2012 Pommard Clos des Epeneaux 1er Cru

Winemaker Benjamin Leroux had warned me in advance that he'd only be able to show me a single 2011--the estate's flagship Pommard Clos des Epeneaux--as the estate is essentially sold out of all of its other '11s and quantities in 2012 and 2013 are tiny."In 2012, the Cote de Nuits and Cote de Beaune had two completely different harvests," he told me."In the low-crop parts of the Cote de Beaune, the grapes were half skins and half juice!Two thousand twelve was like a reduction:we were close to making jam."He went on:"Every little detail was critical in 2012, and again in 2013.In fact, the hail was responsible for the quality of the best 2012s, which have outstanding concentration owing to the very low yields.The vintage is very good and has a strong personality.But truly great vintages only come along every 30 years, and 2010 is great." (A Becky Wasserman selection; importers include Wines Unlimited, www.winesunlimited.com and Martin-Scott Wines Ltd., www.martinscottwines.com)

According to Comte Armand's winemaker, Benjamin Leroux, the biggest challenge in 2012 was adapting tank sizes to the unusually low yields. With a small amount of grapes, the risk was to accidentally over-extract by having too much surface area of skins for a relatively small amount of juice. As for the wines, well, they are pretty spectacular from top to bottom. At the time of my visit in November 2013, only the Clos des Epeneaux had been racked. Incidentally, Leroux used no new oak in 2012. Readers who can find any of the 2012s are going to be thrilled, as they are magnificent.