A tart, cider-like mingling of Rainier cherry, lemon and crabapple pungently and incisively laced with mustard and coriander seeds as well as radish renders the De Moor 2011 Bourgogne Chitry strikingly intense while guaranteeing that it won't be everybody's cup of Chardonnay. An unusual combination of textural oiliness with levity and refreshing brightness prepares the way for a piquant, invigorating, forcefully-intense finish in which citrus rinds add to the aforementioned seeds and radish. Elegant this isn't. But it will prove fascinatingly versatile at table over at least the next 3-4 years, and those who like it are apt to think that I was stingy in my score.
High up in Courgis, Alice and Olivier De Moor were not impacted by 2012 frost, though that scarcely means that their vintage was unproblematic. Oidium and mildew required repeated treatments and the harvest a certain selectivity, but in the end yields were nearly equal to those of 2011 - and consequently, alcohol levels no higher - while quality was, as usual for them but increasingly so as years go by, impressively over-achieving by any standards, let alone those of appellation. (A potentially impressive but already 14% alcohol 2012 Saint-Bris was too far-removed from completing its fermentation at the time of my visit to more fully assess.) The 2012 harvest did not begin here until the last days of September, but what hung was, by the De Moors- testimony, almost entirely healthy fruit. With the exception of a Saint Bris whose virtues are largely vitiated by its high volatility - and there are sometimes wines that get away, given their high-risk, hands-off cellar approach - the De Moors' 2011s are brashly, very distinctively, and in a couple of instances memorably delicious. These were, for the most part, not bottled until late last or early this year. A continued investment is being made here, incidentally, in new demi-muids - of Austrian as well as French origin - that seem to suit the De Moors' intentions for Chablis, Bourgogne Chitry and old vines Aligote.
Importer: Louis/Dressner Selections, New York, NY; tel. (212) 334 8191