Day two in the Côtes, grey again – or is that my eyes – a group of us ‘professionals’ didn’t leave the bistro until 1am, it’s purely rumour that we left a lot of bottles behind (some rumours say 8+ and mainly drained). 8am for an alarm-call seemed somehow unfair…

My favourite wine of the night was a Domaine de Bellene 2008 Bienvenue, though interestingly you could interchange it (without detriment) with a brilliant 08 Buisson-Charles Meursault 1er (a long lieu-dit I haven’t had before and would have to took up again to remember!), the Meursault was that good, though I noted the unusual nose; slightly saline, toasty / oxidised (a poor word to use) that reminds me a little of Coche-Dury – chapeau!

Showered, I arrive at my 9am appointment – as is so often the case the producer is elsewhere, but in this case he’s back in only 5 minutes. We taste through a range of 2009s; unlike some places where the malo were finished already in November, here it’s a mix of recently finished and not quite finished. You can contrast the colours and the depths of flavour, but little else when some are recently sulfured, some still have malo aromas and others some petillance.

Then I have the first casualty from the late night – the battery in my iPod dies – in my ‘tired’ state the night before I forgot to recharge it!

I emerge from the cellar to unaccustomed brightness, there is even some hint of blue sky – I haven’t seen that for 1 week – but typical, here’s me with a car full of wine as the temperature goes up – makes it hard to find a parking space out of the sun! Two more hours with a new producer to me before firing up the road from Beaune to Morey for lunch – the Clos de Vougeot looked magnificent as I passed because only the the château was in the sun.

Back to Beaune (such is life…) to meet the maker of the previous night’s Bienvenue – the first time in 3 years – and he’s on great form, just like his wines. Having tasted enough, I hit the road home – 2 super days.

It’s an away-day in the Côtes today – actually this is day 1 of 2…

A 5:15 alarm this morning as my first appointment was 8:45. Leaden skies the whole way from Switzerland, the rain varied all the way but never enough to take the window wipers off ‘intermittent’.

So my day was a tasting followed by an appoinment that was deferred as it fell into farce, a nice lunch with ‘very fine’ people. Then there was a break in the weather – still grey, but no rain, so two hours wandering in the vines before a coffee and cake then two more appointments; 17:30 and 19:15. With a (hire) car full of wine (how did that happen?) I ended-up back in Beaune – and it was ‘only’ 21:00 – but I had one more appointment; to pick up a couple more bottles while sitting with some aquaintences and perhaps holding a glass myself. Hmm, an 8:45 start again tomorrow – people have no idea how tough this is 😉

I noted on the radio a story abouth somebody blackmailing the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti; “send me €1 million or I’ll poison the vines in RC” Or that’s what I thought as I drifted through the story, not initially listening – because of-course it was in French 😉 Two people gave me some input to the story;

1. Apparently this wasn’t some highly sophisticated Oceans Eleven, or Russian Mafia plot. A box of money was delivered and the police waited behind a bush and caught them!
2. Vine sabotage is as old as history if somebody has a very surly neighbour. Of-course it is easier these days with a squirt of herbicide, but in older times ‘heavy-duty’ pruning – i.e. to the ground – usually brought people into line…

Anyway I didn’t see security at each corner of said fabled vineyard when I drove through in the late afternoon – perhaps it was too wet for them!

[pictures at the weekend…]