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What a treasure! This wine was truly special to taste now. It was clear from both the color, and concentration of flavors that this wine has deepened in its age. I’m thrilled to have tasted this Livera Fixin now.

Fixin wines (those from the Fixin village of the Cotes de Nuits area of Burgundy) are sometimes thought of as strict, and focused, reflecting a smaller band of scents and flavors. In the hands of Philippe Livera, this Fixin wine has a luscious, complex range of flavors, offering a beautiful turn of earthen scents mixed with deep berries and pepper. This is shown in the mouth, along with the tartness of a cranberry, and a layering of smoked meats.

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Though I recognize describing a wine with references to tundra herbs, and caribou soup are certainly *not* typical in wine culture, this wine overwhelmed me with such scents and flavors. In fact, the longer the wine breathed the more it smelled and tasted of caribou soup.

For those of you that have not had the pleasure of eating caribou soup, one of the most beautiful foods any where, another way to think of this reference would be to imagine the scents offered by a wild-game bouillon. Wild game has a richer, more herbal scent and flavor than store bought meats. But it is also a leaner, cleaner tasting flavor because of the remote, so active lifestyle of the animal. The flavor is also reflected through it’s diet. Caribou live off the low bush plants of the tundra that grow out of the wet, dark earth peat of the north.

Somehow, this wine carries flavors of dark berries, herbs, pepper, and the lean, clean, almost-musky flavors of wild game.

If you have the chance to taste this hard to find wine, I recommend it. Other vintages by Philippe Livera are also considered jewels of Burgundy.

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