| Score: |
95 WA.
"I love the lively and energetic profile of the 2014 L'Etoile Cuvée Spéciale, which is a sharper wine than the 2015 but also less developed and fresher. It feels very young and undeveloped, with bright acidity, strong minerality and a chalky texture. A brilliant Cuvée Spéciale in the making. I had the chance to taste the latest vintages and also some older bottles at an exceptional tasting of the wines of Montbourgeau at the highly recommended restaurant Bodega Cigaleña in the city of Santander in the north of Spain. Their sommelier and owner Andrés Conde has done (and continues doing) a great job to promote the wines from the Jura, and he has been a great help to introduce me to many of the greatest vignerons from the region. Montbourgeau is the leading domaine at the small village and appellation of l'Etoile, a source of some of the most elegant wines from Jura. Their wines epitomize that style, with wines of great finesse, beautifully textured, clean, fresh and nuanced, with great balance and amazing aging potential like some of the older bottles tasted here show. Most of the current wines are from 2015, a warm and ripe vintage for the domaine, with wines that combine the elegant house style and the pungent minerality with great concentration and power. I also tasted some older vintages going back to 1985. The luxury of great tastings like this was that I was able to sit down with all the bottles for a good three hours before the actual tasting, and I went through all the bottles slowly and at my own pace. I tasted the younger wines from magnum and all of them from two different bottles, sometimes even three, and they showed very good consistency. This is a great domaine that is making great wines, until now always with flor, now also starting with ouillé with the new generation. It was really interesting to see how the Cuvée Spéciale and Vin jaune from 2005, 1995 and 1985 seemed to have developed in the same way, with the year marking both wines irrespective of variety and aging/style. In both cases, the 1985s felt fresher than the 1995s." Luis Gutiérrez, Wine Advocate Interim, Jun 2019 |