Wine Advisor
Meo Camuzet, Vosne Romanee 1er Cru Aux Brulees 2015
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
The 2015 Vosne-Romanée Les Brûlées 1er Cru has a potent oyster shell tincture on the nose, which is very well defined and suggestive of some clever stem addition, although to my knowledge there is none. It is certainly a bouquet full of charm and personality. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin. It seems to have been picked at the perfect moment, ripe but pricked with tension from start to finish, and precise and full of energy on the finish. This is an exquisite Premier Cru that will give 30-plus years of drinking pleasure. Tasted blind at the annual Burgfest tasting.
Reviewed by: Stephen Tanzer
Bright, dark red-ruby. Precise, high-pitched perfume of kirsch, black raspberry, spices and flowers. Offers compelling thickness but no impression of heaviness, with its concentrated dark fruit flavors enlivened by mineral and floral high notes. The sweetest of these four 2016s but with great balancing acidity. More palate-caressing than the Corton today but these are all marvelously intense, tight and balanced wines that already display their distinctive personalities. Really spreads out to saturate the palate and stimulate the taste buds on the vibrant, rising finish.
Reviewed by: Stephen Tanzer
(recently racked, as it had been very reduced): Bright medium ruby. Sweet black raspberry, bitter chocolate and sexy oak on the profound nose. Like the Echézeaux, this is superbly concentrated and very primary, but this wine is incredibly fine-grained considering its youthfully imploded character. Flavors of black fruits, licorice and bitter chocolate blow past the substantial dusty tannins on the very long finish. Still an infant.
About the Producer
Founded in the early 20th Century by Etie, Méo-Camuzet is one of the figureheads of Vosne-Romanée as well as an old family of the village. Back in 1920, founder Etienne Camuzet acquired 3 hectares of the house's flagship Clos Vougeot as well as the Château itself before donating it to the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin. After WWII, the estate came to the management of Jean Méo who had agreements with vintners managing the vineyards and making the wines, the most famous of which was Henri Jayer. In 1983, the estate started to bottle some of its fruits under its own label and the sharecropping agreements eventually came to an end in 1988 when Jean-Nicolas Méo took over the management of the 17.2-hectare property. The meticulous work in the vineyard involves bud pruning in spring, careful trellising to ensure an optimal leaf exposure to sunlight as well as aeration of the bunches and green harvest may be performed if necessary. After harvest bunches are de-stemmed before a 3-5 days cold maceration prior to fermentation. The wines are then matured in oak barrels for 15 to 18 months before bottling. The winemaking aims at preserving the fruit purity to craft smoothly grained, profound wines with complex aromatics and silky textures. In order to ensure the quality acquired in the vineyard and revealed in the cellar is bottled unspoilt, the wines are not filtered. Jean-Nicolas Méo is also involved in a négociant activity which sources and vinifies grapes from vineyards managed by the estate before bottling them under the "Frère & Soeur" label. The attention to detail in the vineyards and the winery is the same as for the estate and allows the family to produce a wider range of appellation in lesser-known Côte de Nuits villages such as Marsannay or Fixin offering a great entry point to the wines of the domaine. Since 2011, this superb portfolio now comprises the first ever Grand Cru white produced by Méo-Camuzet: a Corton-Charlemagne.
