Comte Georges de Vogue, Bonnes Mares Grand Cru 2007

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Reviewed by: Neal Martin

Tasted at the Domaine. The Bonnes-Mares has a very minerally nose with blackberry, blueberry, tangerine, mango sorbet and blood orange. Wonderful definition and Bonnes-Mares typical vibrancy and ebullience. The palate is very refined with a stony quality on the entry, oodles of minerals, a poise that creeps up on the senses rather than being immediately apparent. One feels that this Bonnes-Mares will hold something back to rewards those with the patience to cellar over 12-years. Wonderful. Drink 2012-2030. Tasted November 2008.

robert_parker94

Reviewed by: David Schildknecht

De Vogue’s 2007 Bonnes Mares calls to mind sweet-tart black raspberry candies and herbal lozenges, along with notes of brown spices and smoky black tea. Rich, sedate, and provocatively sweet and perfumed, this manages simultaneously to preserve a saline savor and suggestion of lobster shell reduction that precludes anyone calling it a “fruit bomb.” The smoky and – for lack of a better covering term – “mineral” elements accompany this Bonnes Mares’ soothing finish all the way to its distant end. No doubt there is at least a decade’s worth of seduction and intrigue on hand, but here too, I would not hesitate to relish them significantly sooner. Francois Millet – always keen to pinpoint the expression of fruit he finds in each vintage – characterizes that of 2008 as “syrup-like,” and of 2007 as “candied.” I am skeptical that these metaphors can be generalized, but under no circumstances should “syrup-like” be taken as an attempt to deny the brightness or transparency displayed by so many of the best 2008s, including these. “To have been picked late” – in this instance, starting September 27 – “to have been picked cold, and to have fermented very slowly to created the largest amount of glycerol to combine with the freshness of the vintage,” opines Millet, constitutes a significant part of the 2008s’ secret, seduction, even mystery. “Late malo” – here completed in August – he adds, “was also good, so that the vintage could have a true childhood, and slowly, surely build itself. If we had had a southern wind when the weather changed, maybe we would have lost that identity of 2008. But by there being a northern wind, the evolution was continued” i.e. in a constant, cool trajectory. Not to short-change it, the 2007 vintage collection here is one of those few capable of standing direct comparison to its immediate successor – or indeed to nearly any other vintage from this address. Imported by Dreyfus Ashby, New York, NY; tel. (212) 818-0770; also a Peter Vezan Selection (various importers), Paris; fax 011 33 1 42 55 42 93