(60% new oak): Dark red-ruby color. Captivating, soil-inflected nose melds raspberry, violet, black tea and smoked meat. Silky on entry, then savory and classically dry in the middle, showing a slightly muscular rocky quality and excellent cut and lift. Not a fat or easy style but firmly built and primary, with good medicinal reserve and piquant salty minerality.

The 2013 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Aux Brulées has a very mineral-driven bouquet – reserved and distant perhaps, but very controlled and focused. It gains fruit intensity all the time, namely blackberry and a touch of cassis, but never usurping those stony, “cool stream” aromas. The palate is sleek and smooth, very poised and very pure with ice-cold dark cherries and plum, fine slightly chalky tannins and a pointed finish. I would just like to see it develop a little more “charm” once in bottle.