Thibault Liger-Belair Hautes Cotes de Nuits Le Clos Du Prieure 2005

91 David Schildknecht - Wine Advocate
Now in its second vintage, Liger-Belair’s 2005 Hautes Cotes de Nuits Clos de Prieure is situated on Marne clay, facing directly south, high above the town of Arcenant (well west of the Cote d’Or). This well-ventilated, late-ripening site and its soil are conducive – at least on the evidence at hand – to remarkable richness yet striking minerality. A nose-wrinkling medicinal meld of herbal concentrates, iodine, tart black fruits and ocean breeze leads to ripe black raspberry and cherry, marrow and meat-stock mingle on a strikingly creamy palate, tinged with chalk, iodine and wet stone. This really sticks to the gums with memorable depth of fruit and a mineral complexity such as I have never before encountered from the Hautes Cotes. It represents an excellent value.
In this his fourth vintage, and (like his cousin at Comte Liger-Belair in Vosne-Romanee) young, ambitious in the pursuit of quality, well-traveled, and in the process of taking back family property from rental and negociant contracts, Thibault Liger-Belair is ensconced in deep, ancient, and bitterly-cold cellars in the center of Nuits-St.-Georges. He has begun pursuing a biodynamic regimen in his vineyards and has inaugurated a rigorously-controlled negociant arm (its wines labeled “Thibault Liger-Belair Successeurs” and designated “S” in my listings). He says he approached 2005 with great caution lest the wines lose polish and finesse to over-extraction of tannins. Certainly the results have included some very powerful and formidably structured wines. Low sulfur and a significant inclusion of whole clusters (“depending on the circumstances and site,” he says, “- I have no system”) are among other prominent features of Liger-Belair’s approach in 2005.