2005 Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair Vosne-Romanée Clos du Château

This wine was amazing. Maybe I was overly enthusiastic, but it took my breath away. It had such vibrant energy, precision, and balance. It showed aromas of ginseng, spices, light prunes and dried strawberries that followed to a stony character. It was full with ultrafine tannins and a long, long finish. Everyone who tasted it just couldn’t believe the quality here. It will be even better in five or six years. It was a perfect wine that night.

Tasted at the Comte Liger-Belair vertical at the Château de Vosne. The 2005 Vosne-Romanée Clos du Château is a vast improvement over the previous two vintages with fresh red cherry, orange rind and rosemary scents that are not intense, but are well defined. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, harmonious in the mouth with degraded, lightly spiced red fruit and a slight grittiness on the finish that is appealing. This is probably at its peak now - the best vintage since the 2000 for sure. Tasted June 2015.

The 2005 Vosne-Romanee Clos du Chateau has a very intense bouquet of mineral-rich red berry fruit that is precise and focused, perhaps edging more toward premier cru in quality. Lovely blood orange scents begin to surface with five minutes aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with dark cherry and bergamot notes, hints of bay leaf littering the citric finish. This is actually better than I expected – still youthful and vital, a village cru that actually needs a decade in bottle. I will be covering Louis-Michel’s highly praised; elusive and expensive wines in future issues of The Wine Advocate. But for now, in October I attended a fascinating tasting of older vintages to glean how they age. Certainly, these wines are imbued with a citrus freshness that verges of sorbet-like with some wines. They clearly go out to impress and impress they do. What these wines refuse to do is short-change the Burgundy-lover apropos perfume or flavor; they willingly go out there to satisfy the senses. They also appear to age slowly and gracefully, and I suspect most of these will reach their plateau after around a decade in the cellar.