Product Description:

"This estate has a long track record for making scented, pure, elegantly styled wines and offering them at relatively attractive prices. In some vintages, the Esmonin bottlings can lack the intensity of the wines of some of their more yield-obsessed neighbors, and can be dominated by their new oak, especially in the early going. So it should not be surprising that 2012, a year that brought naturally low yields virtually everywhere in Burgundy, was a big success here: the wines are as aromatically inviting as ever and offer the bonus of terrific fruit intensity. Frederic and father Andre Esmonin, who carry out a cold maceration at 10 degrees C, do a fairly gentle vinification and press rapidly at the end of the fermentation, began with strong raw materials and good sugar levels in the grapes. The yields didn't get much over 30 hectoliters per hectare, according to Frederic, and the grand crus will be bottled with 13.5% alcohol following chaptalization. The grapes were healthy, added Andre, and the wines are "perfumed, concentrated and very agreeable." The Esmonins always bottle early, and the 2012s had been finished just two weeks before my visit. All of the 2012 crus were aged in 100% new oak." -Stephen Tanzer