89-91 Allen Meadows - Burghound

"Outstanding. Generous but not dominant wood fights a bit with the fresh and ripe dark currant, earth and game nuances. The bold and robust medium-bodied flavors possess good power and plenty of punch yet interestingly the mouth coating finish is not really rustic as the tannins are relatively fine-grained. While a bit woody this is really quite a good Gevrey villages with excellent underlying material.

50% of the blend comes from Les Marchais and the rest from a wide range of other lieux-dits from everywhere in Gevrey"

89-91 Stephen Tanzer - Vinous Media

"Emmanuel Humbert makes precise, highly aromatic wines from fruit harvested early. “Pinot for me needs good acidity,” he explained in December, adding that he’d much rather retain freshness and lightly chaptalize his musts than harvest too late. He picked from September 3 through 10 in 2015, with grape sugars ranging from 11.5% to 12.5% and yields of only 30 to 35 hectoliters per hectare, down 30% from a normal year. Humbert told me he’s doing fewer and fewer pigeages in order to avoid getting dry tannins and he continues to rack his wines in the spring, before the malolactic fermentations finish, “to protect freshness.”

(made from 15 parcels, half of them in Les Marchais next to his house and just across the road from Lavaux-Saint-Jacques; these mostly very old vines yield a more mineral, longer-aging style than sandier vineyards at lower altitude, says Emmanuel Humbert; 60% new oak)

Good dark red. Cassis, black cherry and violet scents struck me as almost Cabernet-like. Then plush and sweet in the middle, with the dark berry flavors complicated by violet and bitter chocolate nuances. Shows the added richness of the 2015 vintage, but finishes with a firm tannic spine that will require some time in bottle."