Lucien Le Moine, Bonnes Mares Grand Cru 2012

vinous96

Reviewed by: Antonio Galloni

A bevy of exotic floral and spice notes meld into dark fruit as the 2012 Bonnes-Mares shows off its pedigree and pure class. Statuesque tannins and a deep underlying sense of structure underpin the 2012, an utterly magnificent wine built for the cellar. Rose petals, violets, star anise and spices are among the notes that appear on the pulsating, tannic finish.

vinous97

Reviewed by: Stephen Tanzer

(includes wine from the north and south part of the appellation; in some past vintages, these two components were bottled separately): Good medium red. Pure but very closed nose hints at dark fruits and spices. Powerful and penetrating, conveying an impression of strong dry extract to its cassis, blackberry and white pepper flavors. Incredibly unevolved and pure, with a muscular, slowly mounting finish featuring savory minerality and sexy Asian spices.

robert_parker96

Reviewed by: Neal Martin

The 2012 Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru has a wonderful bouquet with bright red and black fruit, superb mineralite and freshness. The palate is precise and focused with great harmony and depth, leading to a passionate, rounded, sensual finish with an abiding sense of symmetry that I hope will be translated once in bottle. It is always a pleasure to visit the indefatigable Mounir Saouma at his hideaway winery just off the Beaune periphique. He is a winemaker you can jest with, and he is often victim of my sardonic Essex humor (for example, when enthusing about obtaining one of five barrels of a premier cru, I dryly enquired whether the other four were sold off for distillation - I would not say that to Aubert de Villaine.) And I appreciate Mounir's wines. They used to taste a little too fat and almost over-powering in their youth, but I think he is fine-tuning his reductive winemaking style, achieving more freshness and vitality. I tasted his 2012 reds since the whites were still undergoing malolactic. Among the tidal wave of opinions, one that he emphasized was that to capture the quality of the vintage under cork, the wines should be bottled late, and not in spring when Burgundy will resound to the clinking of glass. Mounir also told me that he paid 50% more from wines in 2012 than in 2011, but that he intends to keep prices within 15% increase. Importers: Vintus LLC, Pleasantville, NY; tel. (914) 769-3000, Atherton Imports, Menlo Park, CA; tel. (650) 328-6639