There are hints of game and even a whiff of manure on the nose of Bize-Leroy’s 2008 Vosne-Romanee Les Beaux Monts in a manner for which other wines in this collection will already have prepared you, here accompanied by smoky black tea and peat, along with ripe black fruits that come to the palate piquantly as well as tartly invigorating. Neither the mysterious low tones and minerality nor the vivacity of the corresponding Brulees are present here, but there is an almost implosive, sap-like sense of tiny-berry concentration mingled with resin and meat stock reduction that you simply can’t get off of your palate. I suspect that we’re dealing here with a late-bloomer and would wait to revisit this for at least half a dozen years, figuring that it will be well worth following for at least 15-20. Lalou Bize-Leroy reports average 2008 Pinot Noir yields of 13 hectoliters per hectare, almost absurdly tiny even by her singular standards. Malos were a bit later than usual but were finished by summer, and the wines bottled – as usual – in December. Yet – also as usual – if their development was thereby in any way stunted, you certainly won’t detect it in the bottle today! The best of these display a sense of transparency; levity; and – even when rich and head-spinningly complex – a sheer sense of refreshment and invigoration that I have seldom encountered in other great wines from these sister estates. (Please note that my account of the complete 2007 red collection at Leroy was published in issue #189.) Importer: Martine’s Wines. Novato, CA; tel. (415) 883-040