Bright cherry and red currant lend eye-watering penetration to the nose and palate of Croix’s 2008 Beaune Cent Vignes, which displays a less ripe and winsome personality than the corresponding 2005 or 2006, but offers fascinating complexity from blond tobacco, smoky black tea, chalk, and salt; a refined texture; and long, smoky, savory, bright and energetic finish. This could well gain some richness short-term but I am sure it will, in any case, be worth following for more than a decade. Young David Croix has just added acreage in Aloxe (including Corton) to his recently-formed domaine (for more, consult my report in issue 186). He certainly has a spacious-enough – not to mention handsome – facility to accommodate much more, but seems intent on remaining in the modest 15-20 acre range, while also keeping very busy in his capacity as cellarmaster at Maison Camille Giroud (for more, consult my reports under that heading). Croix did not begin harvesting 2008s (his first crop grown entirely organically, incidentally) until September 29, continuing for ten days, and taking it on the chin as far as yields were concerned. “Nature dictated a small crop,” he relates, but the absence of warmth or sunshine prompted him to cut it back further. “I finished green-harvesting on a Friday;” he continues, “and on Saturday hail hit” many of his vines in Beaune and Savigny. ‘Then there was the concentration of berries by wind, plus the triage of unhealthy grapes.” With one exception, the 2008s had been bottled for a month when I tasted them in April. A Becky Wasserman Selection, Le Serbet (various importers); fax 011-333-80-24-29-70