2008 Gevrey Chambertin Bel Air

The Taupenot-Merme 2008 Gevrey-Chambertin Bel Air – from that small, intriguing site above Clos de Beze – follows the apparent pattern for the domaine in this vintage by featuring kirsch and plum distillate laced with citrus oil in a high-toned display that some may consider overly volatile but I find entrancing. A mouthful of tart cherry, plum, red currant, and chalk dust seemingly leaves it to the freshly butchered raw meat of the animal that has eaten them to reveal the herbs and flowers one looks for from this sector. (I beg apology for any inadvertent offense to advocates of vegetarianism.) This is admittedly relatively spare, but conveys fascinating complexity and real finishing energy, not to mention sheer refreshment (which admittedly, will not be high on everyone’s list of red wine values). I would anticipate at least 8-10 very active years of life. Romain Taupenot is clearly taking important steps to build on his family’s experience and do justice to their extensive list of appellations in parcels spread out along the Cote d’Or (and in both Pinot and Chardonnay). My tastings of wines from the last three vintages turned up some fine and above all highly distinctive bottlings which, if I were to guess, will probably please some pinotphiles more than my scores might suggest, and please the rest less! Taupenot – who prefers closed fermentors in order, he claims, to prevent influence of the yeasts in one batch on this in another – opined that his raw material in 2008 permitted sparing punch-downs in the early stage of fermentation, whereas he did not trust his 2007 fruit to respond well to as aggressive a regimen of extraction. “You had to be careful not to do too-short maceration in 2008” though, he maintains, “because whereas usually the extraction of tannin in the presence of alcohol is steady, in 2008 the tannin was not extracted until very late.” The 2008s here had been bottled a month before my February visit, all with light filtration, because, Taupenot says, “the levels of turbidity I measured were too high for me to omit filtration, whereas in 2007 I bottled some of the wines without filtration.” This estate is perhaps best known for their few rows of Clos de Lambrays, on account of which that site misses being a monopole of the Domaine des Lambrays; but as I did not have time to taste the entire Taupenot-Merme range, I did not insist on sampling the less-than-barrique-sized quantity of that particular cru. Imported by Scott Paul Wines, Carlton, OR; tel. (503) 852 7300; also and a Scott Levy Selection, Norcross, GA; tel. (770) 730-0361