The 2009 Pommard Jarolieres is a big, jammy wine. Deep, dark and sensual, it shows wonderful up-front intensity, although some of that richness tapers off on the finish. The Jarolieres is a wine to enjoy for its heady, overt expression of fruit. The vines here are 85 years old, which contributes to the wine’s intensity. Rossignol used 100% whole bunches for the Jarolieres and aged the wine in 50% new oak. Tasted from barrel. Anticipated maturity: 2015-2025. Nicolas Rossignol began picking on September 10th and brought in very ripe fruit, with natural alcohols in the 13.5% range. Rossignol used a higher percentage of stems than normal to give the wines a measure of freshness. The wines saw 20-24 days of cuvaison (with no cold soak) with one punchdown per day. New oak ranged from 15% for the villages to 33-50% for the 1ers. The wines were not racked during their time in barrel. Rossignol has an energy and passion that will take him far. His 2009s are a bit all over the place stylistically, though, and it appears that a distinct house style has yet to emerge. A Becky Wasserman Selection, Le Serbet, various American importers, including: Toepfer Imports LLC, CO; tel. (303) 818-7640; Pas Mal Portfolio, NY; tel. (201) 569-4132

The Rossignol 2007 Pommard Jarollieres – representing a mere two barrels – mingles ripe but tart cherry and blackberry with salted meat stock, another instance at this address of unusual cut and brightness for the vintage. Chew of fruit skins and a sense of crushed stone segue into a firm set of tannins but the gripping finish never turns austere thanks to sheer, lip-smacking primary juiciness, salinity, and vivacity. This should be worth following for at least 6-8 years. Having convinced Nicolas Rossignol to let me taste in the 2008 vintage the entirety of his collection – expanded by the “re-union” of various family members’ parcels large and small to encompass, from 2009, 32 appellations! – I ran into a snag. In his frigid cellar – so cold yet in March that we met to taste at his house in Beaune – many wines (two Pernands; three lots of Pommard; Volnay Fremiets ?) were still stuck undergoing (some barely beginning) malo-lactic conversion! Some growers would opine that outstanding results cannot possibly issue from such freakishly retarded young wines, but my experience with what is clearly the most exciting collection I have yet experienced from this young vigneron suggests otherwise. There was a continuum on display among the wines I tasted, from ones that had only just finished malo and were still loaded with CO2, to more finished wines, and they were virtually all excellent. Rossignol sees aspects of each of the three vintages that preceded it in 2008, as well as what he calls “the finesse of 2002.” Potential alcohols were in the 12.5 to low 13s and a significant share of the wines was lightly chaptalized, though not for the sake of alcoholic body per se. For all of the hail in his general sector this July, only Rossignol’s Santenay “and a touch of the Caillerets” were hit. He claims that in 2008 he did not have to exercise rigorous sorting in the cellar but only on the vines, and he persisted in the inclusion of stems and whole clusters (“vendange entier”) in certain cuvees, an inclusion I have tried to mentioned where applicable in my tasting notes. By contrast, his 2007s – which he calls “wines for drinking, not tasting” – were all de-stemmed. (For further details on Rossignol and his approach to Pinot, see my reports in issues 171 and 176.) A Becky Wasserman Selection, Le Serbet (various importers); fax 011-333-80-24-29-70