*special offer price - $67.95 with code EMPHASE
Since the shockingly 2019s this domaine has blossomed into one of Burgundy’s most exciting. ’19 inaugurated a new stylistic direction guided by a larger percentage of whole-cluster, virtually sans soufre winemaking, and the addition of concrete and amphora for élévage. A less measurable but equally impactful change: a vigneron who of a moment star-turns to render one of the vintage’s most assured and expressive sets.
The ‘21s present worthy successors to these ‘19s. The vintage is fresher and more detailed than the '20s here. Above all they seem more like the kind of wines Antoine wants to make. The reds are gorgeously perfumed, pure and seductive, with a weightless intensity that defies appellation prejudice.
In 2 of 3 vintages the single-site ‘Plante aux Bois’ is my favorite wine in the cellar, but this year ‘Emphase’ reaches highest. The cuvée unites seven parcels of old vines, most around 80 years old, in a blending programme similar to Didier Fornerol’s ‘Rue des Foins.’
The nose leads with intensely perfumed whole-cluster notes, cardamon and cinnamon-suggestive in Lienhardt’s normative mode. With time the aromatics trend clearer and more alert, swelling to a wide diversity of flowers and spices. Already the palate seems invitingly open, a shining example of the intensity-without-weight formula of these wines at their best. A Lienhardt classic.
Cheers,
Jason
