Domaine de Bellene Cote de Nuits-Village Vielles Vignes, Burgundy FR 2021
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Wine Review Burghound
Domaine de Bellene Côte de Nuits-Villages Vieilles Vignes 2021
Villages Red barrel
Score:87-89 Burghound
Tasted:Apr 10, 2023
Drink:2028+
Issue:90
Producer note:Nicolas Potel noted that "while the 2021 growing season was a bit complicated viticulturally speaking, it was easy to vinify and raise. The trick with the vines in years where there is enormous disease pressure is to never miss a treatment. If you do, it will be necessary to constantly play defense and risk falling ever further behind. In the end, the attention to detail really helped as there was relatively little sorting necessary as the fruit was ripe and clean. Volumes were small in both colors though because bud break for the pinot occurs after that of the chardonnay, there was slightly less damage. Potential alcohols were between .5 and 1% lower than they have been for the last several vintages with good post-malo pHs. We chose to vinify lightly to be sure not to obtain any underripe tannins and especially no seed tannins. And to give an idea as to how clean the fruit was, most of the reds will be bottled without any filtration." Note that the négociant offerings are reviewed below under the Roche de Bellene label. Lastly all of the wines are bottled under Diam corks that are stamped with the relevant information that includes producer, vintage and appellation. (Loosen Bros. USA, www.loosenbrosusa.com, OR, USA; Berry Brothers & Rudd, www.bbr.com and Graham Gardner through Folly Wines, www.follywines.co.uk, both UK; L'Imperatrice Fine Wines, https://imperatricewine.com.hk, Hong Kong/China).
Tasting note:Once again there is sufficient reduction present to render the nose impossible to assess. By contrast, there is excellent freshness and punch to the racy and detailed middleweight flavors that flash moderate austerity on the compact, serious and acceptably long finish. Like several wines in the range, this would benefit from having better overall depth so a few years of patience should be beneficial.