2009 Cote de Brouilly La Chapelle

Slated as usual for a separate bottling (and in fact reflecting a single vineyard), Geoffroy's 2009 Cote de Brouilly Cuvee La Chapelle performed impressively from foudre. High-toned herbal essences, cassis, blueberry inform an expressive nose and a sappy, refreshing palate, it's sense of berry sweetness nicely contrasted by tart fruit skin, salt, and crushed stone. This will offer an unusually elegant, bright example of its very ripe vintage, and I suspect it will be worth following for at least half a dozen years, though naturally its primary fruit will recede in significance over that period. Claude Geoffroy's estate boasts not only the reputation of a long-time regional leader, but also a venerable association with the U.S.: its walls display steel stencils used to mark the cases New York- and California-bound of the 1945 that Frank Schoonmaker imported (although 1949 is the oldest wine still in the cellars). Thivin Cote de Brouillys - including the cuvee that importer Kermit Lynch has been assembling for years here from parcels and pickings that are vinified individually in foudre - have a history of excellent aging potential, coupled with a tendency toward understatement in their youth, even in a vintage as ripe as 2009. In addition to his Cuvee La Chapelle that is sold largely in France and Switzerland, Geoffroy essayed several additional single-vineyard bottlings in 2009 which will not however be commercialized in any significant way (nor, probably, sold outside France). The individual, site-specific lots were certainly fascinatingly delicious when I tasted them from foudre, but a portion of the best of these informs the U.S. cuvee. (The annual barrique-matured Cuvee Zacharie at this address has left me consistently under-whelmed.) Imported by Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Berkeley, CA; tel. (510) 524-1524