6pm today:
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a little boulevard
Entries from 2016
a few weekend bottles – week 40
Why not a run of vintages? 2010 to 2007…
The 2010 Rebourgeon-Mure, Pommard 1er Clos des Charmois was a very tasty wine, with all the delicacy and elegance that 2010 offers, yet it was a little subdued – at least vs others from the vintage at this producer. Tasty enough though.
The 2009 Chandon de Brialles, Pernand-Vergelesses 1er Ile des Vergelesses, hinted to the nose of the 09 Ramonet a couple of days earlier, ripe but, in this case, with only a suggestion of alcohol. The palate unfurls in a classy way and with super texture too. A very tasty baby this wine – very tasty!
The 2008 Paul Pillot, Chassagne-Montrachet Vieilles-Vignes (red!) started out a bit spiky – almost a hint sour in the mouth – both me and my partner thought so (lunch), yet in the evening it was much more balanced and tasty. Our palates or oxygenation? Still a good, workmanlike, bottle – just not a great bottle.
The 2007 Fourrier Morey St.Denis Clos Solon Vieilles-Vignes, frankly, performed like it always does; supple, nicely textured wine with layers of flavour. Not even a hint of anything complicated about this vintage chez Fourrier – at least with this wine. Really super – as usual!
‘la maison’ – now there’s a video!
Remember my post on the new ‘boudoir’ in Vougeot? Well now there’s a little more info and even a video!
la Maison
1 rue du Vieux Château
21640 Vougeot
Tel: +33 3 80 61 06 10
contact@lamaisonvougeot.com
Tastings: From €25 per person, open from 11h00 to 18h30 Monday to Thursday and Sunday, plus 10h00 to 19h30 Friday and Saturday.
For sale : Wines from Domaine de la Vougeraie, Maison Jean-Claude Boisset & JCB By Jean-Charles. Wine memorabilia, books about Burgundy and wine and ‘other nice things…’
No affiliation, et-cetera…
want to know more about beaujolais nouveau? of-course you do :)
Even if only from a voyeuristic perspective!
Although most of us might have little more than an afterthought about this wine, it’s still a massive volume that is produced.
In 2015, for example, the Beaujolais region sold 193,000 hectoliters of Beaujolais Nouveau, or more easily understood as about 25.7 million bottles in France and abroad. The most important markets outside France are (in order) Japan the United States and the United Kingdom. I must admit to buying a bottle each year, but only one, and usually the one with the most attractive label!
There is even a website – but I couldn’t get it to work: www.beaujolaisnouveau.fr – Still I don’t think that it will stop me from keeping with my previous buying habits!
ramonet’s bourgogne pinot – 2009+2010
These two wines have really changed their drinking positions in the time since their respective releases.
At the start, the 2009 was simply delicious; open, caressing and tasty as any Bourgogne has the right to be. To amplify that point, this may already be the last bottle of my case. By comparison, the 2010 was far from friendly as a youngster, having acidity in the ascendency and a seemingly sharp personality to match.
Today the 2009 is ripe and round, but the nose is less attractive with an impression of alcohol – still a gulpable wine, but lacking a certain class. The 2010 has transformed; it is still fresh, but balanced, interesting, and above all begs you to take the next sip – I honestly regret that I only bought 6 of these – which wasn’t my opinion 4+ years ago…
a little matterhorn…
The one and only Matterhorn (Swiss side!)
You know, of-course, that I like my mountains, and today I took a chance for a quick visit to Zermatt – a surprisingly mere 2h10 on the train from Bern! The forecast is for snow tomorrow, so we took a chance on today – and what a result – beautiful weather. The Matterhorn is often partly obscured by cloud, but not today.
A nice break. Tomorrow, it’s back to Beaune…
give a dog a vosne…
Or rather, some malcontent vosnes, already gone to the dogs…
My last night in Beaune after our harvest was a meet-up with Marko de Morey, who had also finished his harvest.
A simple night with a trio of Vosnes, a big baguette, and a fresh Brillat-Savarin – what could go wrong?
Well, wine #1 was the 1998 Thomas-Moillard, Vosne 1er Malconsorts, and it stunk of brett – the nose said to both of us – DNPIM (do not put in mouth) – so having two more bottles, we didn’t!
Wine #2 is a favourite of mine, the 1999 Gilles Remoriquet, Vosne 1er Au Dessu des Malconsorts – pff! Totally corked!
Wine #3, could we make it 3 disasters in a row? or would, Nicolas come to the rescue? The 2002 Nicolas Potel, Vosne 1er Malconsorts had a rather understated but clean nose, and a welcoming and complex palate, a palate that seemed to slowly, slowly, get better and better – not full-power, but very tasty indeed – so we didn’t need cry into our last glasses!
a synthesis of le montrachet 2016
Montrachet – 28-Aug-2016.
A really interesting story from Bourgogne Aujourd’hui, yesterday: Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Domaine des Comtes Lafon, Domaine Leflaive, Guy Amiot, Lamy-Pillot and Domaine Fleurot have blended together all of their grapes harvested in Montrachet – or maybe I should say Le Montrachet, as their parcels are all on the Chassagne side.
Normally these domaines would produce 20-30 barrels of wine from their combined 1.25 hectares, but this year, the sum of all their efforts will be 2 barrels worth of wine – all because of the frost at the end of April this year. It was clear that nobody really wanted to do a micro-vinification as it would have been more like a lab-exercise! Note, so exceptional was this frost, that there is no-one alive that can remember a similar event in the vines of Montrachet.
With their négociant licence, it is Domaine Leflaive that will actually make the wine, which will (presumably) be shared between the proprietors when it comes to bottling. These cuvées, in theory, will not be commercialised, as there will be no more than a few cases per producer – I can’t wait to see the label (design) – assuming they use just one label…
la maison – vougeot
Last Saturday we paid a visit to a new ‘thing’ in Vougeot.
The Boissets have chosen to open a new retail opportunity in Vougeot – here you can buy the wines of Domaine de la Vougeraie, JCB (from Jean-Charles Boisset) and the Jean-Claude Boisset range overseen by Grégory Patriat. These were previously available in the ‘Imaginarium’ outside Nuits, but the Boissets plan that Vougeot will be the only address where they sell the Vougeraie wines, locally.
The official opening will be the end of this week – maybe – it seems that strategy, timing and purpose remain somewhat fluid.
Both Nathalie and Jean-Charles Boisset were on hand to describe certain aspects of this ‘maison’ fully supported by Gina Gallo. La Maison – Vougeot is purposefully unbranded, but ‘a place where people can come and sit and relax, taste wine and also buy wine if they wish – even special dinners or tastings will be possible here.‘ You buy a card with a certain credit level which you use to feed the wine-dispenser machines – delivering measured pours from bottles under an inert atmosphere. There are multiple rooms too – each very different, yet with some unifying style accents, whether by Murano or Lalique(!) The people who designed and delivered this rather special thing were also present, including the architect currently responsible for both here and the new Boisset cuverie, plus Jacques Garcia, interior designer of, among other things, boutique Paris hotels. Note that you can also buy examples of Jean-Charles’ range of brooches and cuff-links…
I can honestly say that there’s nothing else like it in Burgundy – and I think you might get a real kick out of visiting – even if you only do it once. Part old-gentleman’s club, part swinger-club, style, and it is certainly more Los Angeles than Les Arvelets. I’ll be really interested to see how this will work in ultra-quiet Vougeot – come to think of it, I’ll be interested to see how it works at all – it seems the Boisset family are also not yet fully sure. Actually I find their ‘let’s see’ attitude refreshing.
I didn’t take any pictures outside because it was raining so hard!
