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Domaine Leroy Corton-Renardes Grand Cru(2005)
- Winery:
- Domaine Leroy
- Varietal:
- Region:
- France > Burgundy
- Type:
- Red Wine
- User Tags:
- distinct, sophisticated, broths, acidic, clear, chemical, bargain, bottling, pome, apple
Starting at
$871.39 USD
$871.39 USD
- Burghound
- Issue 25, Jan 01, 2007
- 93/100
-
May 2008
- Lalou Bize-Leroy calls 2005 an excellent millésime in both colors. There is a harmony to this vintage that speaks of la grande classe and you can feel it in the quality of the tannins, which are refined and very ripe. The level of phenolic ripeness in this vintage is really something yet there is absolutely no sense of surmaturité or heaviness. Overall, including the Bourgogne, we brought in just under 20 hl/ha, which for us is a good yield. Sugars were excellent at between 13 and 13.5% as were the acidities and the post malo pHs were also terrific at around 3.4. Overall, the vintage really has no direct read more...parallel but I suppose it reminds me somewhat of 1996 or perhaps 1999. In contrast to several recent vintages where the wines were bottled very early, Mme Bize told me that they would begin the bottling for the '05s at the end of November so I tasted them just before they were to be racked into 4 barrel groups for the mise. The Leroy '05s are exceptional by any measure and several of the 1ers are simply incredible and while it's hard to call any wines that sell for the prices that these do bargains, if such a term can be applied to them then it applies to the best of these 1ers, in particular the Beaux Monts and Chambolle Charmes, which are quite simply mind bending. There is no additional review of the 2004s as they were reviewed from bottle in Issue 22. However, I wish to add that a number of subscribers who had tried them here in the US notified me that there was an extreme cloudiness to several of them. In this regard, I can report that I have had the range of Leroy '04s twice now and in neither case did I notice undue cloudiness or lack of commercially acceptable clarity. At the second tasting in November however I did notice that they had shut down substantially since February but again, there was no problem with clarity. (Martine's Wines, Novato, CA; Justerini & Brooks, John Armit, Howard Ripley and Lay & Wheeler, all UK). While it's never the greatest wine in the Leroy range, the Renardes along with the Clos de la Roche is arguably the most distinctive as the intense animale and pungent earth notes mark the wine from stem to stern. The ultra complex and as noted, highly distinctive nose gives way to rich, forward and well muscled flavors bristling with powerful tannins that come across as velvety and suave because of the buckets of mid-palate sap. This won't win awards for elegance but I quite admire the frank and generous character plus the sheer depth is impressive as hell. (hide)
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