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France

Domaine des Homs 2004, A.C. Minervois. **HERITAGE WINE**

Colour: dark , medium intense red with purple.
Nose:  still a bit reserved and restrained, young, with impressions of beautiful black fruit (cherries), minerals, some spices and smoke, a (subtle) touch of vanillin and roasted hazelnuts, fresh, clean, hidden depth and complexity, still a bit unsettled, but with good promise for the future.
Taste: also young, but giving a better picture of the potential: quite intense, medium bodied, with piquant and a bit stubborn, young tannins (however fresh and elegant, not harsh or dry), great black fruit (cherry), ripe, but also fresh and mineral, some subtle spicy vanilla, smoke, some alcohol good acidity, quite dense and closed-up, but with great potential balance, great purity, compact core with many nuances and many more to come from.
Finish: intense, long, fanning out, still young and not yet harmonious, but with good intensity, freshness, spicy tannins, minerals and again beautiful fruit, some vanilla and a tiny touch of smoke, good potential and great purity.

* An infant wine of great purity, with already emerging complex and classy earthy spicy fruit, beautifully concentrated, intense, elegant, with freshness, minerals, good tannins and good potential, excellent balance between fruit and wood, the oak complementing the exceptional fruit. Not a blockbuster, but an intriguing expression of a very fine terroir.

- This wine is still very young and is showing just only a little part of its potential. However the fruit and other aroma's that are already emerging suggest a very promising potential. The ingredients are not yet harmonious, the tannins, acidity, aroma's etc. are all playing their own tune, but time will be the conductor that will let them play harmoniously, complementing each other to a higher level of performance. This type of wine tends to go through many difficult phases in its life, not unlike a good Burgundy, the route it will take is hard to predict, but the result is less of a mystery: this will be a fine wine in some years. I expect this wine to improve during 2006 , but it may well be it will close-up again after a year or less, but finally it will grow into a beautiful elegant and well balanced wine around 2007, maybe earlier, maybe later. Will keep probably until 2009 or 2010. Only time will tell.
 

- Taste what a good vineyard with old vines can produce in the hands of a gifted and intelligent wine maker. The young en enthusiastic producer Jean-Marc de Crozals seems to have found its route to produce beautiful wines and to do justice to the great potential of his vineyards with old vines. This wine (like the also very good 2003) shows how to use oak as a supportive instrument: complementing and highlighting the great fruit from the grapes and vineyards.  The aroma's of the terroir are so close to the aroma's of the oak, you hardly notice the oak. it contributes an extra dimension and stamina to the wine. This wine shows clearly the unique properties of good old world wines.
A modern but highly skilled and passionate expression of this very fine terroir, an outstanding example how to construct a wine with powerful tannins, great intensity and ripeness next to a lively freshness and exemplary purity of fruit enhanced by the intelligent use of oak. No heaviness or over extraction, no forced or over processed fruit, no make-up from sexy and obvious wood. Balance is the keyword here. Not an easy-pleaser, but great value for money. His excellent Vin de Pays is produced along the same lines, but is not aged in oak and made of an other mix of grapes.

- lotnr.: L 29.06.05

- tasted: 18-12-'05

- estimated retail price ca. 7 euro

- production:  ca. 8000 bottles

- Domaine des Homs, Mr. Jean-Marc de Crozals, 11160 Rieux - Minervois, tel.: + 33-468 781051 / mobile: + 33-609749492 / fax.: + 33-468 781051 / e-mail: jm.decrozals@free.fr / web site: www.domainedeshoms.com