Wine & Spirits - April 2018 - 142

IMPORTED NEW RELEASES
lar is particularly cold, allowing the wine to
develop slowly into a gripping and powerful Gevrey. The intensity of the black-cherry
concentration is more than matched by the
mineral power, the terroir coming through
in a resonant iron-like vibration. A wine that
performs far above its village level, this is
structured to age. § North Berkeley Imports,
Berkeley, CA
228803

90 | Dom. Gérard Raphet

$115

2014 Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Lavaux
St-Jacques Cuvée Unique ^ Gérard Raphet
tends 50-year-old vines on the border of the
Clos St-Jacques, producing a supple Gevrey
with dark harmonies of flavor. Its notes of
spice and sage offer up their beauty as soon
as the cork is pulled, making this a wine to
enjoy in the coming year, with meaty game. §
North Berkeley Imports, Berkeley, CA

MOREY-ST-DENIS
228609

93 | Frédéric Magnien

$90

2015 Morey-St-Denis 1er Cru Ruchots ^
Magnien is based in Morey-St-Denis, and
though he makes a range of wines, working
closely with organic growers (or those in the
process of converting to organics), this premier cru from his hometown is especially
worth seeking out. He selects the fruit from
rows at the top of the vineyard, just below
Bonnes Mares and Clos du Tart. This wine's
structure is more apparent than many of
the 2015s we tasted, where it is subsumed
into ripe fruit. Yes, it has the fat of the vintage, but it also has clarity and raciness. The
iron-bound tannins feel persistent and fresh,
suggesting this will age into a wine of refinement. § North Berkeley Imports, Berkeley, CA

MUSIGNY

98 | Domaine Comte
Georges de Vogüé

$900

WINE & SPIRITS

APRIL 2018

CORTON
228806

93 | Domaine de la
Pousse d'Or

$150

NUITS-ST-GEORGES

91 | Dom. de la Vougeraie $117

VOLNAY

228529

2015 Nuits-St-Georges 1er Cru Monopole
Clos de Thorey ^ More animal and mineral
than fruity, this wine needs long exposure
to air for the detail in its gentle tannins to
become apparent. There's a cherry-leaf
greenness to the black-cherry flavor, turning toward smoke and gravel as the structure takes shape. For the cellar. § Boisset Family Estates, St. Helena, CA
228531

90 | Dom. de la Vougeraie $107

2015 Nuits-St-Georges 1er Cru Les Corvées Pagets ^ This wine's tight mineral structure is completely filled with ripe raspberry
and strawberry flavors. The fruit is jammy
but still feels cool, surrounded by the smoky
notes and puff-pastry scents of oak. It's a
fruity Burgundy that should develop well. §
Boisset Family Estates, St. Helena, CA

VOSNE-ROMANEE

92 | Jean-Claude Boisset

2015 Musigny Grand Cru Cuvée Vieilles
Vignes ^ Recently, I had the opportunity to
taste the 1978 and 1976 Vogüé from the cellar of George Sape, a collector who helped
organize a weekend of Musigny with Clive
Coates, MW. The '78 in particular was still
muscular and fresh, so I wonder how long
this 2015 might possibly live, given its
remarkable form as a young wine. François Millet makes the wines at the domaine,
which owns the lion's share of this vineyard.
He selects fruit from the older vines, at least
40 years old, for this cuvée, limited to 1,000
cases in each vintage. His viticulture is traditional, basically organic though not certi-

C OTE DE BE AUNE

2014 Corton Grand Cru Corton Bressandes ^ This silken red captures the sun on a
stony hillside, an acre of land on an east-facing slope where the oldest vines date to 1956.
Its flavors brighten toward red cherries and
the fresh, herbal sweetness of cherry tomatoes in mid-summer, underlain with crisp,
mineral-inflected tannins that frame the
wine along with its oak. For all their power,
those tannins end softly, firm yet gracious. A
Corton that lives up to its grand cru status. §
North Berkeley Imports, Berkeley, CA

228510

228631

142

fied, the grapes destemmed, spontaneously
fermented in wooden vats, and aged in barrels, up to 35 percent new. The initial scent
of this wine is sunny and glorious, followed
by a flavor that completely coats the mouth
and won't wash away with water, if anyone
would want to be rid of it. There's freshness
to the fruit that takes you to summer, and
floral scents that take you to spring, while a
rooty umami depth to its silken luxury brings
you to heady autumn afternoons. All those
flavors develop in a minor key, or in negative
space, the fruit not fruit, the density transparent, a wine you can breathe for minutes
after each taste. Sexy Musigny. § North Berkeley Imports, Berkeley, CA

$105

2015 Vosne-Romanée Les Jacquines ^ Exuberant and lush, this wine has a deep earthen
character to contrast its vibrant fruit. It opens
in the glass, as if you had opened the door of
a dark root cellar, then brightens to spice and
brandied cherry notes. The texture is velvet,
even as the wine is all youthful intensity and
grip. This vineyard lies at the border with
Nuits-St-Georges, and takes Vosne's silken
elegance in that more robust direction. § Boisset Family Estates, St. Helena, CA

228627

93 | Domaine de la
Pousse d'Or

$130

91 | Domaine de la
Pousse d'Or

$140

91 | Domaine de la
Pousse d'Or

$130

2015 Volnay 1er Cru Clos de la Bousse
d'Or ^ An old-fashioned Volnay that's not
afraid of tannins, this wine's stature speaks of
long years in the cellar as you wait for those
tannins to relent. The fruit is completely
ripe, taking on red-cherry and plum sweetness, while the tannins are velvet restraints,
feeling juicy in their mineral power, rich and
beautiful. This grows at a walled vineyard in
Volnay owned by the domaine, most of the
vines planted in the 1960s and '70s, with onequarter of the parcel dating to 1958. § North
Berkeley Imports, Berkeley, CA
228807

2014 Volnay 1er Cru Clos des 60 Ouvrées ^
This walled vineyard is located within Caillerets, near the border with Meursault; half
the vines dating to the 1950s, the balance
planted in the 1980s. Skinnier than the 2015
from Bousse d'Or, this is no less powerful
in its tannins, so it takes some time for the
sunny nature of the red-plum fruit to show
through the structure. Tart and severe, this
needs six to eight years in bottle to resolve. §
North Berkeley Imports, Berkeley, CA
228805

2014 Volnay 1er Cru Clos de la Bousse
d'Or ^ As aristocratic in its stature as the
2015, this needs a vigorous decant to make its
power approachable. Lasting red-cherry-skin
flavors emerge out of the iron-mineral tannins, which continue to feel tense and massive. The energy in the wine's acidity will pro-

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - April 2018