From Champs Traversins, a relatively drought-resistant, clay-rich, yet cool and breezy section of the appellation just south of Orveaux, Prieur’s 2005 Echezeaux exhibits liqueur-like blackberry and black cherry with resinous, smoky new oak overtones in the nose. Intensely concentrated on the palate but (in light of the stylistic trend at this address) surprisingly free of superficial sweetness, this substantial, in fact, downright, weighty wine is loaded with tannin that lends a certain severity. But there is the beginning of a certain creaminess as well. Smoked meats mingle with concentrated berry distillates and toasty oak in the finish.
Nearly all bottlings from this negociant – on an upward path since the influx of Rodet capital in the early ‘90s – in fact originate in the Domaine Jacques Prieur. Martin Prieur and his team have striven to capture purity of fruit through gentle extraction, although for my taste I found some of their 2005s overly confectionary due to the influence of toasty new wood on already very sweetly ripe raw material. After malo – which was generally quite late here this year – the wines were sulfured but not yet racked.
Importer: Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York, NY; tel. (212) 355-0700.
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