1982 rené engel vosne-romanée 1er les brulées

Update 11.10.2010(10.10.2010)billn

rene-engel-vosne-brulees-1982Drunk on the 10th of the 10th 2010 – as luck would have it, certainly it was a 10 out of 10 too!

An interesting bottle this. The label has the minimalism of the last Engel bottles, in fact slightly more-so, but the bottle is clearly not standard.

The large Château-Neuf-du-Pape-style embossing on the neck, is for Cave BB – a business still running as a wine merchant in Switzerland – and around the base of the bottle is embossed: Selection Baggli – Zolikon – Zurich. Engel did sell a lot of wine in barrel in those days, I’m just not positive if that’s what happened here, or whether Cave Baggli supplied the bottles. I’ve sent a mail to Baggli – perhaps somebody will remember…

I wish I could say that I got some info from the cork, but having decided to use an ‘ah-so’ cork remover, I really should have secured the cork with the worm of a screwpull too – too late I thought as the cork plopped into the bottle – bugger! Quickly everything went into the decanter – and very clean was the wine too – not just visually.

1982 René Engel, Vosne-Romanée 1er Les Brulées
Medium, medium pale colour. Right from the start, there’s not a hint of leaf, soil or mustiness on the nose, just a frankly gorgeous blend of precise red berries, brown sugar and the finest ginger cake – wow! One hour on and the snose has lost some of those precise berries to a marzipan-type layer. To me this is a negative as I’m no fan of marzipan – to others, quite the reverse. The flavours deliver width, a plush texture, very fine acidity and an impressive density of sweet, slightly raisin-fruited flavour in the mid-palate. Approaching 30 years-old one might expect this to be described as an old grandmother of a wine – how very wrong that would be. It remains fresh, sensuous and complex. It is blisteringly good – thank-you Caves Baggli…
Rebuy – No Chance -but I would and without hesitation…

My next oldest bottles of this are some 1995 and a magnum of 1998 – it seems I have a long wait to harvest them!

Agree? Disagree? Anything you'd like to add?

There is one response to “1982 rené engel vosne-romanée 1er les brulées”

  1. Rick Dalia12th October 2010 at 1:52 pmPermalinkReply

    Bill,
    Awesome shot! That has to be one of the best photos of a bottle I’ve ever seen. Sinister, dark, evocative, mysterious (perhaps a reflection of the wine itself?)
    –Rick

    • billn13th October 2010 at 8:12 amPermalinkReply

      🙂

      PS I also got a response from the merchant:

      Thank you very much. It’s nice to hear that the VR Brulées 82 still tasted well after 28 years!

      By that time my late father was a large buyer from several producers in Burgundy. He therefore decided to have our “own” Cave BB produced.

      Some of the producers came here to bottle their own wines in our cellar. By that time there were several tastings an diners etc.

      I hope this information is helpful.

      Very best regards
      Alexander
      CAVE BB, Alexander E. Bäggli AG

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