Vintus

Pommard "Les Grands Epenots", Premier Cru

The commune of Pommard lies on a slope descending from Beaune, to the north, to Volnay, to the south. Of Pommard’s 832 acres of vineyards, 309 are ranked premier cru over 24 climats.   The 25 acre Les Grands Epenots vineyard is considered by some one of the very finest climats in Pommard.

The fruit for Lucien Le Moine's "Les Grands Epenots" comes from higher up in the vineyard leading to a classic and very fine expression.  It can be viewed as the opposite of a typical "Les Epenots" even though they are next to each other.  The vineyard is higher, it has better drainage, and there is more limestone, resulting in a wine that is both silkier and more easygoing than "Les Epenots". 

• 2009 Vintage

   There is more talk and interest about 2009 in Burgundy than in any vintage since 2005.  Mounir Saouma has warned us to be careful, however.  He loves this vintage, and in fact believes it is the greatest he has seen in his two decades in Burgundy.   He believes the fruit had everything from the start, and the wines from the beginning were healthy and beautifully balanced.  The major issue was to understand and respect the wines, and avoid working them, since they already had everything they needed in superb balance.  Overly working the wines, he believes, resulted in a loss of freshness and delicacy.

    2009 is the first vintage at Lucien Le Moine that Mounir did not do any lees stirring whatsoever, and as usual he never racked the wines in their nearly two years in barrel.  He didn’t add sulfur until a few months before bottling, and yet his wines are still completely fresh; some whites he describes as even having a tint of green.  The Lucien Le Moine 2009s across the board are beautifully pure and focused, with the exquisite harmony of truly great wines.

  •  "Good red-ruby. High-pitched aromas and flavors of ripe cherry, minerals and smoked meat lifted by a floral topnote. A wine of noteworthy finesse, with lovely inner-mouth aromatic character. Finer than the Epenots, finishing with suaver tannins. Finishes with sexy cherry perfume and outstanding length." 92-95 Points International Wine Cellar

  •  "Good bright red-ruby. Cassis, smoke and earth on the nose, with an element of crushed rocks. Concentrated and delineated, with excellent acidity giving grip to the cassis, blackberry and violet flavors. Plenty of viscosity here, nicely balanced by a serious structural underpinning." 91-93 Points Wine Advocate

  •  "A complex and expressive nose combines aromas of plum, earth and red currant that introduce richer yet tighter and more precise big-bodied flavors blessed with an abundance of tannin-buffering dry extract that renders the very firm structure almost invisible. That said, this is also clearly built to age, indeed this will need all of 12 to 15 years to reach its apogee." 90-92 Points Burghound

• 2008 Vintage

  There is a big difference in how most people in Burgundy see 2008 and how Lucien Le Moine sees its 2008s.  In a typically unique perspective, Mounir Saouma believes 2008 is a great vintage in Burgundy, one of the greatest of the decade.  2008 was the third in a series of historically normal vintage conditions.  Over the last hundred years, on average the rainiest month in Burgundy has been June and the driest month has been September; rain in the summer is common, occurring more than half the time.  The light, fine skin of Pinot Noir benefits from the freshness in the summer, needs it, and it helps the fat Chardonnay on its way to maturity as well.  The idea that only the “modern” vintage – hot and dry – can be great is a big issue for Mounir.

  In June 2008, within a given week rain always alternated with hot sunny periods.  The results were small bunches of grapes that were getting mature while keeping acidity, and slowly ripening.  Ultimately, there was a naturally low yield, an excellent sign, with 20% fewer grapes than a normal year, providing sweet fruit and high levels of tannin.  Very importantly, Mounir believes that in recent times Burgundy has lost its simplicity to some extent – when you tasted the grapes in 2008, there was no issue with rot.  Most people looked at their vineyards, were terrified of the rot and pressed very lightly to get clean juice, only did short macerations with not a lot of lees, didn’t stir, and then fined or filtered to bottle clean wines. 

  Lucien Le Moine did the opposite.  They pressed hard, bringing a lot of lees into the wine.  To balance the high acidity and some of the unripe bunch areas due to the cool weather, they topped with fine lees every ten days instead of topping with wine.  They did not stir, and so the lees would take a full week to fall to the bottom of the barrel, slowly imparting complexity and richness.  For about five years, Lucien Le Moine has been the last producer in Burgundy to bottle, and they were again with the 2008 vintage.  Malolactic Fermentation was not as late as usual because of the lees that was added, and finished in April/May instead of June/July.  Lucien Le Moine has never never acidified or de-acidified, so while some people de-acidified 2008, they didn’t touch the wines, and watched them over the summer become sweeter, fatter and more balanced, more attractive.  They started bottling around May 2010, and finished beginning of October 2010, after the harvest of 2010. 

  Looking at surrounding vintages, the 2005 is ageable, full of body, massive, tannic, with high acidity.  2006 has almost late harvest flavor, very deep, beautiful maturity, and nice acidity.   2007 is transparent, the perfect example of terroir in Burgundy, but will not age perhaps as long as 2006.  The 2008s are going to be the year for people who care about Burgundy.  They will be appreciated the next two-three years, for their very fresh fruit and balanced bodies.  Then they will sleep for a few years, but not like 2005s which are so big they will need a long time to awaken.  The 2008s will come back as classic wines of Burgundy, but not in a spicy, sous-bois manner; they will be traditional, but have a little bit of flashy fruit.  A very particular combination. 

  Lastly, the particularity of the Lucien Le Moine 2008s – a lot of wines are cloudy due to the lees; make sure to stand them up before decanting. 
   

  • "The two barrels of Le Moine 2008 Pommard Grands Epenots is unremittingly brightly-fruited, with blond tobacco and peat joining red raspberry preserves and fresh berries on the nose and on a palate boasting tenderized tannins, and aspects of fruit preserves folded into a butter-pastry envelope. The finish here is refined, long, vibratory (for all of the wine’s textural richness) and transparent to mysterious mineral nuances. Saouma comments on the extreme (dark-light) contrast in personality of this and the Epenots as a classic instance of Burgundy terroir difference, noting that the latter was picked two full weeks ahead of this Grands Epenots. This Pinot became more hauntingly complex as it opened to the air, and I suspect it will be worth following for at least a decade." 92-93 Points Wine Advocate

  • "Medium red.  Sexy perfume of raspberry, flowers, smoked meat and underbrush.  Sweet, silky, pliant and and lush, with refined flavors of raspberry and smoky minerality.  Lovely, deep Pommard, finishing with suave tannins and mouth-saturating perfume." 92 Points International Wine Cellar

• 2007 Vintage

  As Mounir Saouma says, “2007 saw a fresh summer – when we say fresh summer, we mean well-balanced rain and sunny days.   There were cool but not cold days, days with some rain and sun, but not exaggerated either way.  And you see in the wines there is beautiful acidity, but not as much as 2008, and nice sweetness, but not as much as 2006.” 

   

  This character of mid-way but not extreme in many areas resulted in wines that took a long time to reveal their nature.  “The wines started fruity and the tannins were firm, and slowly we started seeing a kind of melding between sweetness and acidity after the malolactic a year later; we started seeing the real character of the wines after 14 months.  

   

  This development of the vintage is the reason that 2007 was the latest bottling Lucien Le Moine has ever done, and why they were the last producer in all of Burgundy to bottle.  Typically Lucien Le Moine starts bottling in January or February; in 2007 they started in February, but the majority of bottling took place from May to September.  Mounir aged all his 2007 wines on their lees, without sulfur, and never racked.   

   

  Mounir compares 2007 and 2006 a lot; they will both be vintages that are approachable and will last, and their technical numbers are similar, but they are physically and aromatically in completely different worlds.  “2006 is more about sweetness and for some people a heavier character; 2007 is more about freshness.  We will enjoy 2007, but it doesn’t take anything from the aging. 

   

  Some general commentaries on the Crus in 2007:  for people who love freshness and silkiness, with tannins that melt away, the Vosne-Romanées, Volnays, Chambolle-Musignys, and Morey-Saint-Denis show ethereal balance and almost transparent tannins.  For those that think 2007 is a light and easy year, the Gevrey-Chambertins, Nuits-Saint-Georges, Pommards and Cortons will show them depth and power.  

  • "This is also fairly strongly reduced but even so the ripeness of the fruit is evident if not the nuance. The very rich and round flavors are slightly bigger but not necessarily more precise or detailed but like all of these Pommard 1ers, there is excellent underlying material and seriously impressive length. " 91 Points Burghound

  • "Deep red with ruby highlights. Inky blackberry, pungent minerals and a meaty nuance on the nose. Denser and broader than the Epenots but with plenty of inner-palate energy to balance its sweetness. Intensely flavored and classy wine, finishing with sweet, fine-grained tannins, excellent breadth and lingering minerality." 90-92 Points International Wine Cellar