2017 Alice & Olivier De Moor, Le Vendangeur Masque, Le Caravan
A mélange of different cepages from the south to north: clairette (Rhone), chardonnay (Ardeche), chardonnay and sauvignon gris from near Charolais, and pinot blanc and riesling from Alsace, and the aligoté from here. Lots of small cuvées assembled at the end.
A tight nose. There’s something of an apple freshness on the palate – nice zip to the attractive flavour and a silky texture. Super-tasty!
Rebuy Yes
2016 Vocoret, Chablis 1er Vaillons Vieilles-Vignes
A little greenery in the aromas – herb/lime. There is certainly concentration and intensity here though – a wine you can almost chew. I can see that I’m drinking it a little on the young side but the concentration and the mineral-lime-fruited hybrid of flavour works for me. A concentrated wine of some impact – don’t come for flowers or elegance!
Rebuy – Maybe
2017 Yvone et Laurent Vocoret, Chablis
Compared to the first Vocoret – chalk and cheese. Here’s a nose of width, of elegance and fresh yellow citrus. On the palate, open, sweetly mineral and citrus – decent concentration though less than the Vaillons. Just an easy, delicious, wine. Excellent!
Rebuy – Yes
2008 L et A Lignier, Charmes-Chambertin
Since I junked Facebook at least 2 years ago, I’ve no idea how Lucie, Auguste and of-course Kellen Lignier are doing – I hope they are well in the US. Anyway, I’ve some of their wine from about 06-08, so having come across this 2008 I though ‘Why not!’ Of-course it is Laurent Lignier who has been exploiting the domaine wines here since about 2009/2010…
This is a completely front-loaded wine – the nose attacks with pungent, old oak – a fecund mix of forward and quite attractive aroma if the dirty old oak doesn’t put you off! Given time the nose has a little spice and balsamic too. In the mouth this starts big but narrows into a modest, acid-led, finish. The acidity of 2008 without anything terribly out of balance or any spikyness. The finish is fading and is very modest in amplitude. Versus most villages wines today, from 2014-2017, this is essentially a bit thin – but the forward energy and some maturity make it very tasty. In the context of current grand cru pricing this would be a bad joke, but it’s delicious wine if you ignore that GC label…
Rebuy – No
Delicious as it may be, I see not a lot of upside in waiting further for this Charmes – based on that, I think the 2008 Clos de la Roche, that I found in the same carton, is another candidate for this year.
1996 Thomas-Moillard, Corton Clos du Roi
I tasted one of these in early 2000 and liked it enough that a dozen were purchased for a good price – perhaps less than €25 each, even much less. The first bottles had a certain flamboyance – if caged with a little 1996 acidic rigour – and I quite like a bit of acidic rigour! Thereafter, the wines slowly grew in rigour and became less flamboyant! It’s now a few years since the last one, so…
Ooh – still a deep, deep colour. The nose, unlike many of the domaine’s wines from Vosne, has a pure, clean attack – zero brett – under there’s dark but ripe fruit of sweeping fresh lines. In the the mouth intensity, concentration, and of-course plenty of acidity. Here are small waves of successive finishing flavour – layers of flavour. There’s still a little suggestion of bitter tannin in the finish as there’s also (clearly!) not much in the way of voluptuous padding. That said, that’s about as tasty and clean a performance as I can remember from this wine since, circa, 2003. Good wine, maybe even fine wine given the purchase price, but I’m pretty sure that it’s never going to be great wine. Today I enjoyed it though!
Rebuy – Maybe