Thanks to the Australian government, who vetoed his visa after the French started nuclear testing in the Pacific, the young but highly experienced Benjamin Leroux stayed in France in 1999 and ended up at Comte Armand, where he had done some work experience. This is a young man in a hurry and the changes to this 7.5 ha property came fast. The first was to move to a completely biodynamic culture and picking at phenolic ripeness. Less extraction than previous regimes and a post-fermentation maceration have softened what were, for many, tough wines with little grace. The wines from Clos des Epeneaux have long been considered the most intensely concentrated, long-lived wines in Burgundy. But now the wines have an elegance and a purity, perhaps due in part to the purchase of a sorting table and a de-stemmer, but no doubt due also to this free-thinking non-interventionist who lets the terroir shine. I bet Cullen, in Margaret River, where he was meant to be heading way back when, are kicking themselves. (PG 30/01/08)