Denis Mortet Clos de Vougeot 2012

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Burgundy / Vougeot / Denis Mortet

Bottle
Normal condition

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Bottle

Normal condition

Bottle - Hong Kong

RMB 3,151

Descriptions, Ratings & Tasting Notes

93
score

Burghound

January 15, 2015

Producer note: Arnaud Mortet observed that the 2013 vintage was "really quite precocious, in fact so much so I was wondering if we might have another 2003 on our hands. But then the weather turned cool, overcast and rainy which contributed to slow vegetation growth and a very poor flowering. It also caused us to be constantly treating. For example, we normally do 8 treatments in a normal growing season but in 2013 we did 11. But it wasn't just the number of treatments that contributed to the difficulties because the soil was often so wet that you couldn't get equipment into the vineyards so we had to treat manually with the tanks that you load on your back. Now that's work! We did a lot of canopy thinning, which we also do by hand. While the overall crop was definitely down due to the poor flowering the young vines remained sufficiently vigorous that we dropped fruit via a green harvest. The véraison occurred around the 20th of August, which is quite late. We began picking on the 1st of October and the harvest was wet and very cool. The fruit required a lot of sorting though mostly for rot-affected berries rather than any appreciable amount of under ripeness. Potential alcohols were in the 11.5 to 12% range and I chaptalized between .5 and 1%. I used no whole clusters as I didn't trust that we wouldn't encourage herbaceous aromas which I don't like. The malos were extended and seemed to benefit from aeration so for the first time I racked them after the malos terminated. As to the wines they possess really lovely vibrancy and perhaps best of all the terroir really shows through in each wine." Mortet noted that his 2012s, revisited below, were bottled in April 2014; by the way they are excellent. Tasting note: A discreet application of wood highlights the markedly ripe but fresh aromas of various dark berries, pungent earth and humus scents. I like the seductive texture of the middle weight plus flavors that manage to retain good delineation on the notably powerful, dusty and balanced finish that is less youthfully austere than usual. This suave and lush effort is also impressive but note that plenty of patience will be required.