Been drinking some Comte Liger-Belair in small group settings over the last month. Gives us time to really sit and enjoy the bottles over a few hours with sufficient pours. From top to bottom, I think Louis-Michel is making the best wines from the base village up to the transcendent La Romanee - I don’t think any other producer is producing at the same consistency. Secondary pricing has gone up to match it unfortunately.
A wine shop near my house has had a collection of 100+ bottles of Liger Belair sitting there for the last two years at something slightly higher than retail. I always pass by it and I’m always tempted. In the last 4 months, they’ve pulled almost every bottle and sent it all to Hong Kong (raised the 2011s and 2007s that were left by a significant %) - making much more than their retail listing price.
On to the notes!
2007 Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair La Romanée- France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, La Romanée Grand Cru
2007 Liger Belair La Romanee:
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One word. Wow. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
More words. This wine is effortless. Elegant, pure, weightless- everything is so fine and layered but intensely focused in its detail. The nose is the most fragrant bouquet crushed raspberry, floral, peppered spice. Gorgeous cherry fruit and Vosne spice runs through the finish. The flavor lingers in such an ethereal state on the back end. Amazing wine. Can’t wait to see where these wines are at 20+ years. Would love to try a bottling from a vintage with more weight to get the full experience on the palate, but right now, the nose - not sure it can get any better.
2006 Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair Vosne-Romanée La Colombiere- France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Vosne-Romanée
Been a couple years since I’ve had one. The wine has softened up and has this almost savory element with a very pronounced dark berry fruit on the nose. The palate is forward and giving right now
2007 Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair Echezeaux- France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Echezeaux Grand Cru
on the nose is a box of rose petals and bright cherry taped and sealed- shaken until all the cherry is splattered everywhere and the petals stain the box… then you open it and the beautiful chaos just explodes out. Sappy red fruit dominates the palate, it glides effortlessly and is so open and pretty. There’s a feeling of freshness in every sip. There’s complexity building in the glass as the night goes on.
2008 Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair Vosne-Romanée Clos du Château- France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Vosne-Romanée
textbook CDC from liger. Orange peel, sweet earth and red fruit dominate the bouquet. It’s such a great expression of vosne vintage after vintage. Drinks so high above its designatio. The palate is open and giving with the weight of the vintage. There’s some bite of tannin on the back end but there’s a wonderful clarity of red fruit and earth that run down the palate.
2013 Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Aux Reignots- France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru
The 2013 had a darker more brooding nature than the 14. It didn’t give up the same bountiful fruit and cool vibrant texture on the palate. More muscular and angular. The fruit was darker and had a heavier weight. It was good but next to the 14 it just couldn’t stand up. The most obvious difference was the 14 had that electric tension to it.
2014 Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Aux Reignots- France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru
The Reignots from Liger Belair towers over all the other producers that make wine from the vineyard in my opinion. It’s easiest to see in this absolutely electric 2014. The black fruit is so vibrant and exciting. The flavor is incredibly deep and the core of the wine is well fleshed out and has great length. The back end adds in an Asian spice note with pomegranate and crunchy berries. The wine just gives and gives. So accessible right now and really exciting. Easily one of the best 14s I’ve had.
2015 Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair Vosne-Romanée La Colombiere- France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Vosne-Romanée
tasted next to the 15 Clos du Chateau. Showing a darker more structured frame to the wine. Not as giving and elegant as the CDC but denser and more concentrated on the palate. Needed time to flourish while the CDC was banging from the get go. Still a very good wine - has a sappiness to it that I enjoy.
2015 Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair Vosne-Romanée Clos du Château- France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Vosne-Romanée
This wine is the absolute essence of Vosne at such a young age. The nose is full of soft rose petal, spice and sweet red fruit. The palate is delicate but forward, primary at its core but not overbearing. It shows its youth in its purity of fresh fruit but doesn’t show young as in clunky or closed up. Beautiful bottle over 3 hours or so.
Nice notes. From top to bottom, hard to disagree with you. And in particular his 07’s are very good.
Last year I hosted a dinner where I served a few different vintages of Clos du Chateau, Suchots, Echezeaux and Aux Cras, mainly to see if we could differentiate between site and vintage as his style sometimes can transcend both. If there was any conclusion his Suchots is probably his lightest wine of the 1st cru while the Clos du Chateau punches well above its weight (clarity of red fruit and earth as you wrote) and for me the Aux Cras achieves a terrific balance of weight, structure and his classic red fruit signature. The Echezeaux is normally amazing but the bottle was an off one.
What is your take on Petit Mont and Clos Vougeot?
The comment on your retailer selling to Hong Kong -not really surprising and it probably goes through another retailer and then auction. We have found many fake bottles most often labels being pasted over a lesser real LB bottle. I personally only purchase from the direct importer and don’t have the stock to be able to open such young vintages as 2013-2015. As I’m sure you are aware, LM works closely with Acker here as well but I don’t know all the details behind that relationship. I don’t fully understand the incentives for already established wine makers to work with this particular auction house.
We met him last month as he was here with his importer promoting Rose & Arrow, the Oregon ‘project’ he consults for and the new wines are a big step up from the first attempts at Chapter 24.
Haven’t had the Petit Mont or Clos Vougeot before. Never been offered either =(.
re: LM / Acker - it seems Acker still has a good reputation in Burgundy cause LM isn’t the only big time producer that sells direct to them for auction. I don’t get it either.
Liger-Belair have been getting better and better over recent vintages, and are right at the very top of Burg producers now.
His '16’s were all off the charts when we tasted there a few motns ago, and the '12 and '16 La Romanee are right upe there amongst my top wines ever, simply amazing wines!
I don’t rate the village wines at the crazy sort of pricing levels I have now seen ($800 plus a bottle), but there is no doubt they are very, very good for their level, and very Vosne.
The 1’er Nuits are excellent also, and the Reignots is simply the finest example of this vinyard made. Again, the '16 version of this was out of this world good.
Liger-Belair La Romanee has been one of those bottles that I’ve stared at on a variety of auction and retail sites but just haven’t been able to pull the trigger. One day…
Love the wines, but not entirely convinced by the Clos du Château. I strongly prefer the Colombière, which I find deeper, more complete and slower to evolve in bottle. The Clos du Château was formerly a park (like the Clos du Château of the Château de Meursualt, if you want an unglamorous comparison) and planted to vine in the 1970s. The site would seem to be very good, but the somewhat carbonic character (for want of a better description) the wine often displays has always made me wonder if the vine genetics were less than ideal - which wouldn’t have been unusual in the 1970s. Of all Louis-Michel’s wines, it’s the one I’d drink the soonest after release.
I agree with almost everything you wrote, except maybe with …
While La Colombiere might be slightly darker (not always, depending vm on the vintage) and shows a brighter acidity (here not meant positively) Clos du Château is the deeper, more concentrated and more ageworthy wine … this becomes more clear when tasting mature examples like the 2001 and 2002 …
I´m not Fu, but …
Petits Monts (made since 2006) is not dissimilar to Aux Reignots, dark fruited, minerally driven and quite structured, but the tannins are less sweet, slightly dryer with a tiny rusticity to it … but nevertheless a fine wine …
Clos de Vougeot: I´m not yet sure about it, made since 2015 maybe only from purchased selected grapes (I don´t think he rented the vineyard, but I´ll have to ask him next time) … it is doubtless very concentrated, full bodied and outstanding, but (for me) slightly lacking in the L-B-personality … a bit plump and not (yet) showing the finesse of the Echezeaux (not to speak of LR) … I´d always prefer Echezeaux or Aux Reignots …
BTW: LR 2007 is indeed a great great wine already in an accessable state … (but good for 15+ years of aging) …
A wine not to forget: NSG Clos des Grandes Vignes 1er (Monopole), made since 2012 and one of the most elegant NSG I´ve ever tasted, almost no harvest in 2016 due to frost, but 2015 is very fine … and it might be one of the more affordable L-B-wines … 2 ha of vines (and a tiny parcel of white NSG).
Sorry, I was unclear … I´m not really disagreeing with but would like to add some more details:
The Clos du Chateau is usually a more concentrated wine than than the Colombiere … in 2015 the latter might be slightly darker (and the tannins might be more noticable now because they are less sweet), but eventually CdC is more
ageworthy (and also more structured, but with very fine velvet tannins …)
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