Meo Camuzet Richebourg Grand Cru 2005 750ml

Burghound.com, Sep 10, 2012
This has begun to open, if only a little, to reveal reticent but gorgeously spicy, ripe and strikingly complex aromas of dark pinot fruit, violets, stone, earth and hints of sandalwood. The dense, powerful and very serious large-scaled flavors are sleek, tautly muscular and precise with plenty of minerality present on the very firm though not aggressively structured finish that just goes on and on. A genuine 'wow' wine that possesses positively brilliant potential though be prepared to have the requisite patience.

Domaine Méo-Camuzet is a wine producer located in Vosne-Romanée in the Côte de Nuits. It produces some of the most celebrated wines from the Côte d'Or from a range of grand cru vineyards, including Richebourg, Clos de Vougeot, Corton and Echézeaux. Most of Méo-Camuzet's wines are made from Pinot Noir, and are known for their delicate aromatic concentration.
The founder of the estate was Etienne Camuzet, an early 20th Century politician based in Paris who offered parts of his estate to a variety of sharecroppers to farm. Eventually it came into the hands of Jean-Nicholas Méo in 1986, who realised that the extensive sharecropping meant that only a small portion of vines were under the domaine's control. He set out a long-term strategy to regain the plots from the sharecroppers who were currently working them, with the goal of eventually having estate-grown fruit and bottling under his own label, Méo-Camuzet.
One of these landholders was iconic Burgundy producer Henri Jayer. He had farmed the domaine's land to bottle under his own label for about 40 years. He retired in 1988 and helped to advise Jean-Nicholas on the reacquisition of his vines. Meo-Camuzet now has 14 hectares (35 acres) of vine, including a part of the Cros Parantoux Premier Cru site, which was made famous by Jayer.