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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: Wine, women, song.. and audio

Post Subject: Parker and LeroyPosted by de charlus on: 8/7/2013

I don't see DRC wines as being Parkerized at all; they are, and always were, simply rich, grandiose, and as extracted as one might expect from 8hl/ha yields from the very greatest of Grand Crus, while at the same time being the last word in finesse. The Leroy wines, on the other hand, are so reverse-osmosis, so long macerated and employ so much new oak - even in the case of inauspicious vineyards - that they're sometimes barely recognizable as Pinot Noir, and emphatically not as Burgundy. Even the very richest vintages from DRC, Joseph Roty, Comte Armand, Meo-Camuzet, Dugat, Dugat-Py and de Vogue don't taste anything like these behemoths, yet Parker thinks they're the best thing since sliced bread. Perhaps in 30 years or so some of these things will emerge with flying colors, but I doubt it. I was recently at a tasting at which each taster brought a bottle concealed in wrapping paper, so as to be entirely blind; from the color, nose and monolithic, black fruit and French Oak palate of one of the wines, three of the tasters there - not including myself, for I had tasted this wine before and so knew it - identified it as Cos d'Estournel 1990, an understandable error in some ways given what was going on with nose and palate, but it turned out to be Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru Les Amoureuses 1995 Dom. Leroy, typically one of the most supple, gracious and refined of the Chambolle 1er Crus, which is not to suggest that it is without richness and structure, since both de Vogue and Dujac do stellar examples of this 1er Cru. I mean, this stuff was thick, inky-black, reeked of new oak and had a palate redolent of claret - mocha, cigar box, dark fruits and only the subtlest hints of Burgundian red fruit, truffle etc. There was no discernible hint of Les Amoureuses terroir at all, and yet I can say from experience that this wine, at this stage of its development, was almost indistinguishable from the same vintage of Charmes-Chambertin Dom Leroy, two vineyards whose produce typically couldn't be more different. The infuriating thing is that great Burgundy, made in the traditional way, ages beautifully anyway, and simply doesn't need to relinquish all its charm for the amusement of Mr. Parker and La Leroy; Last year I drank Romanee-Conti 21 and Richebourg 59 DRC, and both were exquisite, yet neither were tannic, oaky, monolithic powerhouses when young. The bottom line is that Ms. Leroy knows how to please Parker, and she does, with bells on; I for one predict a crash in the value of Dom. Leroy wines when in about 10 years people realize that their treasured Parker 100s are dumb, monolithic and utterly charmless.

de Charlus

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