Unfortunately, while there are four barrels of this, Ambroise has to split them with the grower from whom he gets the fruit, leaving just 50 cases or so of Ambroise Echezeaux for the world. Last tasted by me from its two barriques and one customized barrel – there are slightly less than 100 cases in total – Ambroise’s 2008 Clos Vougeot comes from a parcel bordering Grands Echezeaux. Salted beef stock and concentrated ripe blackberry that preserves abundant fresh-fruit juiciness are tinged with black pepper and crushed stone for a broad yet gripping; tannic yet invigoratingly pungent performance. This lacks the alluring sweetness or relative clarity of the corresponding Echezeaux, but exhibits the energy and vivacity of its vintage that was absent from some of the massively-concentrated wines in this collection, and that I would in fact least have anticipated in a wine of this particular appellation. Ambroise insists that Clos Vougeot, with its cool, compact clay is harvested too early in a mistaken believe that this is what’s needed to preserve levity and freshness, whereas he always harvests it last of all his acreage.Bertrand Ambroise picked late and captured impressively ripe material in 2008, though the strident side of the vintage is sometimes still in evidence in the resultant wines, and not always comfortably married with the ambitious extraction and high quotient of new wood that characterize his regimen. (For further details concerning Ambroise’s methods, consult my report in issue 171.) I did not, regrettably, have chance to taste any of Ambroise’s 2007s, which he characterizes, predictably, as having been much more open early-on than his 2008s and as for the most part being ideal to drink young.Importer: Robert Kacher Selections, Washington, DC; tel. (202) 832-9083
