Clos de la Roche, Domaine Hubert Lignier 2014

**Note: from a .90 ha parcel of 35 to 45 year old vines located in Monts Luisants and Fremières**
An exceptionally fresh and cool if distinctly restrained nose offers up notes of pomegranate and black berry fruit scents that are liberally laced with wisps of sauvage, earth, tea and leather. There is excellent verve and fine detail to the impressively intense and imposingly scaled flavors that are supported by markedly firm tannins on the suave, mouth coating and massively long finish. This very structured effort reminds me of some of the great old vintages made by Hubert in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The 2014 Clos de la Roche Grand Cru has a very refined bouquet that takes time to open, but it is worth the wait: blackberry, dried blood, limestone and a faint marine influence (perhaps oyster shell) -- all wonderfully delineated and controlled. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, quite compact and dense at the moment, as well as very linear and precise; it is long in the mouth but not wishing to play around at the moment. Perhaps keeping its exuberance for later? This is an enigmatic Clos de la Roche this year from Lignier.