1996 | Domaine Ponsot | Clos de la Roche Vieilles Vignes

Delicious, vibrant, pure blackberry and raspberry character blends nicely with smoky, toasted aromas. Elegant and medium-bodied, with smooth tannins, this a delightful, well-made, Long finish.

Reviews:

• Burghound: There is a whiff of volatile acidity to the otherwise highly perfumed nose that reflects moderate secondary character along with plenty of spice and earth notes. The lighter weight (not dilute but certainly not concentrated) and precise flavors are utterly delicious while offer excellent length despite the presence of a touch of '96-style acid tang. For my taste this has largely reached its peak even in magnum format though I underscore that it should easily hold for years to come.

• John Gilman: The 1996 vintage at Domaine Ponsot was a controversial one, as this wine in particular was very light in both color and apparent body when it was first released in bottle and several commentators questioned whether or not Laurent Ponsot had succeeded in this vintage. At the time, Monsieur Ponsot had responded that his 1996s would be just fine in the fullness of time; they just needed some bottle age to blossom. Twenty-two years down the road, he has been vindicated, as this wine showed very nicely at our tasting, albeit, not quite in the same level of the finest vintages of this era at the domaine. But, the light and thin wine of youth was long gone, as the 1996 Ponsot Clos de la Roche is now quite classic in its expression, offering up a deep and complex bouquet of red and black cherries, beetroot, woodsmoke, venison, fresh herb tones and a good base of slightly damp soil. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, wide open and quite complex, with a plush core, fine focus and grip, modest tannins and a long, broad and well-balanced finish. The acidity here seems a bit less pronounced than in many other 1996s, but of course the house style here is for very late harvesting and this would have allowed the acids in the grapes to drop a bit prior to picking.

Producer Information

Domaine Ponsot is a family-owned wine producer in Burgundy. It is known for its red and white wines made from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but is also well-known for the Morey-Saint-Denis Premier Cru Clos des Monts Luisants, the only 100-percent Aligoté premier cru wine in Burgundy. The domaine was founded in 1872 by the Ponsot family in Morey-Saint-Denis. Most of the domaine's holdings are in grand cru and premier cru vineyards, and Ponsot makes wines from such famous vineyards as Clos de la Roche, Clos de Vougeot and Corton. Unlike most Burgundy houses, Domaine Ponsot does not make regional wines under the Bourgogne title. It also manages its vineyards and wineries differently to other producers in Burgundy. There are no sorting tables – bunch management is done in the vineyard. The wines go through uncontrolled ferments, and are not filtered or fined. The domaine gained notoriety when it was embroiled in the widespread wine fraud of counterfeiter Rudy Kurniawan. In 2008, owner Laurent Ponsot was sent an auction list that included some old vintages of Ponsot wines. Some of these were wines that had never been produced, and suspecting counterfeit, asked that these wines were withdrawn from the auction. Since then, Ponsot has looked into various counterfeiting measures, and in 2009, the bottles were fingerprinted with unique bubble codes that were impossible to reproduce.

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