Wine Advisor
Ponsot, Clos de la Roche Grand Cru Cuvee Vieilles Vignes 2009
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Antonio Galloni
The 2009 Clos de la Roche Cuvee Vieilles Vignes is round, sweet and totally enveloping. It is a huge, towering Burgundy that impresses for its gorgeous inner perfume and juicy, exuberant fruit. This shows tons of richness without being heavy or overripe in any way. Anticipated maturity: 2029-2049. This set of 2009s from Laurent Ponsot was among the finest I tasted. The wines are simply dazzling from top to bottom. Ponsot was among the last to harvest in 2009, essentially starting when most, if not all, of his colleagues already had the fruit in their cellars. The fruit was 100% destemmed and the wines were vinified in oak vats. The wines were then racked into barrel for the malos, where many of them stayed with no further rackings. There is no new oak at Ponsot. The barrels range from 5 to 50 years of age. The range now includes a head spinning eleven Grand Crus, which now total an astonishing 70% of the estate’s total production. Ordinarily I would suggest cellaring the top 2009s for a minimum of 15 years or so, but now that Ponsot is bottling all of his wines with synthetic plastic corks made in Italy it is hard to know exactly how the wines will develop. I tasted all of the 2009s from barrel, where they had been aging since finishing their malolactic fermentations. Importer: Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL; tel. (205) 980-8802
Reviewed by: Antonio Galloni
The 2009 Clos de la Roche Cuvée Vieilles Vignes is round, sweet and totally enveloping. It is a huge, towering wine that impresses for its gorgeous inner perfume and juicy, exuberant fruit. This shows tons of richness without being heavy or overripe in any way.
About the Producer
Domaine Ponsot was founded in 1872 when William Ponsot's father purchased a house for him and some vineyards in Morey-Saint-Denis, after William returned from serving in the Franco-Prussian War. A small amount of the domaine's wine was bottled by them at this time, mainly for private use and for the family's restaurants (they owned the franchise for all the station buffets in northern Italy at the time). When William died childless in 1926, the domaine was passed to William's nephew, Hippolyte Ponsot. At the time, the domaine's holdings included Clos des Monts Luisants, a vineyard founded by William and planted with Aligoté in 1911, and a parcel of Clos de la Roche. The domaine also cultivated fruit from other appellations, such as Les Charmes and Les Combottes in Gevrey-Chambertin. The planting of Aligoté was unusual at the time; most white wine production in Burgundy had leaned towards the more economically viable Chardonnay grape in the post-Phylloxera era. The domaine began estate bottling in 1934; a rarity at the time, something only a dozen domaines did prior to World War II. They also began selling wine outside France, including to the United States, at this time. The first labels were hand-stamped and signed by Hippolyte, something he did by the fireplace in the days before television. During 1934 and 1935, Hippolyte was active in defining the Appellation d'origine contrôlée system in Burgundy, something his prior training as a lawyer and diplomat was useful in. Hippolyte retired in 1957, passing the domaine to his son, Jean-Marie Ponsot (former mayor of Morey-Saint-Denis, former president of the Cadets de Bourgogne and Grand Echanson of the Confrerie des Chevaliers du Tastevin), who had been working at the domaine since 1942 as co-winemaker and co-viticulturalist. In 1961, the domaine began working several new parcels under a type of agreement known as metayage—plots in Chambolle-Musigny, Chambertin, and Latricières-Chambertin. Their holdings expanded again in 1972, when Jean-Marie's wife, Jacqueline Ponsot Livera, inherited vines in Gevrey. The domaine was incorporated into a property company in 1975, with Jean-Marie, Jacqueline, Denis, and Marie-Antoinette Ponsot as principals. In 1981, Jean-Marie's son, Laurent Ponsot, began working at the domaine. This year also saw an expansion of the domaine's metayage agreements, adding access to Griotte Chambertin, Chambertin, Clos St Denis, and Chambolle Les Charmes from Domaine des Chezeaux (the Mercier family). Laurent took over winemaking duties at the domaine from 1983 until 2017, when he left to found Domaine Laurent Ponsot. Laurent's sister Rose-Marie remains as sole proprietor.
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