Domaine Sylvain Pataille Marsannay La Montagne, Cote de Nuits, France

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The 2021 Marsannay La Montagne is especially floral, delivering scents of rose petals, peonies, orange rind and spices in addition to hints of sweet red fruit. Medium to full-bodied, ample and fleshy, with velvety tannins and a perfumed finish, it derives from a south-facing site with shallow soils.

From a site just below the tree line at the top of the slope, hot during the day but cool at night and characterized by poor, rocky soils, Pataille's 2017 Marsannay La Montagne wafts from the glass with a captivating bouquet of peonies, red berries, beetroot, dried herbs and coniferous forest floor. Medium to full-bodied, it's elegant and fine-boned, with a delicate core of fruit, succulent acids and melting tannins.

The 2015 Marsannay la Montagne has plenty of fresh raspberry and wild strawberry on the nose, vivacious and very well defined. This emits energy from the glass. The palate is smooth and rounded, so soft in the mouth you could almost drink it now. There is a touch of sour cherry and iodine on the finish that feels gentle, but this has great volume and persistence.

The 2014 Marsannay la Montagne has an open, expressive, slightly balsamic-tinged bouquet, with touches of dried apricot and quince emerging with time. The palate is medium-bodied, earthy on the entry with slightly dry tannin. I would like more fruit intensity by the time it is bottled since it feels a little austere at the moment.

The 2012 Marsannay la Montagne has a very pure black cherry and blueberry bouquet that has a pleasant high-toned but not ostentatious feel and it calms down in the glass. The palate is showing just a little reduction on the entry but there is certainly appreciable weight and volume in the mouth with tertiary black fruit forming the saline finish. This is an “upstanding” Marsannay. Sylvain Pataille, whose position as vigneron with the curliest hair is currently being challenged by Philippe Charlopin, compared his 2012s to 2009 but without the heaviness. He harvested his crop from 27 September and like so many winemakers, his yields were reduced by the growing season, in particular the old vines that suffered millerandage. Average yields plummeted to just 15hl/ha, due to hail damage on 5 July that targeted Marsannay (and Premeaux-Prissey) On top of all that, Sylvain told me that his berries suffered sunburn or grillure, but that the use of a Mistral vibrating table efficiently eradicated damaged berries. Everything here was de-stemmed in 2012 with the exception of the L’Ancestral that (as usual) is entirely whole cluster. I waxed lyrical about Marsannay top producer when I reviewed 2011s back in the summer, so it gave me great pleasure to report that Sylvain Pataille’s follow-ups are just a scintillating, if not more so. Marsannay is an appellation that has so much to offer, stylistically reminiscent of Bonnes-Mares albeit without quite the complexity, yet with a similar fruit profile, exuberance and showiness. With growers such as Sylvain Pataille and Philippe Roty, not forgetting Bruno Clair, surely it is a matter of time before it is bestowed a few premier crus? Anyway, if you have not acquainted yourself with the wines of Sylvain Pataille, you have a mobile phone – use it and stock up. Importer: Becky Wasserman Selection (various importers), Le Serbet, Beaune; fax 011-33-3-80-24-29-70 and OW Loeb (UK)