2013 POMMARD 1er Cru Clos des Épeneaux Domaine Comte Armand, Lea & Sandeman

POMMARD

2013 1er Cru Clos des Épeneaux Domaine Comte Armand

IN STOCK
Grapes Pinot Noir
Colour Red
Origin France, Burgundy
District Côte d'Or
Sub-district Côte de Beaune
Village Pommard
Classification 1er Cru
ABV 13%
Vineyard Clos des Épeneaux

Powerful nose, and immediately appealing in the mouth. Lovely balance - a real straight-up classic - damson and cherry fruit with well-judged oak all coming together to make a very handsome fellow indeed, straight-backed and cutting a dash. Pretty brilliant. Drinking range: 2022 - L&S (Dec 2014)

*Case price discount: Mix any 12 bottles of wine (or 9 litre equivalent) or 6 bottles of Champagne, Spirits, Sweet Wine or Fortified (4.5 litres) to get the discounted 'case price' for each bottle.

Benjamin Leroux’s last vintage at Domaine du Comte Armand. A clear bright red. The bouquet shows a light touch of leathery tannins, mot interfering with the superb sweetness of fruit that expands right across the palate. Delightfully harmonious in this difficult vintage. Drink from 2023-2030. Tasted: June 2023. Drinking range: 2023 - 2030 Rating: **** Jasper Morris - Inside Burgundy  (Feb 2024)

Former winemaker Benjamin Leroux oversaw the 2013 Pommard Clos des Epeneaux 1er Cru, though Paul Zanetti told me he finished the aging in barrel. In this vintage, the wine was completely de-stemmed due to hail damage. The nose is well defined though simple, tertiary, with plenty of damp undergrowth/autumn leaf notes. The palate is medium-bodied with rustic tannins and fine weight. It's ferrous in style, with dark chocolate and tobacco leaf toward the finish. A little introspective, perhaps? This is a decent muscular Clos des Epeneaux, though not in the same class as the recent top vintages. Drinking range: 2022 - 2032 Rating: 90 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (Nov 2022)

The 2013 Pommard Clos des Epeneaux 1er Cru has an impressive bouquet with crushed strawberry, star anis and flecks of dried orange peel, perhaps more harmonious than the 2011 and more intense. The palate is medium-bodied with sappy black fruit that dovetails into a more savory, slightly grainy-textured finish where it just eases off the gas. Fine, but a more approachable Clos des Epeneaux compared to other recent vintages. Drinking range: 2021 - 2040 Rating: 91 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (May 2019)

Domaine Comte Armand

A domaine totalling nine hectares, of which the most important part is a magnificent five hectare monopole of the Pommard Premier Cru Clos des Epeneaux, which was put together by Nicolas Marey in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (along with the DRC Romanée Saint Vivant 'Marey-Monge'). These vineyards were all sold, except for the Clos (it now been enclosed by a wall), which came to Jean-François Armand as a dowry when he married Nicolas' daughter in 1826. The Volnay vineyards were added in 1994, followed by parcels in Auxey Duresses.

The current Comte Armand is a lawyer living in Paris, but very supportive of the régisseurs who have looked after this domaine for the thirty 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 for us 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 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. Under Benjamin the wines of the Clos 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. Paul Zinetti, who had worked with Ben for four years, took over in 2014.

The vineyard is cultivated organically (ECOCERT certified) and biodynamically. The grapes are entirely de-stemmed, but left intact, for a five to eight-day cold maceration before the fermentation, which lasts five to ten days, and then the wine remains in the fermenters for between three and fifteen days, depending on the vintage. In most years, the total time with skin contact will be around four weeks, which is longer than most. The wines will then be aged in barrel for between eighteen and twenty-four months, with new wood limited to 30% for the wine from the old vines of the Clos, down to none at all for the village wines.

Paul said from the outset that he wanted to make to make a less tannic wine in the Clos, and one which is more about aromatic length. In this he is continuing the route that Ben was following, but perhaps taking it even further.

This wine isn't currently part of a mixed case, but you can always browse our full selection of mixed cases here.
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