I continue my search for the best wine combination for the Christmas-day feast.

I’ve tried (over and over) older, medium, young red burgundies, but never found a really good match – it’s that combination of salt, sweet, stuffing, sprouts etc., etc.. This year I tried a magnum of Foillard’s 2006 Morgon Côte du Py, and good as it was, in this setting it was a little too jammy. Do I see the spectre of something from the south-west of france next year…(?)

Anyway a relatively successful set of bottles this year, but will have to try harder for next! ;

An Austrailian fizz – a bit heavy and sweet
2007 Alain Geoffroy, Chablis 1er Beauroy – seems pretty but a little too light after the fizz. Wait, eat and return, and it’s very lovely indeed. At about 25 Swiss francs I will buy some more.
2003 St.Urbans Hof, Piesporter Goldtröpfchen – still a beautiful pale green. This vintage misses the acidic ‘zing’, but is reasonably well balanced.
2006 Foillard, Morgon Côte du Py – pretty, plenty of depth though a little over-sweet with the food. Plenty of sediment in the last glasses.
1995 Josmeyer, Riesling Cuvée l’Exception – my last bottle and now this seems less sweet than before, but depth and minerality with and off-dry personality provide plenty to contemplate if not a wine to drink with the Christmas pud!

CHEERS!

2006 Faiveley, Nuits St.Georges 1er cru Pôrets St.Georges
I’d love to be able to recommend this wine (after all I bought some!) but today is not the day to tell you if it is, or will be, any good. Today it is a complete waste of money – aromatically dumb, narrow on the palate and showing a very limited flavour profile. It is a wine that is a perfect exemplar of the the oft-used descriptor – closed. This is so closed that it’s even rolled down the shutters. For those that are still reading, the texture is silky and the balance is fine, there is even a hint of intensity, but today MIA…
Day two and there’s hint of dark cherry and damson on the nose – wow – careful, I’m almost starting to enjoy it!
Rebuy – Maybe

2006 Gérard Mugneret, Vosne-Romanée 1er Les Suchots
Medium-plus colour. Straight away the nose is about depth, dark fruit and a little coffee/mineral mix and an impressive Vosne-style dimension – a great start. In the mouth for the first 20 minutes I can’t drink it, it tastes like salt – no, really like salt! A long pause and a coffee later, I come to it and it’s on a lower level – more an inflection (of salt) in the mid-palate – like a Denis Mortet wine! There is just a lack of smoothness – or better, elegance – to the wine. There is plenty of flavour, some here some there, complexity too, and without overt oak, yet there is cola and and a total lack of integration – this is such a shame, as it smells fantastic. Half is left for day 2: hurrah, not really ‘salty’, a hint of gras and the texture is okay. I’m rather bemused, I’ve never really come across a wine that was too salty before – perhaps something to do with the oak – anyway, this was eventually very nice – but I’d recommend decanting!
Rebuy – Yes

2005 David Clark, Bourgogne Au Pelson
From vines between Morey and Chambolle, but on the ‘wrong’ side of the Route Nationale 74. Deep colour. The nose is a brooding affair with faint spice and herb top-notes and a tight concentration of fruit below, eventually a faint milk-chocolate note surfaces. In the mouth this is unexpectedly intense for the appellation, rather tight and narrow in form which allows the acidity to gain the upper-hand – the classic face for many 2005s now. The tannin is a background velvet texture and the fruit is dark and fresh, finishing with a dried cranberry/raisin element. I suspect that this wine would have been absolutely singing a couple of years ago. Today, despite the appellation, this is a wine about future potential – I still find much to enjoy, but such a shame it was my only bottle. I don’t see either Morey or Chambolle in this, but it is anyway very impressive indeed, this clearly has the intensity, structure and balance of a very decent villages!
Rebuy – Yes