Echezeaux du Dessus, Cecile Tremblay 2008

Tremblay’s three barrels of 2008 Echezeaux du Dessus (two new; all crafted by impressively artisan but increasingly fashionable tonnelier Stephane Chassin) enjoyed rather exotic provenance, the oak for one coming from Jupilles and another from the Foret de Blois near the Loire and the famous, once royal forests of Fontainebleau just south of Paris. I wouldn’t normally fixate on such issues, but I’m beginning to feel that it would be a mistake to discount anything that Cecile Tremblay considers important, let alone feels passionate about! Oh … right, the contents of said barrels (one of which was still gassy from the completion of malo!): a nose of smoky Lapsang tea, cassis, licorice, dark mushroom stock and forest floor leads to a firmly but finely tannic, almost sparklingly brightly-acidic palate impression. This is going to express its concentration with considerable finesse, I feel sure, and it finishes with already almost kaleidoscopic complexity as well as prodigious length. But its glacial pace of evolution makes getting an at all precise picture of its personality difficult, and I expect that after bottling (which was scheduled for June), too, it will be slow to develop, and almost certainly worth following for more than a dozen years.