2005 Maison Bigot (Alex Gambal) Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru

Three of five barrels of Gambal’s 2005 Clos Vougeot are from a parcel high up and against the wall of the Clos and Grands Echezeaux (and three of five are new, too). Roasted meat and blackberry aromas lead into a bright, slightly tart, undeniably concentrated mouthful of black fruits backed by persistent, charred meatiness, alkaline mineral notes, and a chewy load of tannins. There is no doubt of this wine’s impressive depth and density, and probably a decade is needed to bring it into focus, so bear in mind that my scores reflect an estimation of the appeal it will hold immediately post-bottling. In the interest of full disclosure as well as history, I should note that Alex Gambal was a retail customer of mine during his days in Washington, DC real estate (probably amassing the proverbial large fortune prerequisite to making a small fortune in the wine business). I met him again when he was honing his French in the employ of Becky Wasserman, just before he entered the Lycee Viticole in Beaune at the improbable age of thirty-nine. It has been almost a decade now since Gambal began his negociant business. With a sophisticated, huge, gravity-fed, and historically-housed facility, increasingly high-quality and long-term grape contracts, gradual accumulation of his own vine acreage, and clearly adept assistance from wine maker Fabrice Laronze, Gambal is demonstrating impressive results with his 4-5,000 cases annually of both red and (60%) white. Several of his 2005 vintage reds had only just been bottled when I tasted. The others had been racked and assembled in tank for early two months, awaiting imminent bottling. Numerous importers. EURL Alex Gambal, Beaune; fax 011-33-3-80-22-21-66