Wine Advisor
d'Eugenie, Echezeaux Grand Cru 2017
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: William Kelley
From vines located in the lieu-dit En Orveaux, the 2017 Echézeaux Grand Cru reveals aromas of ripe cherries, cassis, black truffle, rich soil tones and toasty new wood. On the palate, it's full-bodied, ample and fleshy, with ripe acids and some chewy back-end tannin. As was the case under the Engel family, it's the least exciting of the domaine's grands crus—which is surely at least in part a function of the parcel's location.
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
The 2017 Echézeaux Grand Cru is 60% whole clusters, matured in 75% new oak. It has a refined bouquet with blueberry and blackberry fruit, tangible mineralité and great tension and poise. The palate is very well balanced, the oak neatly integrated. I like the acidity, the focus and the satin-like texture. It might lack just a little personality, but it is very well defined on the finish, displaying satisfying if not exceptional persistence. It will require five or six years in bottle but should turn out very fine.
About the Producer
The team have about 2.8 hectares of Villages Vosne-Romanée, a little over one hectare of Vosne 1er Les Brûlées, half a hectare each of Echézeaux and Grands-Echézeaux, and probably their best sited parcel, 1.4 hectares of Clos de Vougeot that has a commanding view from the top of the Clos. From the team with ‘responsible technique’, Michel Mallard at the end of November 2008. Michel is a burgundian from a family domaine in Ladoix with experience in the Medoc and Australia, Michel is also a (Decanter 2006) gold medal winning wine-maker. I would say that Michel is a pretty straight-talking guy; when I visited at the end of November 2008 I asked him what advances in the cuverie would be coming from from Bordeaux he started in the expected way, by saying that “both parties are sharing knowledge and can learn something from each other”, but then said with a smile ‘perhaps they (Bordeaux) might first learn to make wine with less rackings’ – he is first and foremost a Burgundian! Apparently (sorry for not knowing!) the Bordelais rack almost every 3 months… Michel described the 2006 vintage as ‘difficult’ from the perspective that they were virtually given the vines at harvest-time, so had no influence on the base raw materials, so we should consider 2007 as the first vintage really delivered by the new team. Clearly their 2007’s are much deeper in colour than the average, Michel says that they certainly stepped up the cold maceration from about 3-5 days in 2006 to around 9-10 days in 2007 – I expect many will point to this as a Bordeaux influence, but taste the wines blind and they are very different from each other, they are clearly pinot and very good pinot. Despite the villages wines of Engel typically being much lighter coloured, I well remember the 1999 Grands-Echézeaux which was as black as night, so let’s have the right perspective! Because the cellar at Lupé-Cholet is quite cold, the malos were quite late and prolonged for both the 2006’s and 2007’s. The 2007 wines will only be racked once – in about 2 weeks – before being bottled in mid January.
