2011 Alain Hudelot-Noellat, Romanee-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru

(25% vendange entier): Good bright, full red. Complex, inviting nose combines raspberry, rose petal and orange zest. Intensely flavored and sharply delineated, showing excellent lift and verve to its red fruit and soil flavors. An element of medicinal red cherry and emerging minerality suggest that this silky, deep wine will enjoy a graceful evolution in bottle. Finishes with substantial ripe tannins and lovely rising perfume. With time in the glass, this wine demonstrated its firm spine more clearly.

As one would reasonably expect this is quite different and much more elegant with its broad-based combination of spice elements that include hoisin and soy that are liberally laced throughout the red currant, plum and violet scents. There is a fleshy yet precise character to the brilliantly detailed flavors that are akin to pure silk on the palate, all wrapped in a gorgeously persistent finish. This is very classy and though it is not necessarily more complex than the Clos de Vougeot, it is even longer. My score offers the benefit of the doubt that the complexity one typically finds in a classic RSV will develop in time. Drink: 2023+
-Allen Meadows burghound.com issue 53. Tasted: Jan 15, 2014