Donor: Jason Lefler @ Sterophonic Wines
Value: $465
MinBidIncr: $10
Auction Closes: 8pm PT
WB really stepped in to support me and Stereophonic during a time when we were in a tailspin. I’m offering up a few gems from my cellar and a few our of most popular, sold-out wines in the hopes that folks will bid excessively to support this important site and its one-of-a-kind community.
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1 bottle 2015 Domaine Perrot Minot Chambolle Musigny La Combe d’Orveau Cuvee Ultra Vieilles Vignes 1er Cru from my cellar
AVG W-S Price $465
93-95, Neal Martin eRP
The 2015 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru La Combe d’Orveau “Cuvée Ultra” has a vivacious, pure bouquet with blood orange-infused red cherry and cassis fruit, the oak beautifully integrated and allowing the terroir to shine through. The palate is silky smooth on the entry, somewhat “Cathiard” in style, with thr plush red cherry and blueberry keeping a rein on by the taut line of acidity. I like the energy on display here, the length likewise is impressive. It has great potential.
Christophe Perrot-Minot was on hand to guide me through his latest releases. “It was cold during the evening and this kept the freshness,” he told me. “The year favored the cold zones such as Chambertin and so forth. They had the roundness but also greatest balance. Alcohol levels were between 12.8° and 13.3°-13.4°. It was not so good for the young vines that suffered with the warmth and some hydric stress. I started the picking on 5 September and then over the next 10 days and there was a storm on 12 September but it was not a problem. A small dilution re-balanced the fruit. The sorting was easy and the vinification was normal except for very little pigeage. I used the same level of whole bunch fruit as previous years.” This was an impressive array of wines from Perrot-Minot, fruit profiles equally distributed between red and black. They can be difficult to taste out of barrel, the winemaking signature stronger than other growers, and yet there were several wines here that exhibited wonderful finesse and tension, attributes that I feel have occasionally been missing in previous years. The 2015 Morey-Saint-Denis La Riotte would be my go-to wine if you miss out on the top labels, the 2015 Mazoyères-Chambertin, Chapelle-Chambertin and Chambertin Clos de Bèze—perhaps the best that I have tasted at the domaine. Only the 2015 Griotte Chambertin lacked the sophistication exuded by the other grand crus. In between lies Christophe’s “Cuvée Ultra” labels. To be frank, I am not keen on that name since “ultra” has so many connotations. Yet the Nuits Saint-Georges La Richemones is an absolute delight. It is good to see Christophe’s wines gaining more and more precision with each passing vintage and 2015 includes some of his best yet.
95, Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
Saturated deep red. Profound aromas and flavors of red fruits, crushed rock, red licorice and smoky minerality; a wonderfully complex, pure expression of soil. Like liquid silk in the mouth but also incredibly concentrated and alive, showing a restrained sweetness and savory saline minerality. Wonderfully sappy and energetic on the extremely long, echoing finish, where the wine's refined tannins are perfected buffered by its mid-palate extract. Despite this wine's underlying power and guts, it maintains an essentially pliant, even gentle character.