Drink till 2040
Vinous 90-92
Modest depth and length, but there is good grip on the finish, and a spicy note lingers after the wine has exited. Good potential.
“There was nothing much to say,” Sylvie Esmonin begins as we taste in her barrel cellar, her trusty hound sniffing around behind me. “There was nothing catastrophic during the season, not a huge amount of dryness. It was a little of everything though it was warmer than normal. We started the harvest on 17 September until 23 September. There were small yields at around 27hl/ha. There are a little more whole berries in certain cuvées this year and the cuvaison was relatively short, around 15 days. The wines were racked a month ago. The alcohol is between 13.0° and 13.9°, the highest in the Clos Saint-Jacques. The fermentation finished without any problems.” Typical of Esmonin’s style, these wines veer towards the more opulent and oaky side even though the picking date is identical to many. I would love to see her Clos Saint-Jacques in say two-thirds new wood instead of 100%. As such, they always need cellaring and even a 2016 Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes opened earlier that day indicated that it needed another two or three years in bottle.