2008 Gevrey Chambertin Les Combottes

There is alas only one barrel of Lignier 2008 Gevrey-Chambertin Les Combottes, whose hint of reduction results in notes of pork rind that I find nicely compliment its bright red fruits and anticipate the tart, saline, subtly smoky and cherry pit-inflected as well as lip-smacking palate impression. This hasn’t quite the energy or textural refinement of the corresponding Morey premier cru, and there is a slightly detached hint of caramel from the once-before used barrel in an otherwise clear, quite refreshing finish. It should be well worth following for the better part of a decade and may well have harmonized and refined-itself by the time it hits the market. Hubert and Laurent Lignier – for more on whose recent evolution as a domaine and as negociants, consult my report in issue 186 – had one barrel from 2008 still stuck in malo last February, and several others had only finished by Christmas. No wines had been bottled (though they were assembled) when I last tasted them in February; indeed even the 2007s here were not bottled until May and June of 2009. Natural alcohol in the 2008 collection peaked at 13% in the Charmes and Combottes (due to extreme millerandage there, notes Laurent Lignier) and all of the wines were very lightly-chaptalized. Sorting was much less arduous for them in 2008 than 2007, he adds. As is evident from my rating, the array of wines from lesser locations or that incorporate purchased fruit have not (in the years since the splitting-up of control over this estate) nearly approached the consistently outstanding quality that the three or four top Lignier bottlings continue to exhibit. Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990