From its four (new) barrels, and not due to have been bottled before early this year, the Barmes-Buecher 2007 Pinot Noir Vieilles Vignes – from the Hengst – offers high-toned almond extract, choke cherry and kirsch aromas, which translate into cherry and marzipan flavors that are tinged by vanilla and the resin of new oak. The bright fruit and underlying chalk and marrow character that accrued to the corresponding Reserve cuvee are present here as well, but there is superfluous tannin from barrel (and perhaps also from more aggressive extraction) that seems to slightly stress the finishing fruit of cherry, plum, and raspberry, rather than adding anything. I’ve been here before and I’m pretty sure I know how the story will end, and would advise you to by the more ambitious wine’s ostensibly lesser sibling. That said, this too presents a serious case for Alsace Pinot Noir, and should be interesting to follow for a few years. The glyceral-rich 2005, incidentally, continues to boast liqueur-like fruit intensity along with what I consider extraneous tannin. There is as usual a lot of fascinating wine in Francois Barmes’ constantly shifting, hugely diverse as well as just plain huge 2007 collection, though the level of success was on the whole consistent. As in the past, though, I remained relatively unconvinced by Barmes’ way with Pinot Gris, despite its being a grape that elsewhere revealed special potential in 2007. I can’t say 2006 here represents an advertisement for Barmes’ conscientious and long-standing biodynamic practices, but then, in a year of rampant rot, surely the absence of anti-botrytis sprays has to have been sorely felt at many biodynamic estates. There were a couple of 2006s here too fungal to recommend, with the majority of what was a reduced line-up meriting mild recommendation provided they are drunk-up soon.Importer: Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, NJ; tel. (856) 608 9644; also, a Thomas Calder Selection (various importers), Paris; fax 011-33-1-46-45-15-29
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