Domaine Daniel Bouland Côte de Brouilly Cuvée Mélanie 2022 750ml

Named after Daniel Bouland’s daughter, Cuvée Mélanie is drawn from a small, steep, half-hectare plot on the slopes of Mont Brouilly. The 70-year-old vines are rooted on the area’s famous terres bleu (blue-tinted volcanic soils) within the lieu-dit of Tête Noire vines, directly above Château Thivin. It’s this volcanic blue schist that lends the wines of this Cru their unique mineral profile. Bouland’s 0.8-hectare parcel is planted at 12,000 vines per hectare. As with all Bouland’s cuvées, this is a wine born from low yields and natural, whole-bunch fermentation.

Daniel Bouland's Cuvée Mélanie bottling of Côte de Brouilly is an old vine cuvée, as all of these vines are more than seventy years-old.
The 2022 iteration is simply a brilliant young wine, offering up a deep, pure and sappy bouquet of black cherries, pomegranate, a touch of smoked meats, dark soil tones, just a hint of fresh thyme, sweet stem tones that add a lovely undertow of savoriness, roses and a smoky topnote. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, vibrant and complex, with a beautiful core of fruit, lovely soil inflection, ripe, buried tannins, tangy acids and excellent 70 focus and balance on the long and utterly complete finish. This is eminently drinkable in its youthful charm, but has the underlying chassis of suave tannins to age long and gracefully and will be a far more impressive drink five to ten years down the road.