2015 Domaine Arlaud Père & Fils Bonnes Mares Grand Cru

There was a touch of reduction on the 2015 Bonnes Mares when I tasted it chez Arlaud. Underneath it felt quite masculine and almost earthy. The palate is medium-bodied with grippy tannin, layers of black fruit tinged with tar, quite robust on the finish and certainly a Bonnes-Mares that will demand several years in bottle. I will not score it for now, preferring to wait until bottling.

(Arlaud has a strip of vines roughly in the middle of Bonnes-Mares, extending from the bottom to the top of the grand cru and featuring both white and red soil): Bright, dark red with ruby tones. Knockout nose combines black raspberry, flowers, pungent herbs, red licorice, dark chocolate and dusty stone. A compellingly sappy wine with great cut and precision to its rich, seamless purple fruit and menthol flavors. Displays outstanding medicinal reserve and noble, tongue-saturating tannins on the extremely long finish, leaving behind an exhilarating wild herb perfume in the empty glass. Complete, lithe Bonnes-Mares with terrific underlying power. Arlaud has worked these vines by horse since 2003 which has helped him break up the very hard soil. "The two rainstorms we had this year in August were absorbed by the vines," he said. "Before we started using a horse, we had erosion problems and the vines got stressed."