2007 Maison Nicolas Potel Clos de la Roche Grand Cru

Deep red. Captivating, high-pitched aromas of raspberry, cherry and spices. Intensely flavored and sweet, with strong acids framing and enlivening the sappy flavors of raspberry, flowers and crushed stone. Surpasses the Clos Saint-Denis in both lift and depth and finishes with more sweetness. Should be a lovely example of this grand cru. Potel notes that the pH here is 3.6, compared to 3.45 for cuvees like the Malconsorts and Gaudichots.

Having the same sources as the 2008, Maison Potel’s 2007 Clos de la Roche offers a combination of smoky pungency and rhubarb-like tartness found in some other wines of this collection but rare in the vintage as a whole. Dark cherry, burley tobacco, resinous notes from barrel, crushed stone, and brown spices contribute to a complex, sappily-concentrated but rather severely tannic palate impression, and this leads to a forceful and persistent though slightly grainy finish. This ought to be worth following for at least a dozen years. ||In mid 2009, Nicolas Potel was forced out of the negociant firm that bears his name by the owners of its parent company, Laboure-Roi. (For more about Nicolas Potel’s own new negociant and domaine, see under “Roche de Bellene” and “Domaine de Bellene.”) Other members of the team responsible for Maison Nicolas Potel wines – including cellarmaster Fabrice Lesne – remain in place. I tasted more than half of their 2008s – a line-up considerably reduced in numbers as well as different in particulars from that which had come to prevail under Potel’s tenure (and bereft of some obvious gems) – and sampled a few of their 2007s: the last collection here that Nicolas Potel guided to bottle; an exceptionally impressive one for its vintage based on what I could taste; and one characterized by levels of alcohol (generally under 12.5%) unusually modest by any standards, not to mention those prevailing in 2007. Many of the Potel 2008s were tardy in undergoing malo; a few were not finished until Spring of last year and thus not taste-able when I last visited. No wines had yet been bottled at that time either, but all of those that I tasted were ready for bottling, and where applicable assembled in tank. It would be an understatement to note that it is bound to be awkward for both parties from a marketing standpoint to have your operation named for someone no longer involved but rather competing with you, someone whose wines in turn cannot be labeled with his own name. But under the unfortunate historical circumstances, there may for at least the foreseeable future be no alternative. Wine Advocate.June, 2010