2005 Lejeune, Bourgogne
It’s at least a couple of years ago but the last bottle of this was super – a rare 500ml bottling of which, way back when, I availed myself of a whole case. On this particular occasion (bottle), it was obvious that I was faced with a very spongy cork who would most-likely have some ‘dimensional integrity‘ issues – and so it was. A few minutes later, I managed to get all the pieces out of the neck without losing any. How did the cork smell? Well, no TCA – good! – but within the sweetness of fruit the aromas of brett mingled too. I tried to drink a glass – the rest of the wine putting up a good show – but the performance was overly dominated by the brett. I’m far from the most sensitive to this issue – but this was comfortably beyond my personal limits – the wine went down the sink. Over a certain age, it is often said that there are no good wines, just good bottles – well, this was neither of those.
Rebuy – No – hopefully some of the remaining bottles fair better…

Just a simple evening of four winners shared with Marko de Morey et de Vosne… 🙂

1993 Joseph Voillot, Meursault 1er Les Cras
Plenty of colour but not a hint of oxidation. A width of really appealing wet wool, sweet citrus with white chocolate too. Silky texture. The flavour starts direct but broadens with a ripe citrus and slightly chalky impression. Holding with creamy, ripe yellow, citrus – that’s delicious – what a wine – unfortunately my last of these!
Rebuy – Yes

2009 Dujac, Morey St.Denis 1er Monts Luisants Blanc
For my taste the 2007 and 2021 of this were great whites – period – not just great whites for the Côte de Nuits!
Good light colour. Vibrant, wide but there’s also plenty of richness to this aromatic – exotic fruit with a little caramel too but tons of overt complexity. In the mouth the acidity is fine but the fruit is also rich. A wine of power – not to mention 14.5% alcohol too. Time in the glass makes this ever better – the oak still evident from the salted caramel flavour-profile – the salinity ever-more prominent with air. For my taste, slightly behind the ’93 for balance but so complex and still so young too.
Rebuy – Yes

1996 Arolt, Nuits St.Georges 1er Clos des Forets
Lots of colour. The nose is full and shows plenty of bloody iron, graphite and the perfume of the clusters too – this is lovely. Silky, wide, with super acidity but always balanced. A wine that seems to shrink in the finish but then hold very long… Some iron flavour again and lots of complexity. A wine to contemplate and far from an acidic 96 – indeed it’s a beautifully balanced wine – yes!
Rebuy – Yes

2006 L & A Lignier, Morey St.Denis 1er Cuvée Romain Lignier
A width of finer, cleaner, deeper aroma – less exciting today than the more mature Arlot but all the same, inviting. Directly more tannic and acidic than the 96 – there’s a surprise – but this is still fine textured wine and it’s long finishing too with more finishing width than the Arlot. Wiry and tannic, yet deliciously impressive – structurally it’s still something of a baby – I’d happily wait until it’s 20th birthday to try another.
Rebuy – Yes

• A little Clos des Lambrays info
• Tastevinage – the ‘LAUREATS’ of the 112th Tastevinage Blind tasting are in – here!
• Each year, on the 4th weekend of October, Auxey-Duresses and its neighbour Melin open their cellars to the public – with a free shuttle bus between the two villages:
  Tasting from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., October 21 and 22. You buy a glass for €5 allowing you to taste in all the cellars marked with the “Coup d’Œil, Coup de Cœur” logo. There will be food (and other) stalls and a cooperage demonstration by the Billon cooperage
• Not a rosé! If you can’t afford the wine of Comte Liger-Belair – what about its rose?

The 163rd Hospices de Beaune wine auction will be held on Sunday, November 19 2023, in the Halles de Beaune from 14h30. The sale is emblematic of the region and, in particular, of Beaune. The domaine of the Hôtel Dieu covers an enviable 60 hectares of vines, the result of 600 years of donations which have traversed the centuries under this ownership model.

Today was the first of a number of press events for the forthcoming sale, held in the Hotel Dieu itself. Here I offer you some of the vintage notes of Ludivine Griveau – given the geographic extent of her 120 parcels, her insight is first-class:

Vintage Comments by Ludivine Griveau:

“We worked through 12 days of heatwave in this harvest. The heterogeneity is impressive – some cuvées we are treating like those of a heatwave vintage – but others not – even from the same appellation. 12.6° is our starting point up to about 13.4° – all natural. You could even sometimes find rosé grapes but also shrivelled. Right now, I have the impression that I have multiple vintages in the cellar – it’s a difficult vintage to define at this early stage.

“This was the third year of our certification to organic viticulture. Not a conversion to understate with 60 hectares spread over a wide geography and 120 parcels! A year with 11 treatments – which is quite a lot – but only with contact products based on copper and or sulfur. Our treatments were roughly every 7 to 9 days. We plan to label the wines AB in the 2024 vintage.

“The winter was not so cold and it was rather dry – there was a deficit of rain. No frost. Spring was much wetter and cold for April with less sun than average. The summer had a number of storms and 11 July brought some hail – significantly for us in Meursault Les Genevrières. From the perspective of the vines, it was still a little too dry. The vine growth started quite heterogeneous including the flowering that followed too, despite quite good flowering conditions. The growth that followed was associated with a high pressure of maladies – oïdium and mildew – that’s why we had 11 treatments.

“Our harvesting started 6th September in the Mâconnais, finishing the last of our vines on the 19th (today!) in the Côte de Beaune including some St.Romain. Because of the heat, we started harvesting early in the morning and finished early too – we needed a refrigerated truck at the winery to ensure that we could work with cool grapes.

“It’s historically, still a very early vintage. We can say that it’s a vintage with plenty of fruit – this for the second consecutive year. Averagely clean – we did green harvesting in 9 of our 60 hectares – not something we’ve done for at least 15 years in the domaine. Triage was severe – in the vines and then again at the winery. We started harvesting with the chardonnay and it was the whites that got through the harvest-time heatwave the best. In both colours, we had beautiful fruit but also not-so-beautiful fruit – that’s why we had to be so selective. 50 hectares were harvested in just 9 days. The colours and polyphenols of the reds are extracting very easily, such that there are many parallels to 2022 and whilst we had a little more volume of grapes than in 2022 we will make less wine – that’s because of the severe selection and using no stems. Our volume of whites will also be slightly down due to hail in our Meursault Genevrières.

“The ancients used to say that if you have a year with a lot of verjus the year that follows will be generous: We had lots of verjus in 2022 and we clearly have a generous 2023 – but in 2023 there’s very little verjus!”

The Pièce de Charité:
The most prestigious barrel in the sale.

Ludivine confirms that they already know what wine will be in this specially crafted barrel – but they are not yet saying!

This year the barrel is the result of a partnership between the cooper Cadus – producers of 18-20,000 barrels per year – and the family suppliers of an oak from the Vibraye forest – a family that have owned and worked this particular forest since 1510 – almost as long as the Hospices has existed. Vibraye is situated between Le Mans and Orléans. The oaks from this place are being used in the restoration of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris where the requirement is for trees with 15.5 metres in length. One (special) tree had a length of 19.5m – it is the remaining portion of this roughly 220-year-old tree that has been used to make the barrel.

The Italians ‘Acho’ 5 (2)

The Italians ‘Acho’ 5 (2)

Juliette’s ace hound3

Warning:- Some Doggy Porn (clean pictures of dogs !) will accompany this report 😊

Slept pretty well given I’d been travelling for c24 hours to arrive yesterday, then wined & dined. Was up early for breakfast; for me was a routine of coffee or tea, a glass of orange juice, a breakfast bar (3 packets brought with me) and a piece of fruit from the domaine’s supply – mostly an apple. In time-honoured custom one’s drink is from a bowl, odd to one used to English custom. I quickly realised the early morning line up at breakfast, and who got things going e.g. the coffee and hot water, was of senior male team members who mostly worked as tractor drivers and in the cuverie with only two of them pickers – they’ve obviously been together vendange wise a while and sleep etc in a room/rooms over the cuverie. A key group to be on the good side of and share influence. A number of them have fantastic histories of vendange attendance e.g. c40 years – despite not looking old enough. My instant favourite was Philippe, a really nice guy, tall, slim, understated and a former officer in his local Sapeurs Pompiers. We instantly got on well.

Weather was immediately warm, dry and sunny and to get a lot warmer/hotter with cloudless blue sky. As common to all my vendages, post breakfast, there was much milling around cum hanging about, with locals arriving & others not ‘interning’. Then there was the gang of youngsters dossing in the old house at the village end of Clos des Reas. I’d been told the team would be c80 strong but I subsequently tried a couple of head counts & got nowhere near this. Surveying the scene with attendance clipboard, followed by her faithful 10-year old lurcher type hound, Prunelle, and with a word or several for many attendees/arrivals, was office lady, Juliette, who like many of her ilk appears key to the operations and indispensable.

Lined up across the road from the domaine premises and cuverie, in parking area to the front of the almost complete new bottle store building, were the usual for harvest several hired mini buses and 3 or 4 domaine vans of dubious vintage (a couple small, two bigger). But, as word was given to move off this was on foot !!! Wot no transport ??? Reason obvious actually, we were Clos des Reas bound so not far – I was in the front rank and looking behind me was amusing to see the rag tag of the Gros team coming along behind (see photo). En route to Reas we passed, amongst others, the premises of Domaine Francois Lamarche which has a large static tower crane in the front courtyard – hard to see any building work but think this is at the rear of the premises as I thought I could see from another angle a few days later when we were in Vosne La Colombiere. The buckets, cases, water etc. had gone by vehicle ahead of us.

We were actually split into two separate picking teams, one a smaller one which went on their way to smaller sites – on this Day 1 to Clos de Vougeot to be followed by Chambolle. I was slightly regretful to be in the main, larger, grouping but resigned myself that one could be everywhere – and I certainly wasn’t unhappy to be in Clos des Reas.

Clos des Reas 1st rest & water break (it was hot !!!)

Clos des Reas early a.m 10th FonFon with odd hat

Clos des Reas headless vendangeur

Clos des Reas my first bucket (1)

Clos des Reas 1st rest & water break (it was hot !!!)

And so into Reas and sort of upslope if there were a slope – we started on the high side, across from Les Chaumes. A word on vendangeurs/in vine management. M Gros have another variation on those I’ve seen before elsewhere. One might imagine from all the Burgundy domaines that, over the years, a universal way of working would have been arrived at but no ! The Gros method is conventional but, like Michel Noellat, they use small sub-teams of 6/7, within the overall group. The sub-team leader, and maybe a helper, don’t pick but accumulate, and sort, the pickers bucketloads into the usual size of cases strategically scattered along rows from the vineyard tractor before we start. I was intrigued by the sorting as a form of in-vine triage – Gros doesn’t appear to have a formal triage table. Many domaines claim in vines sorting but in my experience, this doesn’t happen or is perfunctory at best. Here at Gros though there is clear and obvious in vines triage and that after the pickers are encouraged to do their own care in cutting and rejection. The cases, once full, are collected by vineyard tractor then taken to a green sward area in the vineyard and offloaded to be collected later by road tractor & trailer, or immediately transferred from vineyard tractor to trailer.

Another innovation I’d not seen before until here are little blue seats on a strut for the pickers which strap to the waist & buttocks ! These were very popular – for me though I was happy to stay with my tried and trusted knee pads. Something that struck me immediately in Reas once we got going was the height, or lack of it, of the vines – very handy indeed if one needed to hop over. Not sure why this is. Featured not quite to the same extent in other vines we were to move to.

Clos de Reas grapes2

Clos des Reas another rest break

Clos des Reas interesting plaque – need Google Translate

Clos des Reas Michel directing tracteur

Clos des Reas Michel Gros avec technologie big phone-001

The ace boss in Clos des Reas

We quickly got going, with the morning passing unremarkably, whilst we moved steadily along the vines. Much needed water and rest break after Pass 1. Bending to my first vine, secateurs in hand it felt like I’d never been away rather than having missed 2 years. Lunch seemed to come quite quickly – back to the domaine (on foot !) where 3 small steel wash basins (fed from an outside tap) and soap dispensers were set up in a row for suitable pre-lunch hygiene. The domaine yard area outside the cuverie is quite compact. Lunch was a starter (can’t recall), lasagne, fromage selection (usually Comtes, Rebluchon and Brie) and an ice cream. Without getting ahead of myself the catering here has subsequently turned out to be at least on a par with Arlaud, if not the best. Food, pre-cooked, is brought in from traiteurborguignon.com in special containers then heated up for us.

Back to Reas p.m from 13.30 with, I think, 4 passes completed in the day. Boy, was it getting hot & your writer was perspiring freely. I’d taken Cyprien Arlaud’s warning to heart and worn a straw hat all day. Finish c17.30. Serious result coming back to the domaine as I’d been expecting some gear (buckets, secateurs etc) cleaning but as I went to voluntarily spread the buckets out a large, mature, lady scolded me saying that as a domaine employee (not sure she was to be honest) it was her job to do the buckets – fine by me !!! Things getting better all the time 😉.

Returned to my room for a welcome shower & change before returning to the dining cellar to work on photo downloads, resizing and captioning. A lot to this reporting for Bill lark, time is always at a premium. I didn’t note the evening menu but we never had leftovers, was always a new menu.

And so to bed. Tomorrow unsurprisingly, given its c2 hectares Reas Day 2 to a finish and then more very exciting things !

MdMdlV

High altitude Volnay

Pascal Roblet demonstrates

Mazis-Chambertin – Hautes

You always know that the end of the harvest is close when domaines start to pick their aligoté – typically a late-ripening variety. And so it was on Friday and through the weekend.

I still met a few hardy folk in the higher vines of Volnay and Pommard – Sur Roches, Lambots and of course, Vaumuriens. Today was Pascal Roblet. He was quite happy with his grapes – ‘Not the vintage of the century, but we have good grapes and they are ripe‘ I’ve long been a fan of his wines and the care whilst harvesting is obvious – only 4-5kg (grape weight) cases are used to collect his grapes – ‘and since 2001,‘ emphasises Pascal. In one of the images you can see him showing that he doesn’t cut the tops of his vines but unlike Leroy or Trapet’s high trellising, he prefers to spread the the lengthening shoots across the top wire of his trellis.

It was quieter in the Côte de Nuits too, the square in front of the Mairie of Vosne – a bustling hub of harvesting in the last days – becoming much calmer. A few blocks of vines were still waiting to be picked – the Chambertin of Rossignol-Trapet and the Mazis of the Hospices de Beaune – but even the traditionally ‘late pickers’ were in the vines. So, right now, the Hautes Côtes are seeing the most action – together with Chablis and Irancy too. A significant part of Beaujolais is already done.

The major efforts are now in the cuveries!