2015 Bonnes Mares Grand Cru La Vougeraie

A pungent nose presently consists of wood toast and reduction. Interestingly the massively constituted flavors are even bigger, richer and more powerful and the copious amount of dry extract is seriously impressive and this is just as well as the tannic spine is markedly prominent on the driving and strikingly long finish. This is a brute of wine yet like the Mazoyères it manages to avoid being rustic though with that being said, no one is likely to find this to be particularly refined. A "buy and forget you own it" wine.

The 2015 Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru comes from the domaines parcel in "Terres Rouges", in fact, the last vineyard before you reach Morey-Saint-Denis. It has a very correct, almost reserved bouquet at first, like several wines from this vineyard at the moment. It is very terroir-expressive with hints of slate and gun flint emerging with time in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with a sorbet-like freshness on the entry, here more of the Bonnes-Mares opulence and richness coming through, building to a bravura finish of orange zest, black fruit and spices that leaves the tongue tingling long after the wine has departed. Outstanding.

Tasted blind, the 2015 Bonnes Mares Grand Cru showed very well, bursting from the glass with a fragrant bouquet of orange peel, dried flowers, whole-cluster spice and sweet red berry fruit. On the palate, the wine is medium to full-bodied, satiny and ample, with a textural attack, melting tannins and juicy acids, concluding with a long, chalky finish. It's a dramatic, stylized Bonnes-Mares that is immediately recognizable as a Vougeraie wine, but it's beautifully realized.. 2020 - 2040

"Matière magistrale, véritable concentré de saveurs pour ce vin intense et racé.

Sourced from one of the earliest picked sites in the Grand Cru, this comes from two parcels, located on a mixture of red and white soils. It's quite a forward, easy-drinking Bonnes Mares, but none the worse for that, showing fine-boned tannins, rose petal and violet aromas and succulent raspberry and red cherry fruit. 2018-25.

Sourced from one of the earliest picked sites in the Grand Cru, this comes from two parcels, located on a mixture of red and white soils. It's quite a forward, easy-drinking Bonnes Mares, but none the worse for that, showing fine-boned tannins, rose petal and violet aromas and succulent raspberry and red cherry fruit. 2018-25.

The 2015 Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru has a lovely, open-knit, brambly red berry nose with some stem addition that will need time to fully meld together. The crisp, medium-bodied palate offers fine tannin and plenty of tension - again, the stem addition clearly exerting an influence. This is not a Bonnes-Mares for those seeking voluptuous blue fruit or flamboyance - it is old-school, stemmy Burgundy, and quite frankly, it is completely adorable. It just needs at least a decade in bottle. Tasted blind at the annual Burgfest tasting. 2024 - 2050