Maison Leroy, Meursault, 2000
Classic nose: pears, nuts and and dusty chalk. Tasty, savory and balanced with restrained fruit. I do expect either more parlor tricks or greater breed for what this costs (as usual, Madame Leroy has placed a price tag on the bottle roughly twice what I'd pay for the juice inside) but leaving that aside, this is quite lovely.
I checked importer Tomer Gal's catalog and the 2001 costs 590 NIS.
Elio Grasso, Barolo, Gavarini "Vigna Chiniera", 1997
First of all, lovely savory tannins. Very finely tuned. Complex nose: tar, Nebbilo spices and what Ran Shapira says are rose petals. Me, I get dusty old carpets as usual. Very tasty. I enjoy Piedmont without ever quite falling in love with it, but this wine, for some reason, pulled on a few heartstrings. Probably because it's so very good.
Price known only to Ran.
Montes, Alpha M, 2005
Obviously too young: very fruity on one hand, bitter with impeding tannins on the other. A restrained New World punk and a letdown after the Grasso.
Price unknown, although I believe WineRoute imports it irregularly.
Comments
It's curious about Maison Leroy being a negociante and not a proprietor like Domaine Leroy. I saw in Tomer's catalogue that he's selling a 1993 ML, Cotes de Beaune, St. Aubin for 570! Seems like it could be worth a try, to say the least. Any comments or predictions on that one???
Also, I'm sure that the Alpha M was a let down for you given the line-up, but I had the 1999 for our anniversary about a year ago, and liked it a lot. (That was before I started getting into more elegant wines.) I think it settles down a bit and develops a lot of herbal and peppery secondary notes, in addition to being still very fruity, which my wife is crazy about. It goes for about 350, and Marcello gave me the 2005 price for the 1999 because it was the last one avail.
Best,
Joel
Madame Leroy buys finished wines for her negociant business, from people she holds in high esteem and whose finished product she deems worthy of her label. Then she cellars the wines until she thinks they're ready to drink. So you have to deal with a) her notions of "ready" might not coincide with yours, b) even Tomer hints that her cellars are very old-fashioned and who knows what fungus might be growing on the corks and c) she charges very high prices for wines she didn't make herself.
You can read my notes on these wines and you'll see that my take on it is they're interesting to drink but sometimes sold too late. Especially the reds. And they're always too expensive for what they offer. Except for the experience of drinking a mature wine.