DRC's Only Premier Cru
Grand cru fruit from a second pass through the vines, declassified to premier cru under the founder's name. 4,511 bottles in 2011, and most never left France — born privileged, travelling under a modest card.
Vintage 2011
6 notes
Where Rousseau Spares the Oak
Rousseau's hierarchy is drawn not only in the vineyard but in the barrel cellar: new oak for Chambertin and Clos de Bèze, seasoned casks for Charmes. Not a lesser wine — a different intention, and the light 2011 shows it clearly.
Five Hectares Behind a Wall
Le Clos des Corvées is a walled five-hectare monopole at the Prémeaux end of Nuits-Saint-Georges, farmed by Henry-Frédéric Roch with whole bunches, wild yeast and almost no sulphur. The 2011 — an early, cool, uneven year — at ten, from a label that carries a pictogram and nothing else.
A Quarter Hectare of Century-Old Vines
A Gevrey Boillot who moved to Chambolle, farming a scrap of Nuits-Saint-Georges planted before the First World War. Les Pruliers is the town's structured, tannic side, and 2011 was the early, cool, uneven year that Burgundy wrote off and then quietly reconsidered.
The Wooden Sword
A rudius was the wooden sword a Roman gladiator received on the day he was freed. Jeff Ames named his own label after it — a few barrels a year, from other people's famous vineyards — and this is his Chardonnay from Larry Hyde's clay, in the coldest, wettest Napa year of its decade.
A Red Wagon with Wings
Six barrels from the coldest, wettest California vintage in memory. Four clones, eleven months on the lees, and a child's wagon on the label with wings on it.