Rebuy – Yes (2008)

2001 Charles Thomas, Corton Clos du Roi Medium, medium-plus colour. A nose of macerating cherries, slightly alcoholic but focused. Full in the mouth with concentrated fruit and equally concentrated, reasonably fine and ripe tannin. Very nice fruit that hints at an extra creamy dimension and lovely acidity. This wine has plenty of muscle and I wouldn’t hesitate to leave it another 10 years, yet was a tasty wee dram. Very good. Rebuy – Yes

I decided to open this pair over the weekend; both négociants, but in this case the Thomas is a ‘domaine’ wine – these are the vines which are now exploited by de Montille. Unfortunately I didn’t have a bottle of the Clos Frantin wine handy as their 01 was early in the Bichot renaisance and, from memory, is a very nice wine. First points went to the Bourée – the extracted cork smelled of sweet fruit, that of the Thomas had only bottle stink – actually it was worse than stink, it was taint. I’ll be taking that one back to Nuits in January for a replacement. Even more reason for being sad that I didn’t also have the Frantin bottle… 2001 Pierre Bourée, Vosne-Romanée [....]

2005 Thomas-Moillard, Volnay 1er Clos des Chênes A domaine wine whose back-label proclaims the grapes to be ‘biologique’ and that all operations were done according to the lunar calendar. Medium-plus colour. Brooding aromatics but there are glimpses of very fine fruit that slowly turns redder in the glass. Concentrated, lots of very fine tannin that’s largely submerged under fruit – and what fruit it is – intense and edged with cream – it lingers very well too. It doesn’t merit the tag ‘elegant’, rather ‘muscular’ would be better and I think that maybe 2005 is a little early to be influenced by Bernard Zito and Pascal Marchand, but it is a definite rebuy. Rebuy – Yes

2005 Bertagna, Vougeot 1er Clos des Perrières Deep cherry-red colour. The nose opens with fine, high-toned, red and black berry notes over a deeper, brooding core of fruit – eventually there’s a lovely pure redcurrant note in the emptying glass. In the mouth the acidity starts just a shade bright on the tongue though it contributes to a good, slowly lingering finish. Perhaps it was me, but 30 minutes in the acidity seemed okay. Tight, linear fruit with buried soft tannin and an understated, almost ethereal extra dimension of fruit on the mid-palate that follows also into the finish. Very excellent but other bottles should be left for at least 10 years. Rebuy – Yes

The label assumes that you know that ‘Volnay Clos Des Chênes’ is a premier cru as there is no mention of ‘rank’. This is far from a cheap bottle – 70 Swiss francs – but the tariff is in-line with several producers’ current 1er cru offerings from the Côte de Beaune, it also has the benefit of another 8 years of aging, though clearly a lot 1998′s needed it… 1998 Maison Leroy, Volnay 1er Clos des Chênes Deep ruby-red colour. The nose is herbal and meaty with background sweetness and quite some sense of maturity. In the mouth there is the rasp of ’98 tannins, but they are rather a background element. More to the fore is the sweet but freshly packaged fruit – quite [....]

It would be hard to guess that this came from the same vineyard as the recent Faiveley Santenots. The Faiveley was more butch, and perhaps longer – an ‘hommage’ to the style of Lafon – but the width and complexity of fruit here seems more ‘Volnay’ though the oak needs to fade a little more. Today I’d drink the Faiveley, tomorrow the Rossignol, though at the weekend I’m not sure – choice is no bad thing! 2005 Nicolas Rossignol, Volnay 1er Santenots Medium, medium-plus ruby-red colour with some purple still at the rim. The nose was overwhelmed by dark, slightly toasty oak for the first couple of minutes, wait and there’s a lovely width of beautiful fruit but it unfortunately still holds onto a slightly [....]