Mersault La Piece sous le Bois 1990, Robert Ampeau

Vinmøte Jon 18.4.12:

Gylden, gul og fat. Mangler litt balanse, men slankere i munnen. Østers, brente fat, karamell og liten eleganse. Utviklet, uelegant med popcorn og "kinofølelse". Den mest utviklede i rekken og for dyr til ca. kr. 1 000,-. 88 poeng.

Robert Ampeau, an extraordinary anachronism among growers in Burgundy, died on December 5, 2004, of a stroke he suffered while working in his vines in Savigny lès Beaune. He was 83.
Ampeau was a legendary figure, and an admired colleague of the most important producers in Burgundy, including Aubert de Villaine, Lalou Bize-Leroy, Dominique Lafon, and Hubert de Montille, whose cellars all contain Ampeau wine. His death, however, was little noted in the popular wine press. Though he continued to work until he died, Ampeau had gradually relinquished control of the estate to his son, Michel. The parcels they cultivated together in Meursault and Volnay are easy to identify, if not for the grass that grows between the rows to manage water uptake (Robert Ampeau was one of the first to incorporate the practice in Burgundy), than for the obvious fact that the vines are all pruned neatly, exactly forty centimeters higher than their neighbors,’ which is the height that their perfectly maintained, fifty year-old enjambeur (tractor) prunes them. The vines look like specimen plants; the enjambeur looks like a museum piece. Robert Ampeau never cared much about impressing the journalists (who sometimes visited, but mostly paid him little notice), and he was famously intolerant of self-important fools.