Ripe peach and apricot along with decadent lily perfume scent the nose of Colin's 2007 Saint-Aubin Les Combes. Fruit pit and citrus rind bitterness and overt chalkiness lend more austerity on the palate here than the ripeness of the nose led me to anticipate, but there is a good sense of glycerin to help ameliorate that tendency. I detect a bit of finishing heat and hardness the latter perhaps a legacy of the hail that hit this sector in an otherwise impressively rich, densely chalky, and persistent wine. I would want to monitor this again in the course of 2010 before pronouncing further on its potential.
Since splitting the family inheritance with his brother Bruno in 2004, Philippe Colin has taken on supplemental grape contracts, but only where he is able to personally work the vines and call the shots at harvest. In 2007, he picked his entire acreage in one week, beginning September 4, and lightly chaptalized his wines to levels generally just on either side of 13%.
Imported by Robert Chadderdon Selections, New York, NY; tel. (212) 757-8185; Diageo Chateau and Estate Wines Company, New York, NY; tel. (212) 419-1400; Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Berkeley, CA; tel. (510) 524-1524