Community Tasting Notes 3

• Keith Levenberg Likes this wine: 96 points

  March 7, 2019 - Somehow this is the third '55 I've had from the now-mostly-forgotten J. Thorin, and no doubt the best. Maybe that's because the others seemed to be under a negociant label while this one indicates it was estate bottled from the Thorin domaines and has a fancy crest on the label too. Bottle is in perfect shape with a fill barely more than a centimeter below the cork and a vibrant Ferrari-red color. Like all the rest from Thorin this needed some air to get into gear and kept getting better, richer, and deeper. It starts out on the light side, enough that I'm thinking, hey, this is the first Thorin I've had that doesn't taste spiked with grenache! - red fruit with an ever-so-slight cool Alpine greenery on the back end, showing its breed from the sheer silkiness of the texture. About an hour in it has put on serious weight. The fruit material is thicker and picks up a palpably sticky grip, along with layers of gravel and tar and aromas that combine a mild leatheriness with remarkably sweet, saucy blackberries and then some cinnamon and licorice with a bit more time. On the palate, too, the fruit becomes ridiculously intense for its age, in a sense you could almost call it primary because it is so vividly fruity, but it's in a more saucy, reduced fashion. It's thick outside the usual parameters of pinot and again I find myself asking the grenache question but it really doesn't taste grenachey and especially not old-grenachey, it just has that extra kick of thickness and fat to the point where you almost feel you could chew it and stretch it like gum. The laciness that characterized it at the outset has segued to a serious solidity, the palate feeling infused with asphalt. But to the very end it is still more fruit-centric than anything. Hope I'll still be this sunny when I'm 64.

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• milwaukeewino Likes this wine: 100 points

  July 8, 2018 - Second time in 8 years having this wine at Bern's. Just as amazing this time 'round. Silky smooth, perfectly integrated. Most amazingly, it revealed primary, secondary and tertiary flavor and scents at once. The finish was minutes long.

  1 person found this helpful Comment

• milwaukeewino wrote:

  February 16, 2010 - Nose gave up a little less initially than the Olivier. Harder, firmer.
  Color is fairly intense/opaque w/ some separation at the rim - still brilliant and clear.
  Not showing a ton of fruit right now. Spice, earth, menthol.
  Palate was weighty but lively and acidic and spicy.
  Thick and sweet in some ways but the opposite in others.
  Intense and powerful but somehow restrained.
  Graceful. Cherry vanilla.
  I think actually a touch lighter on the palate then the Olivier des Mouche.
  SO intense and rich, complex and subtle - can a wine be intense and subtle?
  Touches of game and meat and funk pop up from time to time.
  Hard to believe this is 55 year old.
  One of the greatest wine experiences of my life.
  (Bern's)

  Comment

Pro Reviews 3

Wine Definition

• Vintage 1955
• Type Red
• Producer J. Thorin
• Varietal Pinot Noir
• Designation n/a
• Vineyard n/a
• Country France
• Region Burgundy
• SubRegion Côte de Nuits
• Appellation Chambertin-Clos de Bèze Grand Cru

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• Pending Delivery 0 (0%)
• In Cellars 1 (33%)
• Consumed 2 (67%)

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