2013 Bourgogne Rouge

The 2013 Bourgogne Rouge, which comes from two parcels supplemented by finished wine, has a closed nose while the palate is quite rustic at the moment with slightly hard tannins. It just needs to develop more flesh on the finish. This needs to pull its socks up by the time of bottling. ||Jean-Nicolas was away in Korea when I visited his domaine, a sign of how the popularity of Burgundy is now global (I did not inquire whether it was North or South.) So his assistant winemaker kindly escorted me through their portfolio (négoçiant and domaine) and the same leitmotifs of the 2013s were discussed: the high levels of malic acid and the need to chaptalize. The harvest here commenced on October 2 and finished around ten days later. Unlike others such as Cécile Tremblay, they did not eschew pigeage completely, and conducted around four or five to extract color and tannins. As usual, the malolactics were very late and in fact, one or two of them were still continuing, which explains a couple of omissions in my notes. Apparently, they showed plenty of reduction since the wines was unable to be racked and therefore work in the cellar during the second winter is important. ||This address consistently produces excellent wines, though I found the 2013s a little more difficult to get a handle on vis-à-vis other growers. Of the two “jewels," I just have a preference for their Cros Parantoux over their Richebourg, the former displaying exceptional delineation, razor-sharp tannins and an unfathomable depth that riveted you to the spot, whereas the latter was broad-shouldered, regal but less opaque. Elsewhere, the wines felt just a little disjointed at this early stage and need to knit together their constituent parts by the time of bottling next year.| eRobertParker.com.December, 2014