2012 Domaine Denis Mortet Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru

(75% new oak): Bright, dark red. Expressive aromas of black cherry, wild herbs and menthol; fresher than the Chambolle. Dense, creamy and voluptuous, displaying terrific sucrosite if not quite the grip of Mortet's top wines from Gevrey. Finishes with firm but ripe tannins. Mortet has been getting smaller grapes here in recent years and says that he has been "working" the wine less. Excellent potential.

Mortet's 2012 Clos de Vougeot is one of the more round, creamy and textured Clos Vougeots I tasted this year. Beautifully expansive and broad on the palate, the 2012 impresses for its fabulous depth and seemingly endless layers of flavor. Violets, rose petals, tar, smoke and licorice all meld into an explosive, vivid finish. I very much like the texture and polish here. The 2012 was aged in 75% new French oak barrels, all of which are totally integrated.

The 2012 Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru yielded just four barrels this year, one of them new. It has a powerful, almost ravishing bouquet with vibrant, feisty red berry fruit infused with orange rind and spices. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins, superb mineralite and tension that leads to an unexpectedly refined, understated finish with plenty of poise and linearity. One of the best you will find this year. Things are certainly changing at this domaine. When Arnaud took over I felt that the level of new oak was excessive, superfluous to requirements given the fruit bestowed by his family’s prodigious holdings. And he was refreshingly candid about this when we sat down in his offices to taste through his 2012s, where he told me that he is now dialing down the new oak in order to express the terroir. That said, there is still more new wood here that say, Armand Rousseau just round the corner, but tasting through these 2012s I would say that the wood is better assimilated than previous vintage and yes, the terroir does shine through. “The harvest began on 23 September,” Arnaud explained. “It lasted for about 9 days in Gevrey and then finishing off with the Bourgogne Rouge. We had a lot of millerandage. Everything was de-stemmed this year. We left the wine on its lees in barrel and might sulfur in two or three months. We’ll also transfer the wine in to stainless steel to marry everything together. But the end result is that we are about 40% down on average.” Importer: Martine’s Wines, Novato, CA; tel. (415) 883-0400 and Fields Morris & Verdin, Justerini & Brooks, Berry Brothers & Rudd all in the UK.