bottlings, all labeled in the same way, so that tasting notes must be taken with a corresponding degree of lot variation in mind. Imported by Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990