TN: Dominuque Laurent (w/o apparent oak)

Apr 08, 2009 5 Replies

Betsy made pork chops with shiitakes, plus quinoa with kale, I opened the 2005 Dominique Laurent Cotes de Nuits Villages Vielles Vignes.



Despite Laurent's rep for oak (and I've had some DL village and PCs that I thought terribly overoaked), I've generally found good QPR and little oak with his lower end bottlings, especially the "Bourgogne #1." So decided to bite when this bottling (which I'd never seen before) was a $10 closeout at PC.



Nice sappy black cherry fruit, moderate acidity, some tannins. I'm not getting any apparent oak, just nice juicy Pinot Noir fruit. Weighty for CdNV, doesn't have the complexity or depth I found in the '06 Bachelet CdNV recently, but a very nice Burg that might even improve over the short term. B+ for the wine, A for value.



Grade disclaimer: I'm a very easy grader, basically A is an excellent wine, B a good wine, C mediocre. Anything below C means I wouldn't drink at a party where it was only choice. Furthermore, I offer no promises of objectivity, accuracy, and certainly not of consistency.


Thanks for the notes. I used to be a fan of some of his wines but the oak became too much so I quit buying them. Perhaps I'll try again. Sappy fruit defined his wines even in the most lean years.

I still wouldn't spend $$$ on his upper level bottles, though I've heard he's toned oak down. But at $9.99 this seemed worth the risk (and as I noted, I tend to like the lesser appellations more).

Same here the last two bottles I opened had more oak than my kitchen floor so I quit buying the Laurent.

I think he fell into the "Parker" trap back in the 90's because I recall that Parker/Rovani really loved his wines back then. It's been years since I've bought a bottle but I tasted one recently and it was good and oaky!

Parker really likes oak more than I do.

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