Wishing all you readers the very best for 2020 to come – let’s hope it’s an interesting year!
For the Burgundy Report, virtually all the individual domaine reports are now online – just 5-6 more to add today/tomorrow to the November report. Then there will be the December report for the ‘Grand Maisons’ which will be online in the next 10 days – many highs there, but a particular fail too!
Already about 1,500 wines from their domaine’s profiled for you. And ‘what of the last days?‘ I hear you ask!
2015 Nathalie & Gilles Fèvre, Chablis Les Preuses
From magnum, DIAM sealed.
One of my favourite wines of the holiday period. Drunk over 2 days it was reliably delicious, mouth-filling and fresh – a wine that anyone and everyone can appreciate – so good!
2009 Ramonet, Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Les Ruchottes
A beautiful, long (54mm?), Trescasses cork – but to no avail!
Deeply coloured, a little sherried aromatic – a wine that cleans up considerably with air, but never loses that ‘prematurely old’ feeling. These and the 2010s were among the last whites I bought for cellaring (magnums excepted) that were sealed with natural cork – and here’s the reason.
2010 Ramonet, Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Les Ruchottes (not pictured)
The same, long, Trescasses cork – this time okay.
Plenty of colour, but much less than the 2009. A nose of toasted bread, slowly fading to become more mineral incisive. The palate is automatically, directly great – clean lines, very mineral, so sweetly juicy too – it’s great – perhaps a little too much barrel-caramel in the finishing flavours (still) but a great bottle.
1997 Nicolas Potel, Volnay Vieilles-Vignes (not pictured)
This either my last, or next to last, from the original dozen. A wine that has always suggested great things, but never delivered.
Ooh, this cork stinks of TCA – I’m shocked to find that the wine itself is okay – and not seemingly attenuated by its smelly bung. The nose is hardly attractive to start – with plenty of balsamic-style oxidative notes, but aeration really brings a lot more interest. Mouth-filling, nicely textured – this is actually quite good in the mouth – a second glass without hesitation – so good wine – but I always thought that there was some inner greatness in wait – but no…
1995 Sylvain Cathiard, Vosne-Romanée 1er Les Malconsorts
I thought I’d pulled a 1997 from the cellar, to follow the Potel 1997 – but – doh! – it was a 1995 again.
A very similar wine to that linked. Good older wine that everybody happily drank, but with no hints of greatness.
1999 l’Arlot, Nuits St.Georges 1er Clos de l’Arlot
This wine has great written all over it – a fabulous and complex and brilliantly inviting nose. A palate that doesn’t for a moment shrink in the face of that aromatic challenge – my greatest wine for many a day – fabulous, great wine – underlining why I love the style of the domaine! Also rather puts into context my summary for the domaine’s 2018s!
1999 Guy Castagnier, Clos de la Roche
A big and attractive, sweeping, nose of quite some depth. Fuller with more concentration than the Arlot, but with a sense of unready tightness. I’ve had more approachable bottles of this, it’s fine enough but insufficiently expressive today to best the brilliant Arlot.
2006 Alex Gambal, Chambolle-Musigny 1er Les Charmes
Of-course no visit to Gambal in 2019. This from magnum.
Not a nose of power but certainly one of red-fruited finesse. In the mouth this is nicely shaped – though there’s a ‘thin’ impression to the palate after (literally) thousands of 2017s and 2018s. Nice wine, tasty wine – slowly adding a little weight with time in the glass. A very good wine – maybe next year it’s time to try the 05 Amoureuses?
Happy new year!
