2007 Bonneau du Martray, Corton-Charlemagne
Very pale yellow colour. Perhaps it was a little cold, but this was very tight to start with. Eventually the nose starts to give up fresh apple fruit backed by cold (trifle) custard. In the mouth this is absolutely linear, firing into an understated but very long finish that has a little sweet vanilla attached. Only if you keep the wine in your mouth do you appreciate the weight of extract and feel the mid-palate intensity. This is a very tight but very good wine – to be honest I’m impressed, but I really expected to be ‘wowed’!
Rebuy – Yes

With all the bruhaha of p.ox surrounding wines from Fevre in 2002 – typically, a vintage I have something close to 12 bottles of – I suppose that I will have to make those bottles my house wine for 2010, despite strong competition from Gambal’s 2006 Bourgogne!

Anyway a 2001 and a 2002 were opened last week, and those bottles were absolutely fine. The 2001 seems the more muscular and dense. The 2002 has a little more barrel vanilla and dimension in the mid-palate – it seems a little riper – perhaps that’s just the sweetness of the barrels(?) Both bottles were drunk over 3-4 days, left unstoppered in the refrigerator each night – the 2001 really did seem bullet-proof. Today I have a very slight preference for the 2001, tomorrow, who knows?

Without the elephant in the room I might buy more, but big ears is hiding behind the sofa, maybe there are not so many tomorrows left for these bottles…

It’s not a proper tasting note I suppose, but I’m sure you’ll get the idea 😉

2006 Alex Gambal, Bourgogne Blanc
I might have written elsewhere that there’s a ‘deliciousness’ to chardonnay (sorry white burgundy!) that can really perk you up – particularly if you’re tasting at 9:00am! I recall a tasting about 1 year ago at Maison Alex Gambal, before we dived into the 2007s we tasted Alex’s most basic bourgogne blanc – a 2006 – it just hit the spot! For somebody of limited will-power there was absolutely no doubt that ‘on the spot’ I would order a case – not unexpectedly I have cases dotted around the Côte d’Or only waiting for my next visit – well, that and some cash of-course! I finally got around to picking it up (amongst other things) when I visited to taste the 2008s about 2 weeks ago. So, one year-on, how does this wine show? The 2006 vintage has endowed it with a little extra richness but it remains perfectly well balanced. Clearly then, this wine has only one obvious flaw – I bought it to use as a nice summer aperitif, but I’ve already drunk two bottles – it seems unlikely that any will survive to see the official starting date for summer time – clearly it’s not fit for purpose then!
Rebuy – Yes