2011 Echezeaux Les Treux Vieilles Vignes

The 2011 Echezeaux Vieilles Vignes comes from the lieu-dit of Les Treux from 75-year-old vines. It has a generous bouquet with dark cherries, red currant and raspberry with hints of cold stone and just a touch of vanilla. The palate is medium-bodied with supple, edgy tannins that lend this Echezeaux the tension it needs to counterbalance that supple ripe dark cherry and mulberry fruit. It is very composed on the finish that handles the 70% new oak with aplomb. Very fine although it just needs a little more persistency. I have met Guillaume Tardy a few times in London, but this was the first time that I dropped by at his winery on the Route Nationale in Vosne (word of warning for first-time visitors: blink and you will miss the sign.) The roots of the domaine stem from his family’s metiers for Domaine Meo-Camuzet and as Jean-Nicolas Meo regained control, the Tardy family had to effectively rebuild their own domaine. So Jean Tardy began acquiring small vineyard parcels, though never less than a plot that could regularly yield six barrels per vintage in order for them to be worth bottling on their own. Guillaume himself started working with his father in 1997 but his first vintage was 2001, after working at the Picardy Winery in Australia. His 2011s were bottled in February. Guillaume told me that he is looking for silky tannins and freshness and that neatly sums up his wines that I have praised in the past and have no hesitation in doing so again. No known American importer.