Representing eight barrels from four suppliers, the Maison Potel 2008 Clos de la Roche smells of wood smoke, resin, maple syrup, dark berries, purple plum, and crushed stone. This displays impressive sap and stamina on the palate, with an intensity of fruit nicely poised between confiture and freshness, the tartness and piquancy of skins and pits adding to an energetic and invigorating finishing impression. The sense of stony minerality, too, persists impressively. This ought to be worth following for 15 or more years.
In mid 2009, Nicolas Potel was forced out of the negociant firm that bears his name by the owners of its parent company, Laboure-Roi. (For more about Nicolas Potel’s own new negociant and domaine, see under “Roche de Bellene” and “Domaine de Bellene.”) Other members of the team responsible for Maison Nicolas Potel wines – including cellarmaster Fabrice Lesne – remain in place. I tasted more than half of their 2008s – a line-up considerably reduced in numbers as well as different in particulars from that which had come to prevail under Potel’s tenure (and bereft of some obvious gems) – and sampled a few of their 2007s: the last collection here that Nicolas Potel guided to bottle; an exceptionally impressive one for its vintage based on what I could taste; and one characterized by levels of alcohol (generally under 12.5%) unusually modest by any standards, not to mention those prevailing in 2007. Many of the Potel 2008s were tardy in undergoing malo; a few were not finished until Spring of last year and thus not taste-able when I last visited. No wines had yet been bottled at that time either, but all of those that I tasted were ready for bottling, and where applicable assembled in tank. It would be an understatement to note that it is bound to be awkward for both parties from a marketing standpoint to have your operation named for someone no longer involved but rather competing with you, someone whose wines in turn cannot be labeled with his own name. But under the unfortunate historical circumstances, there may for at least the foreseeable future be no alternative.
Importer: Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York, NY; tel. (212) 355-0700
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