The Lignier-Michelot 2008 Morey-St.-Denis Les Cheneverys introduces black pepper, fruit pit piquancy, medicinal herbal inflections, and overtly chalky as well as saline mineral notes to its abundant, bright red fruits, for a considerably complex nose and mouthful. Here is one of those 2008s that in its handsome leanness as well as its alliance of dark flavors with bright acidity and its admirable transparency to mineral nuance puts me in mind of 2005, and I would suggest waiting a few years to pop more than the first cork, anticipating a good decade of stimulation.
”I love the purity of fruit in the 2008s, which is for me is a big part of the definition of Pinot Noir,” declares Virgile Lignier, after admitting that he shared the doubts of many growers about these wines in their earliest stages, doubts that lead him to de-acidify a few small lots. Natural alcohol levels here in 2008 hovered around 13% although Lignier reports having chaptalized around half a degree for the sake of extending fermentations. He was very cautious in fermentative extraction – “mostly we just took a little juice and poured it back over the cap,” he relates – and in nearly all instances retained around on-third of the stems. Lignier also racked his young 2008s earlier and then two and three times because of what he reported were their stubborn CO2 retention and reductive tendencies, an approach diametrically opposed to that of other growers, but the results here this vintage serve as yet another demonstration that many roads can lead to success. I tasted all but the Bourgogne assembled from tank. “You could do a bit more extraction,” says Lignier of 2007, from which time unfortunately precluded my sampling more than a few examples. (For some details on the sites Lignier farms, consult in particular my notes on his 2006s in issue 186.)
Becky Wasserman Selection (various importers), Le Serbet; fax 011-333-80-24-29-70
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