Vinified with a high percentage of whole clusters, Pataille’s 2005 Marsannay Clos du Roi displays smoke-wreathed black fruits with resinous overtones typical of ripe stems, an iodine-like mineral note that I have found to be a common denominator among many wines from this site, and a lovely, ripe blackberry and plum finishing fruit tinged with cocoa powder, set in relief by the wine’s more austere herbal and mineral side. The texture is strikingly polished and creamy and the high percentage of new wood is unobtrusively integrated. This vineyard features a water-retentive clay surface over iron rich Marne chalk mother rock, a formula that seems ideal even in a drought year for retaining fresh fruit acidity and somehow concentrating mineral character.
Young Sylvain Pataille’s tiny cellar is adjacent to the touristic Medieval pressoir of the Dukes of Burgundy in Chenove, which is to say beneath a busy street in suburban Dijon. He is inquisitively, experimentally and with manifest sensitivity and skill vinifying a multitude of lots (including a remarkable collection of whites) from largely old vines in Marsannay, linked by a common theme of rediscovering techniques that were already being lost when his grandfather founded the family domaine.
Also recommended: 2005 Bourgogne ($20.00; 84), 2005 Marsannay La Charme aus Pretres ($30.00; 86).
A Becky Wassserman Selection (various importers), Le Serbet, Beaune; fax 011-33-3-80-24-29-70
粵公網(wǎng)安備 44030502006249號