Sandalwood, machine oil, blackberry and cassis rise from the glass of 2005 Corton Rognets. In the mouth, this exhibits admirable purity and clarity of raw black fruits, low-toned charred meat, chalk, salt and wet stone minerality. Formidably yet finely tannic, this darkly-shaded and multi-layered wine really mines the mineral profundity of Corton and epitomizes the raw fruit intensity of which the vintage is capable. The stout of heart should lock this away for a decade or more.
Amboise characterized this year’s fruit as consisting of “perfect berries, solid and well-structured” from which he concluded it should all be de-stemmed and a cautious approach taken to extraction. But caution is relative. Bertrand Ambroise certainly vinifies with a fanatic dedication to quality, but also with no concessions to the faint of heart, and his formidably tannic 2005s will strike some tasters as hyper-concentrated and flirting with over-extraction. Perhaps a bit more refinement and differentiation might have been achieved with a less robust and woody approach? Ambroise works largely with 400-liter barrels in an effort to preserve fruit by diminishing the surface-to-volume ratio and thus the flavoring effects of new wood, but I cannot claim that I would have recognized that fact in the wines themselves.
Importer: Robert Kacher Selections, Washington, DC; tel. (202) 832-9083
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