"Intense color, varying between deep garnet and dark ruby. This Moulin-à-Vent is suggestive of both flowers and fruit, particularly violets and cherries. Well-structured with moderate tannins, and delicately spiced, it offers complexity and good length, elegance and harmony, power and velvet.
Food pairings: Roasted or braised red meats, all types of game and venison, fine cheese." Winemaker's Notes
The 2008 Moulin-a-Vent Domaine du Moulin-a-Vent smells of nutmeg-tinged rhubarb; offers a juicy, slightly tart red fruit mid palate, and finishes with what has become this year the predictable lashings of oak planks in the finish. But I harbor more hope for this wine’s evolution after bottling than I do in the case of some of its fellow Moulin-a-Vent stable mates, as there is still a sense of refreshment in the finish.
Consistent in style and amazingly low in price, the myriad Beaujolais bottlings of George Duboeuf continue to represent outstanding values in the American marketplace. In April, I tasted nearly their entire range of 2008s, with few exceptions, already bottled. The overwhelming majority of these made my cut as value recommendations, including some – from among that wide range of domaines with which Duboeuf has long-standing commercial relationships – that might not show up in the U.S. market. The so-called “Selections Georges Duboeuf” cuvees continue to bear a variation on this negociant’s signature flower labels, but to save space in our print edition, please assume that any wine not otherwise designated refers to a member of that class. In general, I have preferred DuBoeuf’s Beaujolais bottlings in their youth, with a few of the domaine crus having exhibited with bottle age a complexity concomitant with the effort to cellar them, and where not otherwise noted, my recommendation is to enjoy the following wines over the next couple of years. The Duboeuf 2008 Beaujolais-Villages – at 30,000 cases, representing their largest single lot of wine, and twice the volume of their appellation Beaujolais – was a bit green and rustic by comparison, and multiple bottles of a Chateau des Vierres bottling were oddly inexpressive and drying on the occasion of my visit. Duboeuf’s flower label 2008 Fleurie is another of their wines of this vintage that is atypically austere, and in this instance a bit much so, and their 2008 Fleurie Domaine des Quatre Vents and Fleurie Chateau des Bachelards were a bit drying and rough under the influence both of its barrel component and its very recent bottling when I tasted it. 86-87+ points Wine Advocate # 184 (Aug 2009).
Vivid ruby. Spicy cherry and dark berry aromas are complicated by notes of rose and smoky minerals. Zesty, sharply focused and light-bodied cherry and berry skin flavors are refreshingly brisk and turn firmer with air. Picks up a peppery note with air and leaves a bitter cherry quality behind. 87 points Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar, Nov 09.
Shows some black cherry and briar notes, but the crisp acidity and slightly firm feel of the vintage take over on the finish. Drink now. 3,800 cases imported. 83 poinst James Molesworth for the Wine Spectator.
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