2011 Vosne Romanee Les Barreaux

The 2011 Vosne-Romanee Les Barreaux is showing some unresolved new oak on the nose at the moment and needs another 12 months to fully integrate. The palate is medium-bodied with a slightly rustic opening. The acidity is quite sharp here and shows just a little attenuation toward the finish. This is for early drinking compared to other vintages that I have tasted in the past. I have long admired the wines of Anne Gros where I have been visiting since the late 1990s, before I ever put pen to paper, so to speak. She has always been a typical Burgundian, preferring to stay in and around Vosne with her husband, Jean-Paul Tollot, and their three children. Years ago, she spoke of her dislike of travelling abroad. But Burgundy has changed and become more international. Anne has changed too, since she was in Hong Kong when I came by, so it was her daughter Julie who guided me through the wines-having just started working with her mother in recent months. Some commentators have criticized Anne’s wines for leaning too far toward new oak, though I myself have found them to handle the wood and absorb it well once the wines are allowed to age. But I have to confess, I did find the use of 100% new oak suppressed and occasionally overwhelmed the fruit in these 2011s. The usual exuberance may have been diminished by bottle shock, but I worry that some of these wines did not show the requisite weight of fruit to handle that amount of oak. It is nothing to do with the winemaking, but rather the limitations imposed by the growing season. Importer: Atherton Wine Imports; www.awiwine.com

Good deep red. Captivating perfume of cherry, raspberry, blackberry, cocoa powder, minerals and flowers. Nicely dense and spicy in the mouth, combining enticing sweetness with terrific cut. Finishes with very good length and a serious tannic spine. This very promising and precise village wine will need time in bottle to fill out. The pH is is a relatively low-for-the-vintage 3.4.

Sumptuous nose. Very fine, tense fruit underneath. Admirable! Textbook Vosne. Dry but appetising finish. (JR)