How does Leroy do it?

[Peter_Chiu]

I re-read this thread many times.

Besides the excellant comments contributed by Ian, Jeremy, Mischa, Don and others I would like to add two elements to answer the question : how does Leroy do it ?

Leroy has : (1) the passion - she was a cellar-rate when she was young; and (2) the money - from her father and her Japanese partner.

[Larry_Link]

@Stuart BeauneHead Niemtzow

no comment on the 2004, Ian…but…if you weren’t having a problem…it raises some questions.

is that Boomer in your photo? or who?

Stuart,

Re the photo, Boomer was a lefty. The photo is either Ken Anderson or Andy Dalton, both wear/wore #14.

Larry

[Stuart_BeauneHead_Niemtzow]

You mean they didn’t retire Boomer’s number, Larry?

Did the Reds retire Pete Rose’s…14? I don’t think they’ve issued it to anyone,but…

[Rob_Hansult]

@John Tan

@Berry Crawford

There is zero chance Leroy uses concentrators, right?

Madame Leroy IS the concentrator…

Somewhere between highly doubtful, & blasphemy.

Not that I personally have a problem with any tool in the Vineyard or winery that helps produce better vino.

Saw a bunch of Leroy yield info a while back, & many cuvees were between 15 & 30 hl/ha ( 1 - 2 tons/acre).

That is equivalent to ~ 1 (smallish ~ .225#) cluster per trellis foot.

This is an insanely low yield, that I think explains most of the intensity.

Of course being BD, she will lose some yield to rot, especially in a damp harvest. Losses to rot obviously don’t add to a wines intensity, & do skew the yield numbers.

[Ian_Dorin]

@Larry Link

@Stuart BeauneHead Niemtzow

no comment on the 2004, Ian…but…if you weren’t having a problem…it raises some questions.

is that Boomer in your photo? or who?

Stuart,

Re the photo, Boomer was a lefty. The photo is either Ken Anderson or Andy Dalton, both wear/wore #14.

Larry

The photo is the one and only, Mr. Dalton.

The 2004 was grey market stock that was bad wine. I had seen threads on the other board a few years ago about questionable bottles of the 2004, and the issues seemed to mostly pertain to the Bourgogne Rouge. I don’t recall the details. Sorry.

[JOHNM94]

@Jeremy Holmes

Like anything that is top of the class, it is not just one thing that makes the wines great, it is all of the little things that you don’t see that add up to the overall quality of the wine. As you can’t see these little things I can’t comment on them but Leroy is indeed fastidious in their vineyard work. They harvest ripe, concentrated fruit from extraordinarily low yields. They get the best barrels that have been toasted and cured to perfection. They elevage with the utmost of care holding the wines in the cellar for extended periods of time until they deem the wines ready to be released. They pay for high quality glass and cork. Have rigid rules for their distributors regarding shipping and distribution and last but not least they use stems (as do my other two favourite red Burgundy producers DRC and Dujac). Stem inclusion coupled with ripe concentrated fruit gives those beautiful smoky, sappy, floral perfume traits in the wine.

The Leroy wines very much have a cellar signature and I very much like that signature. Given that the Domaine wines have only been made since 1988 and these are extraordinarily concentrated wines, I don’t think we’ve seen too many of their wines reach their full apogee yet and yet most of us agree their wines are consistently somewhere near the top of the Burgundy pecking order.

Cheers
Jeremy

Jeremy,

I thought this was an interesting post (though its older, now). Any thoughts on Leroy not allowing any settling of the lees before the juice is transferred to cask (then racked off after malo). I wonder if this could explain a bit more textural richness. Perhaps this in combination with unfined and unfiltered?

Thanks,

John

[M.Twelftree]

I think a point missed in the above is that her elevage is only 9 months in 100% new oak, which use to be Francois Frere but was moved to Cadus a few years back, also her vines are never hedged, so her vines stick out like saw thumbs as there are a foot higher and rolled and tied into large curved tubular form, her vines are old and there are many misses in the plots and in tough years I have seen rot plague her parcels, hence there is little sound fruit. I have enjoyed them for there impressive concentration, but I do think certain cuvees in certain vintages sit on their oak tannin, more than their fruit tannin.

The most important question is what happens to the domaine and her massive aged stocks when she carks it? She already lives in Monaco over half the year to miss out on the scary French tax system.

MT

[Dav1dZ]

@Berry Crawford

There is zero chance Leroy uses concentrators, right?

If by zero you mean very high chance . . . she did employ Porcheret, and Porcheret used everything. (And I love Porcheret’s wines, I’m just saying, he’s about as far from a non-interventionalist as you can get.)

[Ian_Dorin]

@JOHNM94

@Jeremy Holmes

Like anything that is top of the class, it is not just one thing that makes the wines great, it is all of the little things that you don’t see that add up to the overall quality of the wine. As you can’t see these little things I can’t comment on them but Leroy is indeed fastidious in their vineyard work. They harvest ripe, concentrated fruit from extraordinarily low yields. They get the best barrels that have been toasted and cured to perfection. They elevage with the utmost of care holding the wines in the cellar for extended periods of time until they deem the wines ready to be released. They pay for high quality glass and cork. Have rigid rules for their distributors regarding shipping and distribution and last but not least they use stems (as do my other two favourite red Burgundy producers DRC and Dujac). Stem inclusion coupled with ripe concentrated fruit gives those beautiful smoky, sappy, floral perfume traits in the wine.

The Leroy wines very much have a cellar signature and I very much like that signature. Given that the Domaine wines have only been made since 1988 and these are extraordinarily concentrated wines, I don’t think we’ve seen too many of their wines reach their full apogee yet and yet most of us agree their wines are consistently somewhere near the top of the Burgundy pecking order.

Cheers
Jeremy

Jeremy,

I thought this was an interesting post (though its older, now). Any thoughts on Leroy not allowing any settling of the lees before the juice is transferred to cask (then racked off after malo). I wonder if this could explain a bit more textural richness. Perhaps this in combination with unfined and unfiltered?

Thanks,

John

The lees certainly going a long, long way for the textural component.

I don’t know why she would bring something like a concentrator to the show. You mention Porcheret, but that was the first 5 years, and the domaine went through a lot of ups and downs for the first 10. You can really see a lot more consistency and style starting around 2001. Make no mistake though, I’ve had 92 Musigny (thank you Mr. Lazar) that were completely out of this world, and showed no cloying or over ripe flavors.

[CFu]

I really like the wines I’ve had recently from 88-93. . I don’t find them overly concentrated at all.

[Dav1dZ]

Since I think many folks here don’t remember this interview:
http://www.winespectator.com/webfeature/show/id/The-Confessions-of-Andre-Porcheret-_127

This was the winemaker at Leroy back in the early 90s.

[paul_hanna]

One thing to keep in mind here is just how well Leroy did in '93…one of their most successful vintage ever IMNSHO.

[JOHNM94]

@Ian Dorin

@JOHNM94

@Jeremy Holmes

Like anything that is top of the class, it is not just one thing that makes the wines great, it is all of the little things that you don’t see that add up to the overall quality of the wine. As you can’t see these little things I can’t comment on them but Leroy is indeed fastidious in their vineyard work. They harvest ripe, concentrated fruit from extraordinarily low yields. They get the best barrels that have been toasted and cured to perfection. They elevage with the utmost of care holding the wines in the cellar for extended periods of time until they deem the wines ready to be released. They pay for high quality glass and cork. Have rigid rules for their distributors regarding shipping and distribution and last but not least they use stems (as do my other two favourite red Burgundy producers DRC and Dujac). Stem inclusion coupled with ripe concentrated fruit gives those beautiful smoky, sappy, floral perfume traits in the wine.

The Leroy wines very much have a cellar signature and I very much like that signature. Given that the Domaine wines have only been made since 1988 and these are extraordinarily concentrated wines, I don’t think we’ve seen too many of their wines reach their full apogee yet and yet most of us agree their wines are consistently somewhere near the top of the Burgundy pecking order.

Cheers
Jeremy

Jeremy,

I thought this was an interesting post (though its older, now). Any thoughts on Leroy not allowing any settling of the lees before the juice is transferred to cask (then racked off after malo). I wonder if this could explain a bit more textural richness. Perhaps this in combination with unfined and unfiltered?

Thanks,

John

The lees certainly going a long, long way for the textural component.

I don’t know why she would bring something like a concentrator to the show. You mention Porcheret, but that was the first 5 years, and the domaine went through a lot of ups and downs for the first 10. You can really see a lot more consistency and style starting around 2001. Make no mistake though, I’ve had 92 Musigny (thank you Mr. Lazar) that were completely out of this world, and showed no cloying or over ripe flavors.

Ian,

I guess the official term is “debourbage” and Leroy, I guess, does not do this when the wine is first transferred to cask before malo. I don’t know to what extent this practice is rare or not and if this, coupled with not fining or filtering, would have a significant impact on the final product meaning, after racking and bottling. Any further insight or clarification on this?

[Blair_Curtis]

@Charlie Fu

I really like the wines I’ve had recently from 88-93. . I don’t find them overly concentrated at all.

Agreed! Generous friends have recently shared with me a 1990 Leroy VR Beaux Monts and a 1996 Leroy NSG Lavieres (on the same evening). They were both killer. The '96 was not notably “purer” than the 1990, and the '90 was not overly concentrated. Both were drinking incredibly well.

Cheers,
Blair

[Don_Cornwell]

I’m one that didn’t care much for the 1988, 1989 and 1990 versions of Domaine Leroy, though I owned the 1990’s in considerable quantity due to pre-arrival purchases at what were very reasonable prices at the time. I thought the 1990s from Leroy were over the top in terms of ripeness and that all of the wines tasted more similar than different. I owned all of the top grand crus, most in case quantity or better, and, frankly, even 15 years after the vintage you couldn’t tell one from the other. They all tasted the same – big, sweet blue/black fruit monsters that didn’t really taste like burgundy. Blindfolded you had no chance of identifying the vineyard it came from. In 2005-06 I sent everything but the VR Beaux Monts off to auction.

The 1991’s, though still quite ripe, at least showed some vineyard typiciity. The Chambertin impressed me the most, followed by RSV, Richebourg and Volnay Santentots. I never owned Musigny. The Vosne Romanee 1ers were completely unimpressive however.

I agree with Paul that 1993 is the best vintage from Leroy that I’ve ever tasted. I’ve had a number of them and they are extraordinary wines, and actually have some underlying terroir typicity, but I refused to buy them on release out of principal since they were selling for more than twice what the 1990 and 1991s did. Luckily, some of my friends bought them, so I’ve gotten taste most of the top wines at least once.

I bought a few bottles of Richebourg and RSV in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2002 at the best possible prices and the VR Beaux Monts in several years including 2001. They’re all very nice wines for their respective vintages. I bought a few 2004 Bourgogne and Vosne Romanee because of the pricing, but now wish I hadn’t. The Bourgogne was wretchedly bad – unless you’re into wine that smells like super weedy marijuana. The VR are going off to auction soon. I haven’t bought a bottle since 2004. The pricing from 2005 onward has been truly insane, and I haven’t quite lost my mind pursuing this hobby yet.

I have to concede that the Leroy/D’Auvenay whites from 1999 onward are incredibly good, but the pricing commencing with the 2005 vintage is so utterly ridiculous that I’m afraid I’d have to voluntarily admit myself to a mental institution if I were to pay such an amount.

What I find so utterly disappointing about Leroy SA is that Bize is shameless about issuing wines that either suck in terms of quality or are completely dead in terms of condition. While some of the lower level wines released with 10-15 years of age can be quite good (e.g. Chorey Les Beaune, Savigny Les Beaune, Bourgogne) it seems that if Leroy releases older grand crus and offers them at what seems like a relative bargain for Leroy it’s a sure indicator that the wine is completely unacceptable from a quality stanpoint. Among that type of purchasing mistakes I made were the 1959 Grands Echezeaux, 1962 La Romanee, 1964 Grands Echezeaux, and 1969 Echezeaux. In retrospect, I’m amazed that I managed to rationalize continuing to buy these ‘apparent bargains’ for as long as I did. Most disheartening was the brand new release of 1962 Musigny last year – priced at over $2K per bottle and completely DOA when we opened it at Michael Zadikian’s 50th birthday celebration despite coming from a direct seller of Leroy from France refrigerated from door to door.

[CFu]

So the consensus is that after 2001 the vineyard characteristics started to show? I have one bottle of 2002 corton ren. Who knows when I’ll open that

[Peter_Chiu]

Don - thanks for your thoughtful comments in Post No. 75. Some years ago, I gave up the 4th ( and last bottle ) of her Musigny 1995. I felt better after reading what you had said…

After vintage 1996 I stopped buying Domaine or Maison Leroy wines - except for a few bs of 2004 - just to please Stuart …

[billnanson]

Had the 93 Clos Vougeot last week - blind, I was far from convinced…

Of-course the rest of my (non-blind!) experience runs counter to that

[Jeremy_Holmes]

Don,

I have had a bit better luck with the museum stocks from Leroy over the past 12 months. The 49 Clos de Vougeot has looked good both times I have had it this year although not earth shattering. The 62 La Romanée was earth shattering when we had it last year and it would be in my top 10 from 2012 and the 62 RSV last month came top in a strong field and was quite brilliant.

Best Regards
Jeremy

[jcoley3]

@Jeremy Holmes

The 62 La Romanée was earth shattering when we had it last year and it would be in my top 10 from 2012 and the 62 RSV last month came top in a strong field and was quite brilliant.

I would agree with this. I had both at a dinner (I don’t think I took notes) and it was quite a beautiful night. Not sure which took hors classe of the night, but one of them did.