Entries from March 2018

a little (mainly) st.romain action today…

By billn on March 11, 2018 #travels in burgundy 2018

Having, first, dispatched the first mosquito of the year, the forecast wasn’t great for the afternoon – but we still had sun in the middle of the day – So we decided to take a chance and go for a walk in St.Romain. We couldn’t have calculated it better – the first drops of rain started to fall just as we got back to the car. Onward to Hotel Montrachet for mid-afternoon coffee – always to a back-drop of blackened skies, flashes of lightening and the sound of thunder. Kindly the heavy rain and hail waited until we were on the inside, looking out.

I’ve seen heavier rain in the Côtes, but not for a long time – the roads quickly flooded and there were intermittent power-cuts – everything was reset back at the apartment in Beaune. I may not jog!
 

Home to Lady Gaga?
Now that’s a project!
The cliffs of St.Romain
A certain barrel-maker’s wood…
Now that looks organic – and with lots of empty spaces too!
Looking back to St.Romain form Auxey…
Looking back to St.Romain form Auxey…
Auxey-Duresses

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a cheeky mid-weeker…

By billn on March 08, 2018 #degustation

Despite being shaken up in a van on Tuesday, not bad at all…
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2005 des Croix, Bourgogne Pinot Noir
A satisfying ‘pop’ as the cork comes out. Still plenty of colour. The nose with a trace of reduction, but the fruit is also deep. Finally this wine has some secondary flavours – this was pure fruit liqueur a few years back. Open and very tasty indeed – a hint of reduction on the palate too – there was none of this on previous bottles. Previously a very great wine considering the label – it remains so. Bravo!
Rebuy – Yes

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the case workout…

By billn on March 07, 2018 #random

Whilst I didn’t upload it to my Strava, and despite no jogging yesterday, I still did quite a workout, and I have some residue of that in my muscles today! Starting out on Monday evening at 8pm, and returning home yesterday at 13h30 (over 700km later), I had one of my shortest ever trips to Beaune – the reason, to repatriate the other two-thirds of my wine-cellar.

When I moved house in 2015, I had some place for wine but it didn’t look enough. So a friendly vigneron offered space in their cuverie for what turned out to be two very highly stacked pallets worth of wine and the rent was only a bottle here and there. After 3 years of kindness, they needed the space. I didn’t find another place in Beaune, so it was all coming back to Switzerland with me. There are, of-course, technically, some issues with that. The wine started in Switzerland, which is not in the EU, but I anyway drove to Beaune with it, without a hitch. Coming back to Switzerland was also potentially fraught with customs issues, even though that’s where the wine started out from. Anyway, maybe yesterday’s rain (on the French side of the border) kept the roving patrols of the douane in their cafés. I made it home intact.

I’d hired a van for my two pallets, and in theory it only had a little under 1,100kg as a payload limit – I think I had closer to 1,200kg – but with no passengers – so that’s fair, no(?!) Thankfully the pallets could be loaded with a forklift so all those cases didnt have to be individually stacked! After arriving home, I’d got 3 hours to unload the van or I’d be paying for a second day of van-hire – that concentrated the mind – oh and the leg and arm muscles! Give-or-take it was 120 cases of wine to take out of the van, carry them down into the cellar, work out how best to stack them, and then head back up the stairs for the next one(s). Whilst I said 120 cases, many were 6-packs (1 6-pack, I still counted as 1 case) and the majority of the cases were not complete.

I’m guessing I brought back 650-750 bottles, and I didn’t have the chance to check the contents of all the cases – yes I am completely unorganised and only the foggiest idea what now lies in wait for me! But drinking at home will now be a little more (Burgundian) diverse, and always with a nice surprise as I find things, I already noted some unopened six-packs of 1999s… 🙂

And on Friday – it’s back to Beaune!

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weekend corkscrew work – week 9 2018

By billn on March 06, 2018 #degustation

Oedoria, Cremant, Extra-Brut
From the Cave Cooperative of that name in Beaujolais, made with chardonnay.
A modest but pure nose. Plenty of slightly rustic bubbles – it gets better with air as the CO2 calms. The flavour is excellent, wide and with a fine purity – totally sans artifice. This is very good stuff.
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2015 Nicolas Burguet, Gevrey-Chambertin
Medium-plus colour. The nose is a little pinched but pure and with a widening depth of fruit. Hmm – a very silky entry, clarity, purity of long, direct flavour with a faint salinity. Not a big or overtly ripe 2015 but an exceedingly classy and very tasty wine too. Yum!
Rebuy – Yes

1993 Daniel Bocquenet, Echézeaux
Now 25 years old. It’s my last bottle of this – and I only had two – the first had some spoilage, it was bad. This is good, actually it’s better than good!
The nose starts width and freshness, and a super silkiness too – yes! With time the nose does develop a very low-level of brett, but like a Rhone, I’m calling this complexity! This wine glides across the palate with a combination of freshness, depth, clarity and intensity – this starts with a bloody/iron aspect and whilst that fades, it remains great! The finishing width is complex and truly delicious. A great wine!
Rebuy – Yes

1998 Vincent et Jacques Audras, Juliénas Clos de Haute Combe
The nose starts round and warm, but given a little air it becomes, fresh and even vibrant. The palate, from the start, is fresh and direct – it’s also layered with delicious flavour and not a hint of oxidation /marsala. Three of us drank this oh-so quickly. Great Juliénas – what a wine!
Rebuy – Yes

2008 Marc Roy, Gevrey-Chambertin Clos Prieur
This is rather deeply aromatic and not a little earthy – behind there’s a flash of concentrated, almost liqueur fruit. This has the same fresh zip and line as the Juliénas, but with extra mid-palate intensity and much more mouth-watering length. Fabulous length – as good as the Juliénas was, this is still better. Another great wine – three in a row – no complaints from me!
Rebuy – Yes

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icymi…

By billn on March 04, 2018 #in case you missed it

  • The weather of last week – i.e. the -12°C – was seemingly insufficient the freeze the opened bottles of wine that stood outside my kitchen window. Still, that was one chilly drop of wine…
  • Talking of the weather – my long-weekend visit to the Côtes was called off – more due to ice rain than the snow – so despite the all-round prowess of the scooby, it was to be a weekend at home, rescheduling some domaine visits.
  • Typing my visit to Franck Large of Domaine du Breuil in Salles-Arbuissonnas-en-Beaujolais. Franck noted that from 2017 he can include the name of his village on his Beaujolais Villages label. I told him that the name of his village isn’t easy for an English speaker to say – Franck joked ‘It’s not easy for the French either!‘
  • It was a short-term laugh, but following Google’s update to it’s search engine ‘to make it harder for people to buy guns(?)’ we also lost for a while the ability to buy bur-gun-dy. They fixed it in a couple of days, but it took longer still to recover the back-catalogue of the Sex Pistols!
  • Light afternoon reading… silver-tongues-ray-walker-hong-kong-and-the-rules-of-the-game/
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