Gamey and alkaline notes mingle with scents of ripe red fruits in the nose of Landanger’s 2007 Corton Clos Du Roi. Juicy, fresh, brown spice-tinged fruit and cleanly concentrated meat stock lend both refreshment and depth, but the combination of relatively adamant mineral aspects and faintly gum-numbing tannins makes for a certain severity in what is undeniably a well-concentrated finish, posing the question whether one ought to try cellaring this for a few years before revisiting. I would do so with caution, speculating that this could be one of those 2007s that shows well for a decade. Patrick Landanger’s recent vintages seem to reflect increasing confidence (not to mention consistency), displaying a sense of restraint while combining richness and transparency to detail. Between the threat of rot and of roasting, he observes, the 2007s required more rigorous sorting than did the fruit from 2008, with a correspondingly lower crop, but Landanger and his crew did an outstanding job in the face of 2007 adversities as well as in 2008. Importer: Langdon-Shiverick Imports, Cleveland, OH; tel. (216) 861 6800 and a Peter Vezan Selection (various importers), Paris; fax 011 33 1 42 55 42 93