Guillemot’s 2008 Savigny-les-Beaune Les Narbantons – from 70 year old vines – offers tart concentration of tart cherry and red raspberry wreathed in wood smoke. Although it’s not the Serpentieres, this seems to slither across the palate, sleek and cool, flicking its tart and invigorating acids and fruit skin and glistening with salt, chalk, peat, and new leather. Long and handsomely lean, it should be worth following for at least 10-12 years. “We look for fruit and finesse from this site,” opines Vincent Guillemot, and indeed, you will find them here – a bit of a stylistic departure if you were brought up on the now late, lamented Narbantons of Maurice Ecard. Guillemot adds that part of the difference is terroir: the Narbantons is quite elongated and close to Savigny (where his family’s vines are) is lighter, rockier soil, while toward Beaune (where the Ecard vines were) is more clay-rich, with warmer exposure. A very young Vincent Guillemot – later joined by his father, Pierre – proudly took the lead in showing me his family wines, which I have known for years but until this April had not tasted in situ. These continue to represent excellent values and are good keepers. Guillemots bottled their 2008s in January which is a month later than usual, due to late malos and residual CO2. It would be most interesting to see these get longer elevage, and it appears that might lie in the future. As Vincent points out – and bearing in mind that the wines here have been good for much longer than that – the past decade has in several respects found them returning to methods that prevailed in his grandfather’s time. I did not have a chance to taste Guillemot’s 2007s as I used it instead to gain a foretaste of 2009 which will feature a new appellation, and which is promising indeed. Importer: Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Berkeley, CA; tel. (510) 524-1524