The 2016 Bourgogne Rouge has a lifted, quite floral bouquet that offers pretty blueberry and black cherry fruit. The palate is medium-bodied with fine, slightly grainy tannin, although it just needs a little more fleshiness to develop on the finish. If it does, it may perch at the upper end of my banded score.

The 2009 Bourgogne, from vineyards in Morey and Chambolle (vinified together), is a silky red graced with expressive aromatics and beautifully nuanced fruit. Elegance and power meld together nicely in the Bourgogne, which makes a great introduction to the house style. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2019. Taupenot-Merme farms 13 hectares across 19 appellations. The vineyards have been farmed organically since 2001. The wines are made in a style that seeks textural richness. The fruit is 100% destemmed and undergoes a cold soak of 7-9 days, prior to fermentation. The wines are racked into steel to allow for a natural decantation and then moved into oak, where they spend 12-15 months on the fine lees. New oak tops out at 40% for the Grand Crus. The 2009 harvest started on September 11. Yields were high relative to past years, but the estate had a lot of millerandage (shot berries). Romain Taupenot describes his 2009s as having a high level of malic acid, which delayed malos by the standards of this estate. Importers: Winebow, Montvale, NJ; tel. (201) 445-0620, Imported by Scott Paul Wines, Carlton, OR; tel. (503) 852 7300; J.A.O. Wine Imports, McLean, VA; contact@jaowineimports.com

A Taupenot-Merme 2008 Bourgogne combines vintage-typical bright red berry fruit with salted beef marrow on a satisfyingly juicy palate, leading to a spare but saliva-inducing finish. I’m not sure how much complexity this would gain in bottle and would opt for planning to enjoy it over the next 3-4 years. Romain Taupenot is clearly taking important steps to build on his family’s experience and do justice to their extensive list of appellations in parcels spread out along the Cote d’Or (and in both Pinot and Chardonnay). My tastings of wines from the last three vintages turned up some fine and above all highly distinctive bottlings which, if I were to guess, will probably please some pinotphiles more than my scores might suggest, and please the rest less! Taupenot – who prefers closed fermentors in order, he claims, to prevent influence of the yeasts in one batch on this in another – opined that his raw material in 2008 permitted sparing punch-downs in the early stage of fermentation, whereas he did not trust his 2007 fruit to respond well to as aggressive a regimen of extraction. “You had to be careful not to do too-short maceration in 2008” though, he maintains, “because whereas usually the extraction of tannin in the presence of alcohol is steady, in 2008 the tannin was not extracted until very late.” The 2008s here had been bottled a month before my February visit, all with light filtration, because, Taupenot says, “the levels of turbidity I measured were too high for me to omit filtration, whereas in 2007 I bottled some of the wines without filtration.” This estate is perhaps best known for their few rows of Clos de Lambrays, on account of which that site misses being a monopole of the Domaine des Lambrays; but as I did not have time to taste the entire Taupenot-Merme range, I did not insist on sampling the less-than-barrique-sized quantity of that particular cru. Imported by Scott Paul Wines, Carlton, OR; tel. (503) 852 7300; also and a Scott Levy Selection, Norcross, GA; tel. (770) 730-0361