Reviews

The 2015 Charmes Chambertin les Mazoyeres Grand Cru offers up notes of red and black fruit, beetroot, earth and whole cluster spice. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, rich and silky, with an expansive attack, a layered mid-palate and a long, saline finish. This is quite stylized, marked by whole cluster fermentation which seems to give it a high pH feel, but for admirers of this particular aesthetic—a perspective my score reflects—this should offer two decades of rewarding drinking.

The 2015 Charlemagne Grand Cru is attractively delicate and youthfully reserved, wafting from the glass with notes of green apple, lemon cream and white flowers, more exotic notions of persimmon and spice emerging with extended aeration. On the palate, the wine is medium to full-bodied, taut and racy, with a bright line of acid, good concentration, and a long, vibrant finish. I expect more texture and dimension will emerge with a few years of bottle age, as the balance and persistence are very good.

The 2015 Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru offers up a sapid bouquet of grilled game bird, espresso roast, wild plums and dark berries. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, ample and velvety, with real mid-palate substance, supple, melting tannins and impressive reserves of concentration and depth despite its elegant, understated profile. The finish is long, precise and succulent. From bottle, the Clos de Vougeot is one of the most promising wines from Domaine de la Vougeraie.

The 2015 Bonnes Mares Grand Cru is very pretty, wafting from the glass with aromas of strawberry, blood orange, plum, peony and some whole cluster spice on the upper register. On the palate, the wine is medium to full-bodied, supple and expansive, with silky tannins, an open-knit but juicy core, and a sapid, almost saline finish. A delicate, transparent and rather stylized Bonnes Mares from Domaine de la Vougeraie.

A blend from two vineyards in the Sebastopol Hills, this wine presents red fruit surrounded by black, mineral-inflected tannins. It feels bound up and austere, and while those tannins are unrelenting, even with a few days of air, they would stand up well to a grilled sirloin steak. 

Brian Maloney makes this wine from a vineyard in Green Valley, with contributions from Sebastopol, Occidental and Freestone. It’s a bright cherry red, with detail in the tannins, rocky and black, glinting with freshness. There’s a layering of sunny warmth in the fruit along with the cool fragrance of a forest after a rain. In combination, the wine feels saturated, gentle and fine. 
 

This grows at two blocks on the western edge of DeLoach’s estate vineyard off Olivet Road, planted to Swan and Mt. Eden clones and farmed under biodynamics. Give the wine time in a decanter and the sweet cherry fruit comes forward, pushing the dark, heavy drape of tannins into the background. Those tannins still hold the fruit in a rigid grip, but the flavors read clean, clear and vinous, with plenty of fruit to cushion the finish. 
 

Brian Maloney selects this fruit from estate vineyards (40 percent), blended with grapes from BCD, close by, and the Starkey Vineyard in the Sebastopol Hills. This is Russian River pinot noir in all of its full-figured beauty, a rich, cherry-scented wine with enough intensity to take on a grilled burger with mushrooms. The alcohol isn’t shy, pointing up the grip of the tannins and the flower power of the fruit, but it’s all of a piece.

Though the broad, soft structure of this wine doesn’t feel particularly coastal, there’s coolness to the fruit and salinity that makes the connection. At first, this is more about sweet fruit than mineral depths, but the structure builds more edgy power with air. Decant it and you’ll have a luscious, salty red for a spicy pork braise.

Young and intense, this wine takes some time to evolve past its initial reduction, turning from black and smoky toward cool, brisk red fruit and elegant scents of roses. The tannins are still bristly after three days of air, suggesting the wine needs patient cellaring to show itself completely.