Seems we were ‘lucky’ to leave France on Saturday, perhaps a day or two later and we would have been stuck there without ‘juice’ for the car. Still, there would be worse places ‘(eh, dear reader?)’

1985 Guillemard-Dupont et Fils, Pommard
Medium colour with a touch of orange about it. The nose has width, if not depth, and showcases sweetly baked red fruit tarts. In the mouth this is very smooth though if you really search you might come up with a suggestion of tannin near the finish. The fruit in the mouth is also sweet and it’s quite enough to offset a slightly tart impression given by the acidity. This is mature and very drinkable – not significantly complex, but that’s the why its a village label.
Rebuy – Yes

Anybody know anything about the domaine? It seems it was reasonably large and based higher-up the winding road out of Pommard in Meloisey at the time of RM Parker’s 1989 book on Burgundy, but I find no trace of it now.

It’s a shame that you no-longer see tasting notes for wines such as these. In former, more affordable days these bottles were often fun for various get-togethers, nowadays they much more often left in the cellar…

2004 Fourrier, Griotte-Chambertin Vieilles-Vignes
Medium, medium-plus colour. The nose starts with plenty of mushroom rather than the customary reduction, actually with swirling the reduction does make an appearance – a wine that needs a little air. Air dissolves the mushrooms and delivers a lovely pure red berry note, though this is also a transition to deeper, slightly darker red fruit aromas – rather primary though, as is the Griotte fashon. The well-padded palate starts quite silky though there is some bitterness to the finish, that said it’s in a bitter-chocolate style which is far from problematic. Like a number of 04s the acidity is a little elevated but that’s its position on the aging curve, nothing more. There is an interesting and very slowly emerging stony flavour in the finish. None of the disappointingly monolithic Clos St.Jacques proportions here. A very good wine that drinks quite well considering its age. Not a trace of the vintage malaise either.
Rebuy – Yes

Drunk 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!