2015 Macon La Roche Vineuse Les Cras
Market price
Buying options
Tasting notes
(Merlin kept this wine in barrels for a full 17 months, as he decided not to move it into stainless steel): Light yellow. Candied lemon drop, wild herbs and a suggestion of chalky austerity on the nose, along with some nutty nuances that detracted a bit from the wine's vibrancy (Merlin maintained that "the complexity of the nose will come much later.") Densely packed and youthfully imploded, with flavors of apple and vanillin, spicy oak kept under wraps by strong chalky acidity. Tough going today, this powerful, long, phenolic wine needs time.
Critic scores
Average Score
Neal Martin
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
The 2015 Macon la Roche Vineuse les Cras comes from a single vineyard with a high level of chalk. It was bottled later than others at the end of March 2017. It has a clean and precise bouquet: red apple, yellow flowers and a touch of white peach all very succinct and well defined. The palate is very well balanced with crisp acidity, very saline in the mouth with a taut and focused, very satisfying finish. This is an outstanding wine for the vintage, though as Olivier Merlin advised, try and cellar this for a few years.
Not yet bottled. Very aggressive acidity. Bright fruit with a hint of sweetness – too much? Dramatic but not that deep-flavoured. (JR)
(14.2% alcohol; tasted from barrel; Merlin has rented this site since 1992 and recently started bottling this fruit on its own; the vines are now 54 years old): Pale yellow. Youthfully subdued aromas of peach, apricot and vanillin oak. Powerful lemon and yellow peach flavors are supported by a sound mineral spine, fresh acidity and some finishing tannins. But this is less harmonious today than the Vieilles Vignes cuvée and will evolve more slowly. Merlin says that this wine can stand up to lobster bisque.