Domaine Comte Armand
The Comte Armand is a lawyer living in Paris, but very supportive of the régisseurs who have looked after this domaine for the twenty-four years or so that L&S have been buying here. The 1980 vintage, made by one of the many Rossignols of Volnay who was in charge at the time, was a great introduction to the possibilities of the great Clos des Epeneaux vineyard. Then came the era of Pascal Marchand, a young Quebecois who came to do a harvest with Domaine Bruno Clair and just never left. He began a period of radical restructuring and the introduction of organic and then biodynamic farming, while making very dark, dense and long-lived wines. Benjamin Leroux, hugely respected amongst growers who approach things from an organic or biodynamic point of view, then took over, and has refined this approach and changed the way the parcels of vines are divided up for harvesting, paying less attention to just the age of the vines, and more to the underlying soil types. Claude Bourguignon was employed to provide a full geological survey of the Clos as the basis for this. Benjamin is also a master technician if required to be. The wines of the Clos have gained in finesse and precision, while still having the depth and richness expected of a great Pommard. Both Pascal and Benjamin were keen to expand beyond the confines of the Clos, and the Domaine also has vines in Volnay, and, a particular enthusiasm of both Pascal and Benjamin, in Auxey Duresses, where they are convinced of the great potential of some of this village's undervalued and neglected terroirs.
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Côte d'Or Burgundy France
From a vineyard with a soil of degraded limestone, a sweet-fruited, quite pale, pretty wine with an open and evolved slightly jammy style for early drinking.
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Côte d'Or Burgundy France
Classy. A really lovely wine which is juicy and elegant and really long and straight.
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Côte d'Or Burgundy France
Benjamin said he would probably leave the young vines cuvée, harvested first, out of the final blend, so the blend is a slightly higher average vine age. As usual, the cuvées tasted apart each have their qualities, but it all comes together in the blend, with good volume, and the density of the thirty year-old given lift and flight by the mid-forty-year-old parcel, and the old vines completing the picture with amazing finesse of scent. Very intense... (more info)
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Côte d'Or Burgundy France
As usual this was tasted in sevaral lots. The fifty year-old vines in the top of the Clos gave a wine that has rich, dense fruit and dusky, dusty flavours. Earth and humus. A real sense of place too. Sunny with woody tannins. The part which is Grands Epenots, with thirty-five year-old vines is softer, it has taken the oak rather differently. Very round and suave and opulent. Still tannic on the finish. The fifty-five year old vines in the bottom of... (more info)