Domaine Ponsot Clos de la Roche Grand Cru 2011 750ml (750ml)

Framing its pure, sweet Pinot Noir fruit with a bower of flowers, earth, baking spices, and a kiss of sauvage, the aromatics of this must-have '11 Clos de la Roche Grand Cru from Domaine Ponsot offer a heady promise. This promise is fulfilled with the intense, deep and energetic palate that adds fresh-cut herbs and a delightful inner perfume to the experience. Supple yet serious tannins suggest this wine has years ahead of it. Deriving from a plot planted in 1947, the grapes for this wine macerate for two weeks in oak vats, fermenting with only wild yeasts; the wine ages in used oak and is bottled without fining, filtration or added sulfur. This extremely age-worthy wine can be enjoyed now with thorough decantation, but it will easily drink for another three decades, possibly longer.

Laurent Ponsot, the current owner and winemaker of the family-run Domaine Ponsot, bases his practices on this simple, if impassioned, philosophy. Ponsot makes all of his decisions in the field and in the cellar with an eye to making wine that expresses his Burgundian terroir. Whether it's growing his grapes in as non-interventionist a manner as possible, using only old oak for aging, choosing to replace traditional corks with composite "Guala seal"corks, or designing a color-coded alert system that will tell wine-drinkers that their bottle of Ponsot has been stored properly (or not), Ponsot has dedicated his life to his wines. Ponsot's wines embody the Burgundy at its most essential. Gorgeous fruit, stunning aromatics, breathtaking balance, and that ineffable sense that these wines could only come from this place that particular year. In its age-worthiness, ceaseless evolution and three-dimensional beauty, a bottle of Ponsot Burgundy reminds its drinker how wine is, at its very core, a