There are only three barrels this year of Raphet's 2008 Clos Vougeot Vieilles Vignes, a bottling from his oldest vines and best locations in this sprawling, heterogeneous appellation. This doesn't only have a healthier and deeper color than the wines that preceded it in Raphet's 2008 collection, it also displays additional complexity. Soy, pork stock, lightly-cooked black raspberry, blond tobacco, Latakia tobacco, cardamom, and ginger mingle on the nose and on a juicy, savory, saliva-inducing palate. There is a lovely sense of richness and fine-grained tanninity as well as impressive grip, even if it's not especially seductive, let alone finesseful. I suspect that it will be worth following for 6-8 years. Raphet opines that this has shut down since bottling, whereas he indicates surprise that the other wines in his collection - even just a little over a month after they were bottled - taste to him very close to the way they showed from barrel. Gerard Raphet's 2008s finished malo by the end of the following January, which is amazingly early for this vintage, and not necessarily advantageous. (He suspects the environment of his new facility has something to do with that rapidity.) He bottled them last January. As a group these wines are not particularly dark or youthful in color, nor do they for the most part exhibit the sort of brightness that I associate with their vintage. That said, they are generous and charming, often with attractively-integrated hints of caramelization. Yields were way down in both 2007 and 2008, notes Raphet, though one can hardly attribute any special degree of vinous concentration to this fact. In common with me, Raphet finds his 2007s - which to my surprise held their own vis-a-vis 2008 - ideal for drinking young.Peter Vezan Selections (various importers), Paris; fax 011 33 1 42 55 42 93

Raphet's 2007 Clos Vougeot Vieilles Vignes is possessed of a healthy color and depth of ripe, fresh black fruits that predictably distance it from his principle bottling of Clos Vougeot. In common with the latter wine, this limited old vines bottling offers charred red meats and pungent pepper; and here a bittersweet herbal component adds to the interest in persistent, low-toned finish. This represents a substantial mouthful of Pinot for the vintage, its abundant tannins fine-grained and likely to help insure that it is worth following for at least 5-7 years. Gerard Raphet's 2008s finished malo by the end of the following January, which is amazingly early for this vintage, and not necessarily advantageous. (He suspects the environment of his new facility has something to do with that rapidity.) He bottled them last January. As a group these wines are not particularly dark or youthful in color, nor do they for the most part exhibit the sort of brightness that I associate with their vintage. That said, they are generous and charming, often with attractively-integrated hints of caramelization. Yields were way down in both 2007 and 2008, notes Raphet, though one can hardly attribute any special degree of vinous concentration to this fact. In common with me, Raphet finds his 2007s - which to my surprise held their own vis-a-vis 2008 - ideal for drinking young.Peter Vezan Selections (various importers), Paris; fax 011 33 1 42 55 42 93

As usual, Raphet's "regular" Clos Vougeot – reflecting the estate's largest cru surface area – was diffuse and not terribly distinguished, whereas a 2006 Clos Vougeot Vieilles Vignes – the sixth successive bottle of fruit from their oldest and best-placed vines – is impressive, if rather austere. (At around 115 cases, this represents the largest volume in which this cuvee has yet been produced.) Singed meat, bitter-sweet black fruits, and chalk are present already in the nose, and follow onto a palate of palpable density and suffused with fine, firm tannins. This finishes with formidable force and grip, yet without any sense of weight. It should be worth following for at least the better part of a decade but deserves to be left alone for the next several years. The Raphet wines have always been marked by a wide divergence of quality and a reflection of conditions very much as nature presented them. The results in 2006 are relatively lightweight, with for the most part only bottlings from the characteristically top sites and vines of the domaine really asserting strong personalities (and a presumably hail-tainted and rather 1983-like village Gevrey being less than recommendable). Gerard Raphet says he picked consciously on the early side, and then quickly, boosting the alcohol levels on most wines slightly from their potentials in the low 12s. (For further information about Raphet and his sites, readers are urged to consult my report in issue 171.) Peter Vezan Selection (various importers), Paris; fax 011 33 1 42 55 42 93