Saouma and Brakir's two barrels of 2007 Volnay Caillerets smell hauntingly of cardamom, licorice, ripe cherry, and beef marrow. These elements thereafter inform a palate of almost silken richness yet energetic brightness, leading to a long, multi-layered, fascinating and alluring finish in which predictable notes of salt and chalk also emerge. Tasted blind, I would have guessed this to have been a 2008. I am reminded of some of the great Chablis of 2007 by this Pinot's ability to unite density and palpable extract with both seductively rich texture and a delightful sense of levity and invigoration. Give it 2-3 years in bottle and enjoy it within 6. While Mounir Saouma shares with me and many other vintners and critics the view that Caillerets at its best represents Volnay's summit, he notes that this wine has nearly always proven unproblematic and worry-free for him to vinify. In 2008, maintained Mounir Saouma, growers had to decide between two fundamentally different approaches: -Am I going to give in to fear because there is some rot, press gently; not macerate a lot; not keep a lot of lees; work with clean juice and plenty of sulfur? Or am I going to take another direction to counterbalance high acidity by macerating long, pressing deeply, putting a lot of lees in the wines, and aging a long time on those lees- and in his case without racking or adding sulfur. The barrels were topped not with wine but with stored lees, and Saouma gave me a chance to taste the richly-textured, fragrant quality of lees still retained after 18 months. Despite the fact that malo-lactic conversion is nearly always late in this cellar, the 2008s finished more or less on schedule, which here means by late summer or September. Alcohol levels, incidentally, generally finished just a bit over 13% in both vintages. The first, highly selective rackings of 2008s were due to take place soon after I tasted in March, with bottling anticipated between late spring and September of this year. -They're still slippery fish,- noted Saouma's partner, (and spouse) Rotem Brakir, this March of their evolving 2008s, and added: -We like to see the wines tasting every day well for two months before we bottle.- I last tasted most of the 2007s solely in June, 2009, and most of those prior to bottling. Of this vintage, Saouma, maintains it was important to pick Pinots in the first week of September and -not to exaggerate; to accept that, yes, there was a little bit of rot, and a portion of the fruit that was not entirely ripe; but to press deeply, to delay malo, and to keep a lot of lees in the barrel. Our 2007s were going through malo,- he notes, -when many growers were bottling theirs.- Talk may be cheap when it comes to the notion of wine -making itself,- acknowledges Rotem Brakir, but adds -2007 was a real lesson for us. Sometimes you have to sit and be quiet, while the wine educates you.- The results are unquestionably remarkable for their vintage. (The Le Moine wines - for more about whose sources and upbringing consult my reports in issue 171 - are rendered in such small quantities that I have generally indicated in my notes the number of barrels produced - each equivalent to approximately 25 cases. In each case where there I did not taste the bottled wine and are multiple barrels, I tasted a pre-assemblage.) The exceptional quality and promise of the Le Moine wines from two such challenging vintages is certainly a tribute to the unusual vinificatory approach chosen by Saouma and Brakir; to the caliber of the growers whose wines they select; and to at least some degree, I suspect, reflects the control they are able to exercise in collaboration with those growers, although Saouma down-plays such considerations, insisting that -if you find a grower you really like for a particular appellation, then you respect that grower's choices.- Importer: Vintus, Pleasantville, NY; tel. (919) 769-3000

The two barrels of Le Moine 2007 Chassagne-Montrachet Caillerets did not even complete their alcoholic fermentation until March of the following year, but in Saouma's school that doesn't make this a problem wine but more like a star pupil! Chalk, smoke, toasted nuts, and high-toned citrus oil and herbal distillates mark the nose (from barrel); on an oily-rich palate, bitter-sweet citrus rind and caramel mingle with peach and nut paste; and this finishes with an uncanny combination of soothing citrus cream with the invigoration of zest, chalk and salt. I suspect this will be a wine to follow for 7-8 years if not longer. For more information on the unorthodox and exceptional negociant firm of Rotem Brakin and Mounir Saouma, I refer readers to my report in issue 171. The pair are involved in decisions about the wines they purchase even before the barrels change hands; elevage typically approaches two years; and there are generally only one or two barrels (50 or 100 eventual cases) of each wine, for which reason I have typically noted the relevant volume, and the suggested prices – high in comparison with most sources, but arguably not in view of quality or rarity – must be taken with an especially large grain of tartrate. Brakin and Saouma indubitably believe in the importance of patience and of taking time, in which respect they see their work partly as an attempt to turn back the clock to the practices of an earlier era. Still, this generalization applies only partly to their approach in 2007, plus it is impossible to overlook what Saouma calls "the Bastille Day event of modern Burgundian viticulture," namely vintage 2003. "I'm glad we had 2007 in 2007 and not in 1997." he says. "Because 2003 happened, we were ready mentally to adapt ourselves. I think that it was necessary to pick the 2007 reds beginning around the 25th of August, and the whites around the 3rd through the 10th. of September. And it was important to adapt" to conditions. But Saouma did everything possible to conserve grape solids and to insure that malo-lactic conversions were late and protracted, so as to lengthen total elevage and thereby fill-out and convey both richness and structure to the wines. Most malos were completed in the summer of 2008 – with bottling begun in Spring, 2009 – but one barrel of the Le Moine 2007 Montrachet was still in malo at that point!Imported by Vintus, Pleasantville, NY; tel. (919) 769-3000