2007 Echézeaux Grand Cru

With the 2007 vintage the radical recent improvements put in place at Faiveley should be apparent even to the palate-dead, and the purity and terroir complexity of the 2008s should be even more remarkable. According to CEO/advisor Bernard Hervet, the phenolic ripeness was ahead of the sugar ripeness in 2008, and Faiveley picked on the late side, eliminating 5% to 7% of the grapes on the sorting table. This is a very serious crop of wines here, and yet they are not hard-as they might well have been even five years ago, when the quality of oak used here was not nearly as good. The aromatics of the 2008s knocked me out in November, but the Faiveley 2007s are also standouts, with unusual precision, energy and perfume for their vintage.

With an assist from CEO/advisor Bernard Hervet, who formerly led the turnarounds at Bouchard and William Fevre for the Henriot family, Domaine Faiveley has radically upgraded its cooperage and its winemaking regime in just a few short years. The most recent key improvement here was the purchase of a vertical press and the introduction of oak vats for the fermentations. "We're now working in a more old-fashioned way, but with all of the modern technical controls," explained Hervet, who added that the chief objective of recent changes has been to avoid bitterness on the finishes of the wines and thus make them a bit less rustic in their youth without compromising their power, concentration or potential longevity. "Fifty percent of our problems just a few years ago were due to wood that wasn't dried long enough," he went on. "With 2007 we have no more bad cooperage." Hervet noted that 2007 has a different balance from that of 2006. "There are more tannins in the '06s but the skins were riper in 2007," he explained. "We may have been missing some tannins in '07, but the wines have good balance. When we saw the low levels of tannins we decided to put all the wines in new oak, but with a light toast." (Wilson-Daniels, St. Helena, CA) Also recommended: Volnay Santenots (86).