Weekend in Burgundy with friends
Neville, Michel and David made it safe and sound to Burgundy. We were all at home at beautiful gîte in Savigny-Lès-Beaune and ready to get down to the serious business of food and wine.
Michel and I prepared charcuterie and a roast of veal while Neville tried to stay away. I woke him with a glass of Roualet Crochet Brut Millésime 1964, his birth year. As with previous times I’ve opened this wine, the colour and bouquet do not suggest an age of more than 15 years. The dosage is peculiar on this wine, it’s very old fashioned, I think. The wine is all burnt lemon, sherbet, musk and orange blossom. After time, you get more of the aged character on the palate. Very different and interesting. The youthfulness of the wine is possibly explained by it being disgorged only 6 months ago. Having been keep at 10C for all that time under crown seal has ensured the wine has not taken on any oxidative or maderised notes.
Next, we took a look at a Villaine Bouzeron Aligoté 2004 which the gîte owners had kindly welcomed Neville, Michel and David with. This is a generous offer since the wine retails for about 4 times the price of any other Aligoté in Bourgogne. One could see that it was a serious wine with creamy lemon and honey notes to the nose — perhaps some battonage? — and a rounder palate than one expects from Aligoté, perhaps some old oak maturation in play. The wine was still kept in check with refreshing acidity. It will improve over the next 5 years I think but delightful now.
Next, I presented a Pierre Bitouzet Nuits St Georges 1er Cru 1996. It showed poorly at first, a bit dirty and advanced maybe. It improved greatly with acid but was never stunning.
The Frédéric Esmonin Ruchottes-Chambertin 1988 also opened a bit dirty and overly acid. The wine put on considerable weight, though, and became a fine wine of great character, with jammy cherry fruits, old wood, undergrowth, spice and a delicious mouthfeel. A couple of glasses of other miscellaneous bottles was enough to knock us all out.
Gen and I checking the rugby score
David in his pride and joy Welsh rugby shirt
The view from the gîte
The next morning, Sunday, began way too early, chez Jean-Marc Pillot at Chassagne-Montrachet.
No better sight than a Burgundian walking toward you with an open bottle, Jean Marc Pillot.
Pillot is renowned for his whites but also makes a lot of red, as do most producers in Chassagne. We commenced with the tasting with Jean-Marc’s reds. First was the Chassagne-Montrachet rouge 2006. This was a good entry level wine, a fine expression of pinot noir and good value for money as an every day wine. The Santenay 2006 was more broody and bloody, maybe a little DMS: it will find fans but I don’t like that style. The Chassagne-Montrachet Les Macherelles 1er Cru 2006 was a huge step up, fine silky tannins, pure fresh fruit flavours. A wine of excellent quality worth seeking out if you haven’t had Chassagne rouge before.
The Chassagne-Montrachet Morgeot 1er cru 2006 had better acidity but less fruit weight than the previous wine. Again, a good wine. The Chassagne-Montrachet Clos St. Jean 2006 was better still, a complex, dense wine with great intensity and length. The wine finished with a chalky cassis flavour, very good.
It was now time to move on to the whites. Why serve the reds first? Well, this is common in tastings in France: the aromatics of the whites make it difficult to assess the aroma of young red wines. After tasting the reds, once flushes their glass and mouth and all is fine — as long as you don’t have to do it too many times.
The Chassagne-Montrachet 2006 was resiny on the palate, showing for me a little too much wood and not enough acid. The Chassagne-Montrachet Champs Gain 1er Cru 2006 was a huge step up, with beautiful acidity and mouth coating texture and fine citrus and nut aromas to the nose. The wine still showed more resin/wood than I like but we were heading in the right direction.
At this point, we were treated to one of those magical insights you need to go to Burgundy for (well, unless you’re reading this). Jean-Marc explained that in the Champs Gain vineyard, and in general in Chassagne, the soil is extremely deep when compared to Puligny. Vines grown across the fault which determines the soil depth reveal that the wines of Puligny produce smaller amounts of sugar per grape and thus, in Chassagne, one must be more attentive to sugar levels in Chassagne than Puligny. Typically, this means that Chassagne grapes are either picked earlier and are therefore more acid, minerally, right or bigger and more powerful, if picked late, when compared to Puligny. Jean-Marc explained that this all had to do with the soil depth. One can think of many factors which could allow a wine to produce more sugar in deep soil than shallow rocky soil, like more water retention and less stress on the vine. An interesting insight into the complexity of vine growing in Burgundy.
We continued with a Chassagne-Montrachet Les Macherelles 1er Cru 2006. This was an excellent wine, with rich, gingery aromas from the oak which, here, suited the character of the wine. I found the structure, too, to be more classic, great acidity and minerality, no oiliness. A long clean finish. A great wine.
The Chassagne-Montrachet Les Baudines 1er Cru 2006, from 50 to 55 year old vines, was a very elegant wine, falling between the Champs Gain and Macherelle in style. The Chassagne-Montrachet Morgeot Les Fairends 2006 was more oily again, showing a lot of oak but with good quality fruit.
The Chassagne-Montrachet Caillerets 1er Cru 2006 was elegant and yet more alcoholic, more serious in style I guess. The finish was surprisingly tannic but very persistent.
The Chassagne-Montrachet Les Vergers 1er Cru 2006 was excellent, very classy minerality, multi layered, fine. A persistent finish, delicious. Should be very good.
We then tasted a wide range of wines. Jean-Marc ran around his cave like an excited school boy ‘Oh, just one last wine!’
The first was a Chevalier Montrachet 2006 which had just been fined. This was a fabulous wine, totally different in style form Jean-Marc’s other wines, I feel. It was very refined, minerally, subtle. As this wine uncoils over the years, it will provide many people a pleasurable evening of drinking.
We tried several 2007s, half of which were still under going malo. The wines have good structure but the fruit profile is difficult to judge at the moment, with the exception of the Vergers Clos St Marc, which looks to be a cracking wine.
We then tried a range of wines from 2000 to 2004. Jean-Marc opened bottles with exasperation as he looked at the variability of the corks in different bottles. A 2000 looked more advance than it should have been and the cork was quite soaked. Jean-Marc has a state of the art cellar with industrial climate control, despite being a number of meters under ground. He is continuing to try and work with fill levels and different corks to get the best possible seal.
The highlight for these wines was a Chassagne-Montrachet Vergers 1er Cru “Clos St. Marc” 2004 which showed superb complexity matched with a weightless structure. A great wine.
Which emerged from the dark cellar into the heat of February! It should usually be below zero in Bourgogne at this time, but actually it was about 12C.
Posers, aren’t we?
Since it was so nice, we decided on a lunch in the court yard of the gîte:
We took a Domaine Potinet Ampeau Meursault Charmes 1er Cru 1991. This was waxy, developed, good acidity but lacking harmony I felt. A Savigny-Lès-Beaune 2005 from a local producer I didn’t get the name of was acceptable but far from inspiring.
Some of us took a siesta while others just relaxed with a little Burgundy Championship Table Tennis. We then took another walk around the beautiful town of Savigny. The highlight must have been a spotting of the local goth and a statue of a pirate necking a bottle of La Tâche in the local caveau.
Dinner was a more serious affair. We began with a Pol Roger Reserve NV which showed some nice development but dosage a little on the high side. The Jacques Selosse Extra Brut, disgorged December 2002 lacked freshness, probably a less than perfect bottle. Still, one could see the telltale sign of Selosse: the oxidative character, the nuts and white flowers, the beautiful fruit ripeness.
We then started with a brilliant red, a Jean Raphet Clos Vougeot 1990. These wines are very feminine and subtle, not the brooding monsters some Vougeots can be. Every time I took up the glass, there was a different part of the red fruit spectrum on show: some times rhubarb, other times cherry, then currants, after that raspberry. Very fine wine making, you didn’t seen the hand of the wine maker at all, just the fruit.
The next wine was a disaster. I brought back from the USA a Calera Reed Vineyard 1997. It weighed in at 14.8% alcohol and every degree of it showed. The palate was all malty oak and bitter under ripe tannins. A great disappointment. It seems like the best days of Calera are in the past.
Order was restored with a Domaine des Chezeaux Clos St Denis 2000 made by Ponsot. A very odd bottling, with mismatching neck and body labels. The wine showed great typicity, with candied cranberry and bitter cherry fruit, and soft silky tannins. It was interesting to see the hand of Ponsot emerge and disappear. The wine was very clean and pure (Ponsot) but not overly ripe, stemmy or extracted (not very Ponsot). Really good wine.
The next wine was a real treat, a Massandra Alushta Tokay 1938:
This was a magical wine. The nose was very similar to great Australian Tokays, such as the Chambers rare. It was exploding with coffee, toffee, vanilla, white pepper, cinnamon, candied orange, ginger, crème brûlée. The palate had perfect balance, not too sweet or too alcohol. It just rolled around your mouth. The finish was endless. An exceptional wine of great rarity. Thanks David!
The next morning began as all Monday mornings should, with a tasting of amazing wines from Vougeot and its surrounds chez Hudelot-Noëllat.
The commenced with the Bourgogne rouge 2006. It has just been bottled. It is a sound wine, probably not showing much fruit for this reason.
The other wines tasted, still in barrel, were sensational. They show well what a great year 2006 is, despite what people have said in the past. The Chambolle-Musigny 2006 was bright with fresh acidity. The Vosne-Romanée 2006 was more muscular and extracted, denser. Serious but not as pretty. The Nuits-Saint-Georges showed good village character too, being more in the black fruit spectrum with more agressive, drying tannins.
The Petit Vougeot 1er Cru 2006 was a much more serious, with lots of fine tannin and denser fruit. Monsieur Hudelot pointed out that the vineyard is on more alluvial sandy soil, in the old river bed, so this wine is lighter and more feminine than Vougeot grand cru wine. Again, I saw the light, pretty character of 2006, great ripeness and subtly.
The Vosne-Romanée Les Suchots 2006 was another qualitative leap. This was rich and yet supple, a beautiful wine that shall age and drink very well. Just the kind of wine you need in the cellar while waiting for the 2005.
The Nuits-Saint-Georges Les Mergers 2006 I was less pleased with, it showed incredible drying tannins and less brightness to the fruit. Still, the tannins are ripe so as long as the fruit can last this wine, when resolved, will be pleasing to many.
The Vosne-Romanée Les Beaux Monts 2006 was the opposite of the above wine, soft, supple, velvety but with an explosive core of fruit that rushed to cover your entire mouth. The Chambolle-Musigny Charmes 2006 was more refined and elegant still, with a quality that made you chase after it, where as the Vosne threw itself at you (the Nuits ran you over).
The Clos Vougeot 2006, which M. Hudelot kindly blended for us, between new and oak barrels, so that we may see the final assemblage, was very dense, tannic (but not as tannic as the Mergers) but full of pretty, ripe red berry fruit. It too will be great in time, perhaps even before the Mergers.
The Romanée-Saint-Vivant 2006 was in a totally different league. You could instantly see the quality of its breeding. It didn’t force itself, it was very confident and gave you just as much as you wanted from it. The texture was like full cream milk! The finish long. You could drink it right now, from barrel. Just superb. M. Hudelot recommends about 15 years in bottle before drinking, although thinks it will drink well all its life.
It’s brother, the Richebourg 2006 was more closed, a little denser than the Romanée-Saint-Vivant but the air of quality was the same. Both wines will impart equal pleasure when mature, I think.
Before we left, Neville, Jenko and Michel just about bought the entire back catalogue of stock, so impressed were they. We headed to Gilly-Lès Cîteaux, to the château there for lunch. We took a very well priced 21 euro menu with three courses in the old dining room. There’s nothing better than vaulted ceilings to get you in the mood for eating and general merriment.
We took a Chateau de la Crée Santenay 2005. This showed well the nature of 2005 at the entry level, almost black in colour with dark extracted fruits. The palate was rich with confit/candied raspberry and cherry flavours, clearly lots of extraction and whole bunch ferment, but no bitter or over extracted tannins. A great entry level wine, Neville and Michel could, I think, see what I have being saying about 2005 being extremely atypical: the wine looked smelt and had something of the taste of a Barossa shiraz, with out the weight or alcohol.
Tragically, it was time for me to head back to work in Paris, while they set off for Lafarge, Lambrays, Dujac, Liger-Belair and more.
