Three B’s – Birthday, Bâtard & Bonnes-Mares

16.10.2021billn

Thunersee, Eiger, Monch & Jungfrau from Schadau
The three peaks to the left; the Eiger, the Mönch and the Jungfrau. The big (closer) one on the right is the Niesen.

I said that there would be some birthday wines – but first, today came a nice walk in the shadow of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau mountains as seen over lake Thun – not bad!

Another recipe from Tanya Grandits and a couple of decent wines too:

2016 Olivier Leflaive, Bâtard-Montrachet
This is a domaine wine. For a number of years, O Leflaive produced the better wines of the two producers of that name in Puligny, certainly from the 2006 vintage. Only from this 2016 vintage had Domaine Leflaive pulled up their bootstraps sufficiently to have at least equivalent quality. 2016, despite the wines’ frosty rarity, is one of my favourite vintages for whites – some critics, bizarrely, describe this as poor vintage, with too many ‘over-concentrated’ wines. Bullshit I say!
Still a very young colour. That’s a very good if not quite great nose – mineral, deeply white-flower-scented and accented with a little caramel – some of that depth undoubtedly coming from a slight firework reduction. Direct, mineral, concentrated and oh-so-pure flavoured. This wine opening out so impressively in the finish – a great, great finish that somehow sustains itself like a mythical perpetual-motion machine – wow! Crystalline, chiselled, with the purity of a waterfall – never for a second do you think that there is insufficient energy for the concentration on hand, never for a moment do you think ‘fat.’ Bravo – this is a grand vin for sure – drinking brilliantly but with a life that will extend to decades with this DIAM10 seal.
Rebuy – Yes

2000 Thomas-Moillard, Bonnes-Mares
I have often recounted that Bonnes-Mares can be a wine that’s a bit too brutal for me, hence, I (generally – the 2005 de Vogüé excepted!) prefer to give them a few years in the cellar. A six-pack of this wine was bought on release – this is one of the last, perhaps the last, that I have.
Deeply coloured. Oof! What a nose! So large that you have much of the detail long before your nose is in the glass: Very clean – not a hint of bret or any other unhappy signs of age, deeply impressive notes of soil, tobacco, turned leaves in an Autumn forest – and even fruit too – if rather bloody fruit! Seemless concentration in the mouth – this wine is coming into a great place for both flavour and texture. I’d like a hint more energy to really beg me to take the next glass but the flavour is just so good that I’m anyway on message. Big, big wine – grand cru wine – but also a wine that can caress!
Rebuy – Yes and who wouldn’t at the old price!

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There is one response to “Three B’s – Birthday, Bâtard & Bonnes-Mares”

  1. Markydb30th October 2021 at 11:37 amPermalinkReply

    I have had nothing but big smiles on my face every time I’ve opened a 2016 white. I’ve already gone through a case of 2016 Bouchard Meursault Genevrieres & just ordered another case because young white Burgundy just doesn’t get any better.

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