2005 Lucien Le Moine Richebourg Grand Cru

Good full ruby-red. Reserved, brooding aromas of creme de cassis, chocolate, smoked meat and roasted nuts. Then pure, silky and powerful; an intense essence of pinot. Offers great power and verve in the middle, but this is most impressive today on the brooding, explosive back end, which features mounting dark berry, chocolate and mineral flavors of incredible persistence and subtlety. What a treat it would be to return to this and the RSV in ten years. In 2005, Saouma purchased a single barrel of Richebourg from a new supplier, at twice the price he paid for Richebourg the previous year, and he told me he felt privileged to have a barrel like this.

Saouma speculates that the source of his single barrel of 2005 Richebourg (a new grower, and not the supplier for previous Le Moine Richebourgs) may represent the oldest vines in this famed appellation. Lightly-cooked cherry aromas of imposing sweetness and high-toned notes of distilled intensity join notes of roasted meats on the nose. In the mouth, a brambly Bonnes Mares-like tartness of cherry and berries mingle with charred, salted meat, beef blood, low-toned mineral suggestions. This builds to a magnificent finish and seems to gain momentum the longer it is in the air. Like any of Saouma and Brakir’s grand crus, it surely deserves a decade or more before one of its precious bottles is opened, at which point one hopes – hard though this is to imagine in some instances – that the experience will be yet richer and more multi-faceted than today’s. Wine Advocate.June, 2007