88/100
The Hecht & Bannier 2009 Languedoc – whose sources are virtually the same as those of its immediate predecessor, and which had only been in bottle for a couple of weeks when I tasted it – once again offers sappy concentration of black fruits (approaching confiture) with a bittersweet cast thanks to fruit pit and licorice and tamarind. It displays a density and ripeness beyond that of previous instantiations of this cuvee, but I have learned my lesson with the 2007 about how this bottling can blossom with a couple of years in bottle, and I suspect that there will be more complexity with time – some, perhaps, even in the short-run – even if the forward nature of the fruit here suggests it will be best drunk over the next 2-3 years. US$14
