2012 Domaine du Comte Liger Belair, Echezeaux Grand Cru

The 2012 Echézeaux is incredibly polished, with remarkable nuance, delicacy and finesse in a vintage in which so many wines are built on power. Effortless and gracious to the core, Liger-Belair's 2012 captures the purest essence of what makes wines from this site so seductive. The highly expressive, resonant finish makes the 2012 incredibly appealing today, but readers should be patient here, if at all possible.

The 2012 Echézeaux Grand Cru courtesy of Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair has a wonderful nose with vibrant red fruit, tomato vine and hints of lavender. This is understated for Louis-Michel’s wines, but that plays to its advantage. The palate displays exquisite balance, building in intensity with aeration, pristine and chiselled to the finest detail on the finish. This is an outstanding wine at a decade old.

Bright, deep dark red. Cherry, red berries and perfumed sweet spices on the nose. Creamy-sweet and seamless, with sexy rose petal lift to the fine-grained flavors of red fruits and spices. Finishes elegant and very long, with broad, noble tannins and a lingering sweetness. There's nothing the least bit aggressive about this beauty, but it hardly lacks for spine.

Mid crimson. Very seductive nose. Juicy and sweet, just a bit simpler in terms of freshness and flavour than the 2013 with quite firm tannins insisting on the end. Solid and with very obvious sweetness. (JR)