Romanée Saint Vivant, Domaine Hudelot-Noellat 2007

An ultra elegant, high-toned and pure nose mixes red and blue pinot fruit, violets, soy, anise and clove where the spice notes continue onto rich and generous flavors that retain a fine sense of detail and underlying tension on the highly persistent finale. This is not a truly great RSV by the substantial Hudelot standards but rather an exercise in class, grace and harmony.

Good medium red. Highly perfumed nose combines raspberry, strawberry, cocoa powder, white pepper, blood orange and a resiny headshop spiciness. Pungent, complex and weightless; a wonderfully lively, delicate wine with sneaky intensity and superb penetrating energy and lift. Finishes dry and understated. Suave rather than large. My recorked bottle lost some verve with 24 hours, suggesting that this wine is probably best for mid-term drinking-say, beginning in five years. But that brilliant nose can't be duplicated anywhere outside the northern C o te de Nuits. Van Canneyt told me he doesn't consider 2007 to be a great year for this domain and that he prefers the 2008s for their depth of fruit and texture.