Just an average Saturday night…
1959 Roger Moreau, Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Clos St.Jacques
Deeply coloured – still. The nose has a little oxidation – wait 20 minutes and it is only a memory; still hints of pure fruit from a largely understated nose. In the mouth you have the same as the nose – some oxidative flavours that entirely cure themselves with about 25 minutes in the glass. Full, round, good texture and still an underlay of great structure. Plenty of glycerol mouthfeel that gives an opulent impression. Could I guess it was from Gevrey? – no I couldn’t, did it spoil the enjoyment of comparing two wines with fifty years between them? – certainly not!
Rebuy – No Chance
2009 Bouchard Père et Fils, Beaune 1er Vigne l’Enfant Jesus
Medium, medium-plus colour. Some high, tones, even hints of mint over a red and blueberry fruit with vanilla/coconut accents. Sweet, growing in the mid-palate with creamy, ripe fruit and very good underlying acidity. This is large-scaled and very long finishing, but it’s mainly in the vanilla-coconut register, which I find a shame today. Very easy to drink but in a, perhaps, non-Burgundian way. I’m sure that time will cure all my concerns.
Rebuy – Yes
There are 3 responses to “l’enfant jesus and old man jacques…”
It’s amazing the number of different clos st jacques there used to be. The greatest I’ve ever tasted was a Louis Latour 1971 a couple of years ago, pretty much as good as it gets and making an irrefutable argument for GC status, something I’ve always doubted previously as CSJ’s main attribute seems in general to be an almost bland amplitude.
Yes I’ve had another one recently too, Cave du Dauphin, also reasonable condition and quite interesting – normally they offer great vaue at auction – perhaps only one third the price of an equivalent Clair-Daü…
I had a superb Remoissonet 1969 CSJ a few years ago — Bernie Repolt assured me it was the real thing and not a relabelling.
AFAIK, Clair-Daü never sold to negociants; Jean-Marie Fourrier has told me that his predecessors didn’t either; and presumably Rousseau didn’t, so that leaves Esmonin as the presumed source for all the post-Comte de Moucheron negociant CSJs.
I’ve no reason to doubt any of what you say Claude – only the current situation makes me think that perhaps Rousseau could be the source of the current (one or two barrels) Bourée CSJ as Charles is an uncle. I’ve nothing to substantiate that though, and they might also have somebody knocking on Sylvie’s door…
I wasn’t thinking so much of the current Bourée wines, Bill, as those from the 1950s-60s-70s. (Actually, I suppose it is possible that at the time Clair-Daü was being broken up in the 1980s, some of the wine there might have been sold off (and I have a vague recollection that Jadot took some old wine with with the property it bought from Clair-Daü).)
That’ll be why I said ‘current situation’ 😉