Now this was a real bargain wine

Gone are the days when one could get a good Engel Grand Cru in Selfridge’s for £34 a bottle. Luckily, we stocked up.

[image image_id=”2286″]

Grands-Echezeaux Grand Cru 1999, Rene Engel

A lovely nose of dense, exotic, expressive fruit that really charms my tired nose. This smells superb. There is plenty of fruit, plenty of minerality and this is framed by the most subtle of oak treatments one could wish for. Serious complexity here. The palate is smooth and silky, with real Grand Cru definition of flavour and complexity. The fruit is utterly lovely. This is seriously stylish but, if I am honest, this is too young to be drinking this wine. There is clearly bucket loads more complexity to come from this wine over the next 10-15 years (if your cellar is up to the challenge). I’ve had plenty of evidence that Rene Engel wines are completely lovely, and this just adds weight to that case. It is a shame I never got to meet him I love his wines so; when I faxed to make an appointment I got a reply saying he had died brutally on his yacht in Tahiti. Seems a bit of a drastic step to avoid presenting one’s wines to an enthusiastic audience…

6 Comments