Heady scents of lily, heliotrope, and plum-filled, lightly-caramelized pastry mingle with dark hints of moss and resinous scrub in the nose of Forey’s 2008 Vosne-Romanee Les Petits Monts. This takes the near-paradoxical, 2005-like alliance of decadent and dark flavors with juicy, tart edginess of fruit and invigorating salinity to impressive lengths – and those last two words describe the wine’s finish, too, even if some tasters might characterize its combination of darkness and tartness as austere. Silken in texture yet with palpable density and finely-integrated tannin more than capable of playing their necessary role, this ought to reward a good 15 years cellaring, and probably best be left in peace for the first 4-5. Regis Forey’s 2008s enjoyed up to a month of skin contact (including cold soaks). He punched down only sparingly at the onset of fermentation – then heated the vats at the tail end in an effort to fatten the wines a bit. They finished malo in mi-summer and were racked twice – the second time in December and into tank – to help clarify them sufficiently so that he would not feel it necessary to filter. Considering how the fruit looked at harvest, Forey says he was amazed by how well his 2007s turned out. That was his view already by the time I first tasted them, coming off of early malos in late winter 2008; and in bottle they preserve the bright fruit that many 07s exhibited early on but which was in so many instances dulled or muddied meantime. As is now routine here, the village wines (and Bourgogne) were rendered almost entirely in demi-muids of varied provenance (including even a smidgeon of American oak) but always, says Forey, “very slowly-toasted, without touching the flame.” This size permits him to utilize 50% new wood, but with less surface contact per volume. It’s hard to argue with the approach, given Forey’s consistent excellence of village-level results. Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990