Last time I opened one of these – which was easily 10 years ago – it was that rare wine that was completely closed for business; in every respect you would have found more enjoyment in a Bourgogne Rouge. Let us have another try…
1996 René Engel, Grands-Echézeaux
Tending to a watery rim, but the colour remains saturated at its core. Very, very understated though deep aromas of soil, graphite and a faint spice – and you have to swirl to find those! In the mouth this wine is still a baby; it’s intense with a quickly growing base of tannin – the acidity also grows quickly, focusing the intensity, though also offering that faintly metallic aspect that is common in 96s. The mid-palate slowly leaches some sweetness of fruit onto your tongue. The flavour lasting very long in the finish. There remains high potential here, but I’m thinking the best part of another decade is needed to achieve it. Rebuy – Yes
Back to being predictable, another red, another 1972. But one with a bit of interest attached…
Charles Viénot is largely remembered as a négoce operation, but like many of today’s négoce, they also had a sizeable ownership of vines too, including vines in Richebourg. Indeed a cursory scan of this label says ‘Négociant à Premeaux par Nuits St.Georges’, but a small addition to the capsule reads that they also have the monopoly of selling the Domaine Charles Viénot wines – such as this one. The Viénot estate was wound up in the 1980s, these particular vines, planted around 1930, were bought and shared by Domaines Jean Grivot and Jean Mongeard.
1972 Charles Viénot, Richebourg
It is a rare thing for the aroma in the neck of a newly uncorked old bottle to be anything other than faintly repulsive – but here we have a gorgeous, pure wild strawberry note – how did that happen? I anyway follow my normal routine with older bottles, I clean up the neck of the bottle and pop a glass stopper in, leaving the wine for a couple of hours before pouring a measure. Clear, medium, medium-plus colour with that indeterminate older colour. The nose is just a hint more reticent than at first – darker and deeper but with a beautiful mid-tone ‘gloss’, swirling brings out a more earthy aspect. Silky smooth, the acidity slowly asserting itself – maybe with a faint hint of bitterness – but a gorgeous slowly growing climax of mid-palate flavour. Long, mineralic and earthy finishing but sweetly so. About as good a ’72 as I ever had… Rebuy – No Chance
Having taken a quick look at my Diary pages of the last days (weeks…) I realised how boring and how predictable I’ve become. Of-course there’s a large aspect of seasonality involved, but I felt the need to make amends – so here, for the first time in a while – a white wine!!!
François Mikulski is a quietly spoken guy but one who you can very quickly build an empathy with; earnest in what he does but very, very humble about the results – more humble than the actual results deliver.
2010 François Mikulski, Meursault
A depth of slightly pear fruit and classic Meursault ginger cake. Broad, good weight and intensity – the understated acidity only really asserts itself in the lovely, mouth-watering mid-palate. This is really first-rate Meursault, there’s a little fat in the middle, but not distractingly so – just a wine that makes you happy to refill your glass. Rebuy – Yes
There’s plenty of hoopla now about ‘His Parkerness’ suing his former #1 son – it seems the disintegration of an old and relatively trusted brand; yet with new Asian ownership and a business plan (I assume they have a business plan!) that must have a strong focus towards the largely untapped Asian consumer, it probably matters not a jot to the management team. Of-course for armchair commentators it is the thing of dreams
Over the last years, however, I think that CellarTracker has become a much more valuable tool when it comes to ‘what to drink?’ – as opposed to ‘what to buy?’. For example I considered I might like to open a bottle of Rousseau Chambertin this week, and given that I have a little more of the ’98, I thought that might be the one. I quickly checked CellarTracker and found 28 notes on that wine, the most recent:
All black fruit with modest spice, mostly new oak, and a meaty character.
Let’s forget that the taster giver it 94 points, more important to me was the oak reference. I get bored with commenting on oak in wines, so this note sealed it – the wine can wait in the cellar for a few more years. Thanks CellarTracker.
It doesn’t help me wading through the cases to choose a replacement though!
Olivier makes a very special wine with his Derrière Chez Eduard HD, though sadly there is very little of it. But in all my discussions with him I don’t recollect that he told me he’d done the same in other vineyards too. As soon as I saw that he may have a Puligny Tremblots HD, I asked the question:
“Pictures will come as soon as I have some time. But for the Puligny-Montrachet, in 2001 we planted 2 new vines between the old vines, so now have 20 000 plants/ha for an area of approximately 6 ares (0.06 ha). We did the same thing in the Criots Bâtard-Montrachet at same time. But the young plants are very slow to develop because of the competition from the old vines. It’s been about 11 years and I now find these vines quite nice, so I decided to vinify a little – 1 barrel – of Puligny HD 2012.”
I haven’t delved into my 1996s for some time – it is alleged that they are turning a corner – let’s have a look.
1996 A.-F. Gros, Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Clos des Guettes
Medium-plus colour – there’s a little age to the colour but it remains quite deep. Dark aromas hinting at prunes, accented with herbs and spices – wait 2 hours and there are interesting flashes of red fruits and licorice. Clean flavours that tend towards savoury notes but there is just enough sweetness to keep me interested; fresh and intense too though the tannin is very understated. Concentrated dark fruit flavours that are quite long, but honestly(?) this is still too early to drink. This wine gives me the impression that its oak was prominent when it was younger, but it is now melting. It is a balanced, but still rather architectural wine, and probably needs another 3-5 years I expect. Rebuy – Maybe
Then something odd happened. With each successive campaign, even as I had more disposable income to spend, the level of Bordeaux I could afford to buy kept shifting downward. I could no longer afford to drink as well as I did when I was a penniless student! When the 2005s came out to even greater fanfare and frenzy than the 2000s, I didn’t buy six cases. I bought six bottles. In the years since, the number has been zero.
From Keith; note, it doesn’t just apply to Bordeaux
Oh, and take it from me as I’ve tried it, THIS is soooo good!
Subtitled ‘How Phylloxera Transformed Wine’
Published by UCP. Buy from Amazon (eBook also available).
If you want a novelette, a ripping who-dunnit of a phylloxera story, then perhaps this is not a volume to consider – you should go for this one.
Here is a book written by a Professor of Philosophy but it seemed a little ‘dry’ in the opening pages as author, George Gale, recounted the differences between two philosophical schools of thought that considered whether phylloxera was the cause of thousands of vines dying, or whether the bug was simply a symptom of some other malady. Important enough stuff, as it delayed the focused search for a solution for years – but as mentioned a little dry. Thereafter I was hooked – full of detail and reference – it’s a great book! What brings ‘added value’ to this narrative is that once the author is done with France, he turns his attention to the march of the bug through other countries too – not just through the ‘old world’ of wine production, but the ‘New World’ too – with just one rather glaring omission – New Zealand. I suppose I’ll have to add a few notes on that myself when I finally publish a few notes on my February trip!
A little detail
250 full pages, but also rather large appendices that cover the life-cycle of phylloxera, a discussion of the ‘wild’ American grape species that became part of the phylloxera story, and about 25 pages of notes with links to further reading and finally a glossary of terms. Following, just a few interesting snippets
Introduction: Page 10:
And finally, traditional viticultural practices underwent massive changes as vignerons had to learn how to plant, manage, and, most importantly, protect by spraying the new grafted-type vines, thereby developing what came to be called the “new viticulture.”
Page 15:
“phylloxera did not appear everywhere at once, and its impact was variable in time and space” (Pouget, 1990, 50). For example, even by the mid-1870s in the Hérault, the most extensively planted department, “some communes possessed not a single producing vine, while others, often quite nearby, registered a record harvest” (Pouget, 1990, 50).
Page 15:
In 1870, eight million people in France lived directly off the vine (Millardet 1877, 82); 17 percent of the French workforce was involved in wine production, which amounted to 25% of the farm economy.
Page 42:
When, in the early 1880s, the phylloxera threat began to lessen, the committees were perfectly placed as the next threat from America – black rot – exploded on the scene.
Page 126:
One well-accepted estimate has the reconstitution costing France more than the Franco-Prussian War (Convert, 1900, 337).
Page 242:
The only soils exempt from phylloxera were pure sands; every other imaginable soil type, everywhere in Europe, eventually succumbed to the invading bug. And with it went all the vines as well.
All this reminds me that I still haven’t picked up a copy of “The Great Wine Blight” by George Ordish. Eventually I suppose it will happen…
My last ’72 Clos Frantin was 5 or 6 years ago, and it was the Richebourg. On that day it seemed to have everything – certainly more than the accompanying ’88′s – another Richebourg and a Grands-Echézeaux. Unfortunately, that ‘everything’ included TCA! Luckily, no TCA today!
This wine becomes ever-more compelling with open-time, it is fine old Burgundy, but I’d never go further than that; it’s not overtly ‘Vosne-spicy’ and there’s certainly none of the often characteristic aromas of young GE, all of which had me thinking: There’s an oft-quoted ‘truism’ (was it Jacques Seysses?) that (for instance) there are many versions of Echézeaux, but once they are 20+ years old, they are all ‘Echézeaux’. Well, that might possibly be the case from the undisturbed cellars of producers, but frankly it’s an observation that no mere mortal drinker could ever confirm. Good wine though!
1972 Domaine du Clos Frantin
Like most older bottles, the smell of the cork and the smell in the neck is hardly attractive; I leave it with a glass stopper for an hour. Over 40 years young, but the dominant aroma is more a deep strawberry preserve than it is soil and undergrowth – perhaps jam tarts – your nose is pulled into the glass, over, and over. Round, mouth-filling, tasty and with an acidity that only very slowly becomes mouth-watering as you head into the finish. There’s a good intensity of clean flavour in the mid-palate and tannin can certainly be found if you search. There’s only one quibble – a sort of background metallic dimension to the faintly truffly flavour, but it’s hardly enough for concern. A pleasure. Rebuy – No Chance
I really wanted to like this – the back-label was giving me some feel-good factor. Unfortunately on the first night, the wine didn’t deliver – fortunately I had some patience!
2010 Rossignol-Trapet, Beaune 1er Les Teurons
Medium, medium-plus colour. The nose starts quite tight, only after an hour does it become more communicative; high-toned, faintly sulfury, with a warm, slightly spicy, toffee-inflected pale red fruit, eventually a few floral notes try to liven things up. If the nose largely lacks distinction, then the palate struggles to make up for it. The impression is light but with a little too much oaky bulk in the mid-palate which brings a caramel/toffee taste in the finish, but eventually allied to a decently sharp red fruit. Initially it seemed close to volatile but this becomes less obvious in the glass. Not enough distinction or concentration I’m afraid. Day two and the palate has much more balance, the sulfur on the nose is gone and this is a rather drinkable package. I still feel it misses a little concentration and the slightly volatile impression remains, but I was more than happy to take a second glass – unlike on day 1! Rebuy – Maybe
Subtitled ‘How Phylloxera Transformed Wine’
