2013 Bonnes Mares

Good medium red. Very ripe, soil-driven aromas of mocha, game, tobacco and cocoa powder. Strong red fruit and spice flavors emerge on the wonderfully dense, sweet palate, with an element of saline minerality providing another dimension. The wine's superb energy gives the highly concentrated fruit a bulletproof quality. Impressively dense and large-scaled for the year, finishing with substantial ripe tannins and excellent balance and length. Vincent's wines have been distinctly fresher and firmer since 2010 as he's now picking a bit earlier to avoid surmaturité.

(tasted from barrel; 80% vendange entier ; 60% new oak): Bright, dark red. Highly nuanced aromas of strawberry, raspberry, mocha, brown spices and underbrush, with new oak showing today. Juicy and sharply delineated, with ripe red berry flavors lifted by adamant crushed-rock minerality and accented by peppery and saline elements. Solidly built, tightly wound and very long on the aftertaste. Lay this one down.

Tasted blind at the Burgfest tasting in Beaune, the 2013 Bonnes Mares Grand Cru was missing some complexity on the nose compared to the Bonnes-Mares from Bruno Clair, with sweet red cherries and a touch of kirsch. Yet it needs to show more mineralite and terroir expression. The palate is medium-bodied with ripe red cherries and strawberry and showing quite a lot of structure towards the finish that grips the palate. I would just like more persistence to show through here. Tasted September 2016. Nov 2016, www.robertparker.com