The 2005 Volnay Santenots Vieilles Vignes, smells fetchingly of deep, sweet, ripe black cherry, brown spices, aromatic woods (probably not oak – only two of five barrels were new), moss, and hints of cherry pit bitterness. On the palate, tart but ripe black fruit offers counterpoint to an incipient creaminess of texture. A concentrated finish successfully integrates fresh fruit brightness and tart, bitter elements for a most invigorating effect. This should respond well to 3-5 years of cellaring, although Gambal is at pains to forecast that with their high acidity and polyphenols most of these 2005s may shut down soon after bottling and for several years.
In the interest of full disclosure as well as history, I should note that Alex Gambal was a retail customer of mine during his days in Washington, DC real estate (probably amassing the proverbial large fortune prerequisite to making a small fortune in the wine business). I met him again when he was honing his French in the employ of Becky Wasserman, just before he entered the Lycee Viticole in Beaune at the improbable age of thirty-nine. It has been almost a decade now since Gambal began his negociant business. With a sophisticated, huge, gravity-fed, and historically-housed facility, increasingly high-quality and long-term grape contracts, gradual accumulation of his own vine acreage, and clearly adept assistance from wine maker Fabrice Laronze, Gambal is demonstrating impressive results with his 4-5,000 cases annually of both red and (60%) white. Several of his 2005 vintage reds had only just been bottled when I tasted. The others had been racked and assembled in tank for early two months, awaiting imminent bottling.
Numerous importers. EURL Alex Gambal, Beaune; fax 011-33-3-80-22-21-66
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