An expressive nose redolent of Savigny style earth with all of its pungency combines with black fruit that is spicy and pure and dissolves into textured, delicious and remarkably powerful flavors where the dry extract is palpable, all wrapped in a big and powerful finish that delivers a real sense of volume and terrific vibrancy. This is a big wine yet one that is balanced and relatively refined for what it is yet with the structure to age. (90-93)/2015+

Lalou Bize-Leroy calls 2005 an “excellent millésime in both colors. There is a harmony to this vintage that speaks of la grande classe and you can feel it in the quality of the tannins, which are refined and very ripe. The level of phenolic ripeness in thisvintage is really something yet there is absolutely no sense of surmaturité or heaviness. Overall, including the Bourgogne, we brought in just under 20 hl/ha, which for us is a good yield. Sugars were excellent at between 13 and 13.5% as were the acidities and the post malo pHs were also terrific at around 3.4. Overall, the vintage really has no direct parallel but I suppose it reminds me somewhat of 1996 or perhaps 1999.” In contrast to several recent vintages where the wines were bottled very early, Mme Bize told me that they would begin the bottling for the ‘05s at the end of November so I tasted them just before they were to be racked into 4 barrel groups for the mise. The Leroy ‘05s are exceptional by any measure and several of the 1ers are simply incredible and while it’s hard to call any wines that sell for the prices that these do bargains, if such a term can be applied to them then it applies to the best of these 1ers, in particular the Beaux Monts and Chambolle Charmes, which are quite simply mind bending. – Allen Meadows (Burghound)

Smoke-, humus-, iodine-, blond tobacco- and wet-stone-inflected aromas in Leroy’s 2005 Savigny-les-Beaune Les Narbantons suggest the almost Medoc-like elements that can accrue to wines from this site. With that usually goes plenty of structure, and the present example will disappoint no one in this regard, as there are abundant albeit fine tannins to chew on. Almost inevitably though, from stem to stern, this has the trademark Leroy sweetness and richness of in this case black cherry, and the plushness covering the tannins. It finishes with formidable cling of sweet fruit, tobacco, roasted meats, and wet stones. Wine Advocate # 171; Jun 2007 David Schildknecht 92