Vintus

Romanée-St-Vivant, Grand Cru

This 23 acre vineyard, just down-slope of Romanée-Conti and bordering the town of Vosne- Romanée is renowned for its supremely elegant wines.  Mounir has only made the a Romanée-St-Vivant a few times, and each time it has been available in miniscule quantities and has been  brilliant - a wine of incredible persistence and class.  

Mounir describes Romanée-St-Vivant as the opposite of Richebourg - very feminine, full of coffee, chocolate, very spicy and sweet.  It always shows its beauty; as a vineyard, from any producer and any year it seems to produce a seductive, sexy wine.

• 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.

  •  "A mildly floral and intensely spicy nose features notes of violets, rose petal, hoisin, soy and anise that add excellent breadth to the red currant aromas. The rich, detailed and utterly seductive medium-bodied flavors possess striking complexity to the impressively long finish. As good as this is, and it is spectacular, it doesn't quite have the sheer depth of material of the Richebourg even though it's close." 92-95 Points Burghound

  •  "Good deep red. Ineffable scents of raspberry, cocoa powder, ginger, cappuccino, pepper and tobacco, plus a whiff of passion fruit. Less expressive in the mouth today than on the nose but already displays terrific fruit intensity. Quite folded in on itself just after the end of the malo, but a great wine in the making." 93-96 Points International Wine Cellar

• 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 lone barrel of Le Moine 2008 Romanee St.-Vivant (half of the previous year's production, it will be sadly noted) explodes from the glass with an entire garden's worth of flowers - heliotrope, narcissus, and hibiscus being noteworthy - allied to blueberry and cassis. In its floral and fruit profusion this is like the alter-ego of the Gaudichots, and displays a subtler sense of minerality, suggesting salt, kelp, and peat. This is velvety in texture, seemingly effortlessly refined, pure-fruited, vibrant, buoyant, and transparent to myriad nuances, so that the finish fascinates like watching a shower of petals or a cloud of butterflies. And I predict that this will still be flying high 20 years from now." 96-97 Points Wine Advocate

  • "An expressive and intensely floral nose of spicy black fruit aromas that are ripe and strikingly elegant complement well the detailed and seductively textured medium-bodied flavors that are blessed with plenty of dry extract that buffers the firm tannins on the seamlessly long finish that just seems to go on and on. This is simply at another level compared to all of the prior wines and if you can find it, buy it." 93-96 Points Burghound

• 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. 

  • "Good deep red. Pungent, slightly high-toned aromas of raspberry, coffee and cocoa powder; leading with its fruit today. Then wonderfully suave, vibrant and pure in the mouth, with outstanding intensity of crystallized fruit flavors and an impression of sappiness that cuts through the wine’s thickness. This, too, saturates the palate with flavor and finishes with outstanding class and lingering perfume." 93-96 Points International Wine Cellar

  • "Aromatically, there is a resemblance to the Gaudichots as the intensity of the floral elements are quite distinctive with every bit as much airy elegance and purity with theclassic RSV spice notes continuing onto the detailed, minerally and beautifully precise flavors that possess an underlying reserve and a finish that is nothing but sheer class. In short, this is a knockout." 93-95 Points Burghound, “Don’t Miss”