2013 Romanee St Vivant

Deep red with ruby highlights. Sexy aromas and flavors of primary dark berries, black raspberry and cocoa powder complicated by spicy oak tones. Thick yet lively on entry; a youthfully imploded but utterly seamless wine with outstanding energy and depth. For all its density, this tactile, saline wine shows a magically light touch. Really builds and lingers on the superb rising finish, which features noble tannins. Still a baby, this grand cru has a great future.

(12.2% natural alcohol, chaptalized to 13.2%): Bright dark red. Deep, alluring scents of raspberry, cocoa powder, coffee and menthol, plus a whiff of almost liqueur-like cherry. Sweet, lush and fine-grained, offering noteworthy finesse to the flavors of black raspberry and black cherry. Plenty ripe in spite of its relatively cool terroir . The wine's energy draws out the subtle, slowly mounting finish, which features noble tannins and lovely lingering perfume. I tasted this wine from a new barrel (the assemblage will be 50% new oak) but did not find the oak at all intrusive. Great class here.

The 2013 Romanée-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru, which is raised in 50% new oak, has an introspective bouquet at first, but allowing the wine a couple of minutes to open, it reveals intense red cherries, kirsch, strawberry and mineral scents that convey the femininity of the vineyard. The palate is medium-bodied with layers of minerally red fruit, superb acidity and a showstopping peacock’s tail of flavors on the finish: strawberry, raspberry, white pepper, mineral and truffle. Wow. I cannot wait to see how this turns out in bottle. ||Word on the street (and I don’t know exactly what street, but one where wine-lovers gossip) is that Domaine Hudelot-Noëllat is “kicking arse” these days. I believe that’s a technical term for fashioning wines with elegance, poise and that abstract term: “pinoté." Charles van Canneyt, “a bit of a dish” according to several friends of the fairer sex, has steered this domaine in a positive direction. Once their wines were “respectable." Now, recent vintages have warranted a small but perfectly formed flotilla of superlatives. Charles told me that he started the harvest on October 5 and used 20% new oak for the village crus and 30% to 50% for the premier crus. Like many winemakers, he blended the stems into the vat, between 20 to 25%. The malolactics here were late…very late. In fact one or two of the cuvées still had not completed their malo by the time of my visit at the end of November (I suspect that is partly because their capacious cellar always feels a little colder than others.) “Personally I prefer 2013 [to 2012] because you can easily tell the terroir. It has good potential for cellaring because there is good quality of tannin and because of the acidity, which is more present in the 2013. That gives more energy in the wines,” he remarked. I have to say, this represented a very consistent and occasionally inspiring set of 2013s that climaxed with a show-stopping Romanée-Saint-Vivant, so luxurious and pure that I suggested to Charles that he serve the sultrier Richebourg before it. It evoked memories of a divine 1980 that I had popped just the week earlier. This domaine’s 2013s come strongly recommended and here I agree with Charles that they may well surpass the 2012s – a remarkable feat given the growing season. Do not overlook gems such as the three Vosne Premier Crus (Malconsorts, les Beaumonts and les Suchots) while their Vosne-Romanée Village ’13 is one of the best that I tasted during my five weeks of tasting. eRobertParker.com.December, 2014