2010 Pouilly-Vinzelles, Les Quarts, Dom. de la Soufrandière, Bret Bros

Here the yields were particularly small and the wine exceptionally concentrated as a result. This year it includes grapes that usually go into the cuvée millerandée, a wine not bottled this year as there was too little made. This is spectacular wine from the Bret’s flagship vineyard. Magically intense, it has a dramatic mineral core and amazing persistence.
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Director

The three Bret Brothers are now presiding over an expanded cellar at their home base, Domaine de la Soufrandière, though this development is intended to give them better working facilities rather than because they want to grow the business dramatically. It is a particularly small crop this year as a result of some hail damage as well as the poor flowering experienced elsewhere. Despite this, the wines are exactly what the Bret’s like to produce – pure and crystal clear, with intensity more than weight.

Bret Bros.

Burghound Recommended:  Sweet Spot Wine 2010 Vintage
2010 Pouilly-Vinzelles “Les Quarts”: (from vines between 40 and 65 years of age). While there are floral notes here as well, the nose is more centrally driven by a variety of citrus characters, especially lemon but also lime and grapefruit. The pure, intense and very rich middle weight flavors are also intensely stony and this is like rolling rocks around in your mouth on the ultra-racy, energetic, explosive and bone dry finish. This stunning effort is certainly finer than the straight Pouilly-Vinzelles but not necessarily any more complex.

Brothers Jean-Guillaume and Jean-Philippe Bret told me that 2010 was a “painful vintage simply because the losses from hail that fell on the 12th of July were devastating. We lost fully 50% of the crop in white and 100% of it in red. In our gamay vines, and the damage to the wood was sufficient that it may very well have an impact on the 2011 crop as well.
2010 produced very concentrated wines and are largely classic in style though the northern part of the Mâconnais saw a lot of noble rot which of course imparts an exotic character to the wines.”
(Allen Meadows, burghound.com - Nov 2011)