2014 Domaine de la Vougeraie Bonnes Mares Grand Cru

Very good deep, healthy red. The most floral of these 2014s, conveying lovely perfumed lift to the aromas of black fruits, spices and honeysuckle. Communicates wonderful ripeness and detail without any impression of heaviness or weight. Really superb energy here, no doubt partly due to the vinification with 80% whole clusters. Most impressive today on the very long, fine-grained finish, where the savory red fruit and blackberry flavors build slowly and linger long. This should be long-lived.

(80% vendange entier ; 40% new oak; from dark soil in the lower portion of Bonnes-Mares): Healthy medium-deep red. Lovely perfumed lift to the aromas of blueberry and spices, with some suggestions of superripe fruit. Rich, sappy and sweet, showing serious depth and chewy texture to its rather powerful flavors of kirsch , clove and cardamom. This wine is 12. 8% alcohol without chaptalization. Conveys a more exotic ripeness than most of these 2014s. This very concentrated wine finishes with palate-staining spiciness and terrific length.

The 2014 Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru, containing 80% whole cluster fruit this year, has a focused, delineated nose, perhaps missing the exuberance that this vineyard can bestow, but it unfurls nicely in the glass revealing touches of woodland and undergrowth (actually quite Musigny-like!). The palate is fresh on the entry with a fine line of acidity, great tension and focus here with a slightly tapered and yet long and tender finish. This is a sophisticated Bonnes Mares that is a little teasing out of barrel, but will grow up into a great, perhaps more 'serious' wine.