Leroy’s 2008 Nuits-St.-Georges Aux Vignerondes offers complex scents and flavors of smoky black tea, humus, and plum pit, along with ripe, fleshy, faintly tart-edged dark cherry and purple plum. Polished in texture and generously rich, this comes to a long but surprisingly sedate conclusion, both soothing and stimulating, although not exhilarating in the manner of the finest wines in this collection. Taken by itself, though, rather than in comparison, this is impressively refined and complex Pinot. Perhaps time will bring greater eloquence. I cannot imagine this rewarding fewer than a dozen years of repeat visits. 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