1999 Domaine Remoissenet Père et Fils, Beaune-Marconnets, Premier Cru Red Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, France.
This dark garnet/crimson 1999 Remoissenet Beaune-Marconnets 1er Cru Rouge, which was another surprise at a recent blind Burgundy tasting, showed brilliantly and was a big hit with me on the night with nicely evolved and mature flavors and pretty Pinot Noir elegance. This lightly meaty and earthy wine is still plenty fresh showing off a core of dark fruits, including black cherry, strawberry, slightly stewed plums and tangy red currant, along with crushed stones, a touch of leather, autumn leaves, truffle, Earl Grey tea, wilted rose and soft wood notes. There is a bit of chalky dry tannin and a lift of acidity helping preserve the fruit on the long finish, making this wine impressive on the medium bodied palate and it’s still up for a solid meal and meaty cuisine. I can’t remember having a wine from this Cru before, and I learned that this one came from all estate vines, which I believe were replanted in the early 1990s or late 1980s and organic, near Savigny in the northern part of the Beaune appellation on sandy soils. I have always loved the whites at Remoissenet, but in recent years, under the new owners and with Pierre-Antoine Rovani (formerly of the Wine Advocate), the estate is bringing more vineyards and focusing on, it seems, the reds, and raising the game here. That said, this 1999 was a rewarding treat and drinking maybe better than would be expected of the vintage and makes me want to explore more of the Remoissenet Premier Crus, which are fairly reasonable in price these days.
Remoissenet, which is an incredibly old Burgundy estate, dates back to 1877 and until the new owners took over in 2005 had a huge collection of cellar aged wines that were ordered by the importer in unique lots of vintages to the United States, making it interesting and surprisingly affordable to get domaine matured older vintages. The estate farms with biodynamics and has some prime vineyards, plus they buy top notch fruit from old growers, paying for quality rather than by weight, making sure each wine is an excellent example of vintage and place. I have mostly enjoyed the whites at Remoissenet, so it was great to experience this Beaune-Marconnets 1er Cru red, especially with the 25 years of age, which showed very nicely still. Remoissenet’s winemaking is philosophically, as they note, is and has always been non-interventionist, with current winemaker Claudie Jobard preferring to “let the grapes speak” (without manipulation) as clearly as possible. Reds here are traditionally fermented on indigenous yeasts in open-top fermenters with gentle handling of the grapes and with hand punch downs with a good maceration period for structural extraction. The wines are pressed and racked to larger French oak barrels (350L) with the percentage of new French oak barrels depending on the cru and or the vintage, with up to 30 percent new wood for villages wines and from 30 to 70 percent for premier crus, like this ones. Reds, typically aged for 12 to 18 months, again according to the winery, are neither fined nor filtered at bottling. Some tasting events are full of mediocre wines to be honest, but this tasting of industry peeps brought out some gems from unexpected places and this Remoissenet was one of them.
($62-109 Est.) 93 Points, grapelive