Tasted in Courgis with Alice de Moor, 11 January 2023.
Alice & Olivier De Moor
4 rue Jacques Ferrand
89800 Courgis
Tel: +33 3 86 41 47 94
www.aetodemoor.fr
More reports with Domaine Alice et Olivier de Moor
Alice on 2022:
“it was a good vintage – we were a little touched by the frost but in the end, the vines recovered well and we have a good volume – though not to the level of 2018.”
Alice on 2021:
“The worst was 2016 but in total, it’s roughly half a harvest in our chardonnay – we lost ‘only’ about 1/3 in the aligotés – but we kept a bit of 2020 back so we can still sell some of those together with the 21s. We weren’t really frosted in the later-starting aligotés but we had some rot that developed in the wet growing season – and so the losses were down to triage. 2013 was a bit more ripe but 2001 has some similarities to 2021.”
The wines…
Always quirky, almost always delicious. This year I tasted plenty of wines worth a special search. As always, well done!
Vendengeur Masqué Caravan
The return of the caravan – Riesling 21 (from Alsace) plus Bourgogne Blanc 2020 – so no vintage on this label.
A round ripe but still fresh nose – very different but also very appealing. Round in the mouth too – generous, clean and really very tasty – the intensity growing. The finish has width and sustains well. ‘We liked this and might do it again!’
2021 Bourgogne Aligoté
The aligotés did really well in 2021 – over 13° We started our domaine harvest 1st September and did some négoce vineyards in August. This not yet in bottle – so a sample. Probably to bottle in February.
There’s depth as well as width to this nose – ripe citrus in style. Lovely energy aided by faint CO2 – mobile, fine texture – just a gorgeous thing. Delicious – far too easy to drink – simply an excellent wine!
An airy, slightly saline almost apricot fruit to this attractive nose. Broad, with wonderful clarity and growing intensity – stopping short of being too intense. Silky wine, mineral too but different to ‘Chablis.’ The finish is agreeably tasty – agrume in style but complex. A great Bourgogne as in many other years!
2021 Bourgogne Blanc Vendangeur Masqué
Masqué is normally for contracts, but this is actually two (newish, 2016 and 2018) domaine vines that are in conversion to bio.
Here the nose is more vertical – there’s still width but less. More open, again with a (faster) growing intensity. The clarity of flavour is again super. Fine finishing again – another excellent wine.
These wines mainly bottled in November, some in August:
Only one cuvée of Chablis villages this year.
A more mineral width – accented with a faint reduction which quickly fades. Incisive, cool fruit, mineral and complex – always with the (house style) sweet-sour, moreish acidity. Holding a beam of finishing flavour that goes very long. Always a singular style, always a pleasure! Bravo!
We pass to the 2020 vintage:
2020 Bourgogne Aligoté 1902
Date of the plantation. Not yet bottled – maybe this year 😊 A wine that has taken many, many months to finish its sugars – when it had 4g/l they considered bottling with a filtration – now it’s 2.8 and still fermenting – so they stay patient!
A different nose – too easy to say ‘sweet’ – but it’s so – almost some mirabelle style fruit! Mouth-filling, a small bead of CO2, not obviously sweet, the texture is fine and silky and there’s a certain generosity to this wine. Long – very tasty!
A more guarded, compact, nose but still pure and fresh – ripe fruit. More generous – there’s some depth to the texture here but the moreish acidity of the domaine is ever-present and so juicily takes you into the middle and finishing flavours. That’s another far too delicious wine! Bravo!
2020 Chablis 1er Vau de Vey
A more airy nose – a little textural. Here is both volume and energy – really a vibrant but never too intense middle and finishing flavour – so good. – Is there an ultra-faint pyrazine in the nose? – Maybe yes, maybe no but it’s damn delicious wine all the same.
New labels for the 1er crus – are those tall trees or are they extra-high-trained vines…? One-third elevage in amphora.
This is fine; crystalline yet ripe fruit – jellied. Airy, fluid, mobile flavours – that’s top-level wine. Just a wine you could drink at practically any age. Bravo!
Back to 2021:
2021 Saint Bris ‘Sans Bruit’
All amphora elevage for this cuvée – ‘and for a change no residual sugar!’
Ooh – that’s a beauty – the menthol of the cepage but beautifully delivered. A mix of wiry, athletic muscle and velvet texture. Still with an attractive juiciness in the finish too. Finishing broader and with a more herbed-minerality. Beautiful.
Shall we finish with a little grenache? Why not! This from the Luberon:
2021 Le Vendangeur Masqué Grenache
Harvested 8-9 October. Three weeks fermentation with whole bunches. ‘It was 14° but tasted more like 12-12.5° – our first red grenache!’
Medium-plus colour. That’s got a nicely airy aromatic character with a perfumed red berry-style of fruit. There’s good sweetness of fruit here, maybe with a little licorice at the base – but this is no dark-fruit monster – there is freshness and perfume. Very drinkable wine with just enough generosity to cushion it.