Aubert de Villaine, he of Romanée-Conti fame, established this particular domaine separately from his DRC interests. Management was handed over to his nephew, Pierre de Benoist in 2000.  This particular wine, a pinot noir – Mercurey Les Montots – is situated on a south facing slope outside the town of Mercurey.  Helpful further particulars can be seen on the winery’s website here, with characteristic Burgundian precision of vineyard identification.

I had expectations with a wine of this provenance, and in all, I think they were met. The wine opens to attractive aromatics of earth, cherries, wood and is generally savoury in character.  I was a little surprised by the evident wood character in the wine, but see that the wine saw 5% new oak, and it didn’t overly stand out with time.  The wine also showed some varnishy volatile acidity notes on opening, but these also passed without incident.  On the palate, balanced acid, long length with the same cherry and earth characters carried through.  In all, I found this to be a very enjoyable and balanced pinot noir with better than expected length on the palate.  Good to Very Good

Abv: 12.5%
Price: $70
Vendors: Check http://www.wine-searcher.com/
Website: http://www.de-villaine.com
Tasted: 2012
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