Entries from 2024

The best gamay in the world !(?)

By billn on January 17, 2024 #annual laurels#beaujolais

The 14th edition of the International Gamay Competition took place at the Cité Internationale de Lyon last Saturday – the 13th of January.

David Béroujon 2021Over 800 wines from 4 countries; France, Switzerland, Italy & Brazil were tasted by a jury of 181 ‘professional wine tasters and informed amateurs‘ who awarded 267 medals including 164 Gold and 103 Silver. So 20% of the wines received a gold medal – which sounds a little high.

That said, my experience of winners has been positive (though I visited only one winner!) – and his Beaujolais wines have always been delicious – David Béroujon – pictured, right, with his trophy.

From the 164 gold medals there was an additional ‘taste-off’ which was won by an old vines Moulin à Vent by Domaine du Colonat who are based in Villié-Morgon. An address to add to my list 🙂

The runner up wine came from Switzerland: AOC Coteau de Peissy, Domaine des Charmes, Le Baron Rouge Vieilles Vignes 1er cru 2022. Now that really is a mouthful !!

Chablis 2024…

By billn on January 16, 2024 #degustation#reports

No, not the 2024 vintage – it’s ‘just’ my location.

Beautiful hoarfrost this morning and blue skies too – but it was still -6°C at 10h30 !! Yesterday the mist/low cloud only departed the scene at about 3pm – but it’s been clear since then. How hard I had to scrape the Subaru’s windscreen this morning attests to that!

Anyway, as usual in January, I’ve started my tour of Chablis domaines – I’ve a list of about 100 domaines to visit, so let’s see how that goes. I’ve three consecutive weeks with about 20-22 domaines per week, then I’ll have to return in March to add as many more as possible.

I’m also planning blind tastings of 2022s from Irancy and Petit Chablis while I’m here.

And, as every spare moment allows, I’m also adding a few new domaines each day to this 2022 Côte de Nuits reports page.

All my best… !!

A little Friday Chambertin…

By billn on January 13, 2024 #degustation

Friday's Chambertin!I know that I’ve had flu and had to postpone all my Christmas wines – but this wasn’t a Christmas wine, it was a harvest lunch wine – but I caught covid 🙂

I’m starting to sound like a very sickly type – but it was my first covid – that I’m aware of(!) – and my flu was despite my annual flu-jab. I haven’t had flu for at least 20 years, but this year…

Still, my hill repeats whilst jogging were quite quick this afternoon – so things are coming back to normal!

2001 Frederic Esmonin, Chambertin
Bought en-primeur with a number of other wines from this producer.
Hmm – the first aromatic impression is of quite resinous oak – it recalls the Thomas-Moillard RSV of a week ago. Slowly the oak is lost and there are some faintly perfumed florals – but this wine still isn’t going to win many prizes! In the mouth, the wine has good scale but the flavours are a little gentle and loose-knit – very red fruit and the width of deep notes impresses – but the good parts are still below my expectations for the label – oh, and the time I invested cellaring it. The 2001 Bèze, Mazis and Ruchottes from F.Esmonin were all better wines than this Chambertin – but in those days the price for this was a snip – £36 in bond – though, of course, the better wines were even cheaper! Part of the fun is owning a wine since it was released and waiting for the right time to open it. This is not a bad wine – I drank every drop, finishing it on Saturday – and it held up well – but it lacks that extra ‘sparkle’ that I expect from Chambertin.
Rebuy – No

2022s from the Côte de Nuits

By billn on January 12, 2024 #reports

Romanée-Conti - the 2022 harvest is finished!I’ve still another 35 reports to write, but given the number of emails I’ve already received from subscribers – ‘what can you tell me about this, what can you tell me about that?‘ Here’s the first tranche of producers from the Côte de Nuits.

It will certainly be another week before all are online 🙂

The December Report: Côte de Nuits producers

Enjoy !!

A couple of wines…

By billn on January 11, 2024 #degustation

Wines - week 02 2024

Getting the old taste buds back into action !!

2020 Chablisienne, Chablis 1er Montmains
This was great wine – pre-bottling – I ordered a dozen. After taking delivery, it was obvious from the first bottle I opened that there were pyrazines in here though – shit! This is my first bottle for quite a while – and there are 5 more in the cellar. The nose starts saline and with a fine citrus-backed attack – the small pyrazine notes slowly grow as the wine rises from refrigerator temperature. Super shape in the mouth – structural and with mouth-watering clean energy – but these flavours still have a trace of pyrazine too. A shame, though the insensitive will love this wonderfully classic Chablis!
Rebuy – No

2005 Dubreuil-Fontaine, Volnay
This wine, from the beginning, has only begrudgingly showed it’s worth. The pricing was great and it contains plenty of 1er cru juice – but like some other 2005s – it was closed tight for years. I have the impression that my last bottle (2-3 years ago) was more open than this one! Yet. Day one – stridently intense – this is a hard wine to drink – it’s simply ‘too much!’ On day two, the the nose has relaxed and is inviting the flavours are more accessible too – that’s tasty! Day 3 – the nose is slightly less good but the palate is even better. This is still something of a baby. But I remain highly confident, despite having drunk more than half of the 12-pack by now!
Rebuy – Yes

2014 Henri Gouges, Nuits St.Georges
Ooh – that smells lovely – a very cherry/red berry nose – it doesn’t speak much of Nuits to me but the fruit is really inviting. Direct, fresh – ‘a little classic’ but this is a wine that delivers its flavours with crisp purity and an acid-led juicy finish. I really loved it. Delicious wine.
Rebuy – Yes

A new report – 2022 Part 3 – Reds from mainly the Côte de Beaune producers!

By billn on January 10, 2024 #reports

June 2022 - VolnayPart 3 – 2022 Reds (part 1) HERE !!

This issue with my vintage summary – 2022 whites and reds together

This is the third of my series focusing on the 2022 vintage and it contains 30 mainly red wine domaines from the Côte de Beaune and a few from the Chalonnaise.

That’s 96(!) domaines published since the harvest not forgetting another 20 domaines 2022s tasted before the harvest. Another 60-or-so domaines from the Côte de Nuits will be published in 7-10 days. So that’s 170 domaines’ 2022s tasted before I start the tour of 100 domaines in Chablis next week 🙂

RSV – what a difference a little patience makes…

By billn on January 05, 2024 #degustation

Okay, in this instance nearly 25 years of patience for this, the last of the ‘cheap St.Vivants!’

Okay, cheap is certainly relative; this 1999 vintage still cost 80 Swiss Francs a bottle on release – about £40 a bottle at the prevailing exchange rate – I bought a whole case – remember 12-bottle cases? That price was the same as Engel’s Grand Echézeaux and Leroy’s Domaine Savigny 1er Les Narbantons – I bought those on release too, but that latter wine was finished 2 years ago…

This parcel was sold to Wilf Jaeger in 2005 who passed it on via a fermage agreement to Dujac to make the wine. I later heard from more than one source that all was not well between the two parties, so it’s no surprise that Dujac never show the wine – I hope that things are now on a more even keel. I don’t know the current status of this parcel between the parties…

Thomas-Moillard (and sometimes later labelled Domaine Charles Thomas) used ‘rotary fermenters’ during this period – ultra extraction – so it was hardly a surprise when they made hard wines – more of a surprise was that the 1998 and 2000 of this wine were so delicious and at a young age too – maybe they felt that they had to extract more in what they thought was a good vintage!

And, right from the start, what a wine this was – hard as nails! It was still impenetrable at 20 years old so I’m mildly shocked by how it’s now showing!

1999 Thomas-Moillard, Romanée St.Vivant
Lots of colour. A little alcoholic and still with a slug of creamy, almost resinous, aromatic oak – but also a hint of floral perfume too – and that’s new. Mouth-filling, silky, with a certain richness to the texture and depth of flavour – where has this fine texture come from? And come to that, where has the hard personality and tannin gone? It’s still a baby due to the overt concentration and still lacking a little grace, but a wine of (now!) obvious potential. Probably still not ‘ready’ for at least 5 more years but I’ll take today’s ‘drinkable.’ In fact, I’m quite enjoying it, even the second glass (shock) – there’s more than a decent chance for the remaining 4 or 5 bottles…
Rebuy – Maybe

Happy New Year…

By billn on January 04, 2024 #reports#site updates

… and the ones that got away!

There’s no other time like December/January for the Burgundy Report – so little (apparently) happening but so much typing 🙂

I’ve so far uploaded the first two reports for the 2022 vintage – the whites of the Côte de Beaune and the Mâconnais – and I’m well on my way with the Côte de Beaune reds (online Monday or Tuesday) with the Côte de Nuits to follow maybe 1 week later. 66 new reports are already online with 80-90 more on their way.

I’ve not included any vintage summary – yet – it will appear in the next report. For a special reason this year, I will combine the whites and reds into a single summary – all will be clear when you read it !!

And the ones that got away?

Well, that would be practically all my planned Christmas and New Year bottles. Every year, just before Christmas we spend some days in Nice – me typing in the mornings and in the afternoon we promenade! This year the weather was lovely – sunny and 14-16°C. For our return trip we decided to spend 2-3 days in Beaune – but already the first evening my better half wasn’t feeling well. The next day she was worse, so we headed directly to Bern. She had a strong flu (twice negative for corona) – and guess what? Three days later, me too – despite both of us having taken flu jabs.

My better half is just about well now, I still have a dumb cough so haven’t jogged for 12 days already. We have managed to finish a bottle of cremant over the last 3 days – which is a clear improvement! – but couldn’t finish the couple of bottles of Beaujolais that I opened over the last 10 days. But one was a useful exercise; I caught my first (known!) dose of corona in September and whilst I quickly regained my tasting faculties, I wasn’t sure that I could smell and taste the pyrazines as effectively as before. With the Lapierre 2021 I know that the sensations of the pyrazines is well and truly back 🙂 Oh well – the rest of the wines should last another year 😉

Health and happiness to you all in 2024 !!

A new report – 2022 whites Part 2 !

By billn on December 31, 2023 #reports

Viré-Clessé 2022Part 2 – the last day of the year! HERE !!

This is the second of my series focusing on the 2022 vintage and it contains 29 mainly white wine domaines from the Mâconnais – with a few gamays included for good measure. In 7 or 8 days will come the first (of two) red issues and this will include my vintage summary.

66 Domaines published, another 90-or-so are on their way 🙂

Wishing you all the best for your year-end celebrations !!

Burgundy Report

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