2005 - Pommard 1er Cru Les Grands Epenots, Domaine de Courcel

Good deep red. Very ripe, smoky nose showed mounting red fruits with aeration; ultimately much less extreme than the Fremiers. Then similarly huge in the mouth, with smoke and mineral notes complicated by an exotic stone fruit (peach, apricot) character. This silky, voluptuous wine offers superb depth of flavor and slowly mounting, superripe finishing flavors that saturate the palate. Best of all, it seemed to gain in freshness as it opened in the glass.

Courcel’s 2005 Pommard Grand Clos des Epenots (which exhibits a notably darker color than Courcel’s other wines) leads with aromas of cassis, smoked meat, bitter chocolate, and resin. In the mouth, this is concentrated and compact in structure, yet rich and expansive in flavor, with dark fruit, meat stock and chocolate mingling in a concentrated reduction, tinged by bitter fruit skin, fruit pit, coffee ground and wet stone. Ample, rich fruit covers the abundant and tightly-stitched tannin, but the almost savagely intense finish betrays a hint of heat from the wine’s roughly 14.5% alcohol. Something tells me that this potentially long-lived animal of a wine is being a bit obstreperous today. (Incidentally, Confuron’s pithy, piquant, darkly-hued 2004 Grands Epenots and Rugiens display unusual potential for that vintage, although their similarly elevated levels of alcohol are more likely to catch up with them.) Importer: Diageo Chateau and Estate Wines Company, New York, NY; tel. (212) 419-1400