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Domaine du COMTE ARMAND (EPENEAUX)

It shouldn’t have been easy for then twenty four year old Benjamin Leroux to take over the direction and winemaking of Domaine Comte Armand from Pascal Marchand. Pascal is a visionary. Perhaps it is because he is an outsider. Perhaps when outsiders love, they do so with the clarity and purpose that is brought on by choice rather than comfort, habit or inevitability. Pascal was one of the principal motors behind the still recent conversion to biodynamics or at least lutte-raisonneé by much of the younger generation in Burgundy.
He wasn’t the only one; but he brought them together, convincing them to pool resources for such things as soil analysis or production of compost. And of course as a winemaker, Pascal had a touch. From his very first vintage, 1985, he propelled Domaine du Comte Armand from the ranks of perennial underachievers to the reference standard for Pommard. After fifteen years in Pommard, Pascal needed a challenge and moved on. He hand-picked Benjamin, a kid really, to be his successor.

It shouldn’t of have been easy for Benjamin and it wasn’t, it was effortless. Or at least, such is the calm, maturity, intelligence, talent and astounding wines of Benjamin that looks to anyone who has witnessed the transition as if he had just donned a pair of slippers.

Yes Benjamin did start with the 1999, a wonderful vintage and reportedly easy to make. But then came 2000 and 2001, both very difficult for the Cote de Beaune. Benjamin not only pulled it off with honors, Clos des Epeneaux is a candidate for wine of both vintages in the Cote de Beaune. In fact the 2001 is a candidate not by a nose but by an entire pack of really fat horses. As to the 2002, it is simply glorious.

Nor does Benjamin simply make the wines Pascal made. Pommard is naturally structured and the Clos des Epenaux is blessed with a high proportion of old vines, adding to the terroir’s natural intensity. The Pommards produced by Pascal would hit you with all the strength, indeed sometimes brutality, of both the personality of the terroir and that of the sometimes wild and bullish winemaker. Sauvage—untamed—is a recurring descriptor for Burgundy, and it couldn’t be a better suited one for Pascal’s acheivements

Benjamin’s wines hit you not with brutality but with force. The fascination with Burgundy is a fascination with minute differences, minute detail. From a seemingly uniform bunch of light-bodied wines, a ruby colored milky way, the Burgundy aficionado gradually sees an increasing number of detailed planets, then the planet’s satellites, then the geography of each of the planets. There was a seamless transition between Pascal and Benjamin, barely noticeable. Yet, the wines are so unquestionably personal. They once were brilliant, strong and wild, they are now brilliant, forceful and relaxed. I have no doubt that it is both winemakers’ dedication to biodynamics coupled with out of the ordinary talent that has allowed such detail to shine.

Benjamin is unstoppable on the subject. Much of the essence of the Clos des Epeneaux was thought out by Pascal Marchand, leaving Benjamin more leisure to work on details. And it is much to Benjamin’s credit that he wasn’t tempted by ego to make profound changes.

He will greet you at the Clos with calm of the Lafarges and the softness of Fred Mugnier. But he is terribly in control for someone so young. The initial quietness will soon disappear as clear technical explanations tainted with the apparent whimsy of biodynamics start to flow from him as if a professor giving a hushed class a lesson. Benjamin also has iron resolve. « It is unconscionable that so much effort and care goes into something like the Clos and that it can end up spoiled by a cork, something beyond the winemaker’s control » he will say returning from a conference on alternative closures in New Zealand. « What do you do think of alternative closures », he will ask, but you know he has already made up his mind and will probably and will be a pioneer in their use, or at least a pioneer in such a bastion of tradition as Burgundy is. Like Pascal, there is no doubt that Benjamin will be one of the region’s motors towards ever increasing quality, challenge by challenge, detail by detail. It seems almost as if he had already digested the intellectual challenge of the Clos, but fortunately it also seems like the Comte Armand, Clos des Epeneaux’ absentee landlord is drawn to incredibly driven winemakers and understands that in order to keep them he must afford them the means of pursuing their rather large appetite for improvement of quality. © PAUL WASSERMAN.
http://www.domaine-des-epeneaux.com

Region:

Côte de Beaune

Winery Location:

Pommard

Domaine (avg.):

4045 cases

Winemaker:

Benjamin Leroux

Vineyard Area:

22.11 acres (8.95 ha)

Varietals:

Pinot Noir & Chardonnay

 

VITICULTURAL METHOD:Biodynamic

TRIAGE:In the vineyard & in the cuverie

FERMENTATION:Indigeneous yeast & bacteria

AGING:16 - 24 months

NEW OAK:0% - 50 %