Sweetly ripe morellos cherries such as one found in the corresponding 2006 fill the nose and mouth from Boillot’s 2008 Gevrey-Chambertin Les Evocelles, which also evinces an especially savory if elusive meatiness and the piquancy of fruit pits. Sappy and vibrant through to its long finish, this superb evocation of an under-rated site should be worth attending to for at least a decade.
Louis Boillot’s 2008s – all but three recently racked to tank when I tasted them in February, and due to have been bottled between April and June depending in part on the sensory evolution of their prominent acidity – represent one of those vintage collections that reminds one of the virtues of typical wines from two or more decades ago: restrained, a bit youthfully tart and tight, but back by admirable extract and energy, and likely to reward cellaring for at least the better part of a decade. Having described this collection as something of a throwback, I must note that Boillot said by the time he finished picking on October 4 his remaining fruit was already at 13.5% potential alcohol – riper than in 2007 – and only a few 2008 vintage lots in his entire cellar were chaptalized. The vintage reminds him of 1996 in terms of its acidity, but of the long under-rated 1972s overall. “I bottled a lot of magnums in 2008,” Boillot says with a confident twinkle in his eye. Unfortunately, time constraints precluded by tasting the 2007s from this cellar.
Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990