2005 Fourrier Gevrey-Chambertin Clos St Jacques Burgundy - 750ml

95 RP - Fourrier's 2005 Gevrey-Chambertin Clos St.-Jacques reveals a gorgeous aroma of black fruits, rose, truffle, tea and musk, a marrowy, creamy richness of texture, and a riveting finishing complexity of fruit, meat, flowers, pungent spices and minerals. If this is not a case of progression into the territory of grand cru quality, I don't know what is. I would plan to start following this from ten years out and anticipate at least a second decade of improvement. (With a vintage-typical, yet in this instance, somehow not disruptive contrast of milky texture with tart fresh fruit, and displaying strikingly overt minerality, the 2004 rendition of this wine is also well worth a decade of cellaring.)

The articulate and opinionated Jean-Marie Fourrier staunchly believes in the inclusion of uncrushed fruit (to among other things prolong fermentation and, he claims, diminish the efficiency of alcoholic conversion); leaving the young wines on their lees (with high CO2 retention) eighteen months before bottling; employing a mere 20% of new barrels for all wines; and applying only minimal doses of sulfur. That the property from which he sources is all owned outright, and is largely in vines of over fifty years age planted by his father or grandfather before the days of clones certainly helps explain the consistently excellent quality at this address.