2005 Louis Latour Meursault-Blagny 1er Château de Blagny
Medium-pale yellow. The nose is wide and dense, with deep with a concentrated core of chunky pineapple – you have to wait for quite some time before higher-toned, more floral aspects, eventually peek through. Fresh and ebullient on the tongue, starting narrow and widening on the mid-palate. ‘Just enough’ acidity comes late and there’s a nice extra edge of slightly chalky fruit flavour as you go into the finish. The texture is good and so is the flavour, but there’s far from exciting concentration. I would need a little more acid ‘cut’ before I could describe this as mineral. Tasty and clean but initially hard to get worked up about. Right until the bottle was drained, this wine continued to improve. It didn’t speak to me enough to make me want to re-buy, but the wine at the end (3 hours) was far better than the start.
Rebuy – Maybe

Domaine Les Perrières is based in Gevrey, and seemed to be appreciated by RMP Jr himself – including this particular wine – when he published his 1989 ‘Burgundy’ book. RMP noted that proprietor François Perrot made wine from a 2.77 acre parcel of Petit Chapelles – Matt Kramer’s book of the same year lists SC Les Perrières as owning just 1.6 acres, so he must have been farming additional parcels too. So what happened to the domaine? Well it still seems to exist, semi-anonymously, maybe it’s worth a visit…
Anyway, this wine is another auction purchase – I also got a coupe of bottles of ‘64 Clos de Bèze, but don’t expect to be opening those any time soon – given the bizarre performance of this bottle I may open another next week (I got 6) – at least they were cheap. Some you win, ….
1980 les Perrières, Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Petites Chapelles
The cork comes out in one piece only with the intervention of an ‘Ah So’ two-pronged ‘corkscrew’ and is incredibly deeply coloured at the wine-facing side. This still has a high fill – only 1cm from the cork. Lots of fine sediment in the bottom of this bottle so it needs plenty of care pouring – it needed 4 days upright to clear. Medium mahogany-red/brown colour but red is still dominant. The nose – ah; sweaty socks, cheese, soil and maybe a hint of Madeira – I think it’s time to take a coffee and return at leisure. Okay, 3 hours later: if anything the nose is slightly worse with a dominant smell of sugary beef-stock. The palate is smoothly textured and shows some fat and good acidity – whatever’s in there has good concentration, but the nose is so overpowering that (whether the flavour is really in there or not) everything seems to be smothered by the beef-stock. Unusual, and not really what I might expect for heat damage. After 5 hours the nose is almost becoming bearable and the palate is rather fine – but that was as good as it got!
Rebuy – No

Bottle number two was exactly the same, 4 more remain…

2005 Bertagna, Vougeot 1er Clos des Perrières
Deep cherry-red colour. The nose opens with fine, high-toned, red and black berry notes over a deeper, brooding core of fruit – eventually there’s a lovely pure redcurrant note in the emptying glass. In the mouth the acidity starts just a shade bright on the tongue though it contributes to a good, slowly lingering finish. Perhaps it was me, but 30 minutes in the acidity seemed okay. Tight, linear fruit with buried soft tannin and an understated, almost ethereal extra dimension of fruit on the mid-palate that follows also into the finish. Very excellent but other bottles should be left for at least 10 years.
Rebuy – Yes

I picked up a few bottles of this at a recent auction – for a relative song if they taste halfway good! The Savour Club still exists in Belgium/Germany/France/Switzerland as a wine merchant, though today they don’t seem (as in this case) to be so actively using their own labels and acting as a négociant. These bottles proudly wear a back label saying that the cuvée “est recommandée par Pierre Troisgros, Restauranteur à Roanne aux membres du Savour Club” – apparently Pierre was an ‘advisor’ to the club. Well that’s a big build-up, question is, is the wine any good?
1991 Savour Club, Chapelle-Chambertin
Differing from the label, the cork is actually printed with Chapelles-Chambertin – perhaps that means it comes from both parts – Chapelle and Gémeux – or maybe not! The colour is medium, medium-plus ruby red with just a little amber showing at the edge. The nose is a wonderfully soft, truffly, eventually mocha affair – swirling will bring out some soil and leaf notes. In the mouth it has sweetness, some fat and soft texture from still present, relatively fine tannin. There’s a nice extra edge of intensity in the mid-palate and ‘just right’ acidity to whisk you into a good, long finish – should it have a bit more grand cru density? – perhaps, but there is quite enough grand cru ‘flavour authority’. Fabulous wine, still just a bit of tannic bitterness too. This might be well over 15 years old, and whilst it’s still a lovely drink now, it frankly needs another 3-5 years for full maturity. What a shame there were only 8 bottles of this in the ‘lot’…
Rebuy – Yes

The label assumes that you know that ‘Volnay Clos Des Chênes’ is a premier cru as there is no mention of ‘rank’. This is far from a cheap bottle – 70 Swiss francs – but the tariff is in-line with several producers’ current 1er cru offerings from the Côte de Beaune, it also has the benefit of another 8 years of aging, though clearly a lot 1998’s needed it…
1998 Maison Leroy, Volnay 1er Clos des Chênes
Deep ruby-red colour. The nose is herbal and meaty with background sweetness and quite some sense of maturity. In the mouth there is the rasp of ’98 tannins, but they are rather a background element. More to the fore is the sweet but freshly packaged fruit – quite some secondary flavour development again with some of that herbal element and lots of sweet and wide mid-palate flavour. Complex and very well balanced with plenty of time on it’s side it’s a world away from 2005/2006’s but that’s no negative. This is actually not bad value for a Leroy and I may indeed buy a couple more for 5-10 years down the line.
Rebuy – Yes

Hmm, it’s a couple of weeks since I had a nice bottle, this really made up for it!
2005 Louis Jadot, Beaune 1er Clos des Ursules
Medium-plus ruby-red colour with some purple still at the rim. The nose starts robustly, full with dark fruit – similar to the 2005 Pierre Morey Bourgogne – but offering a purer darker core of fruit – time in the glass gives this a narrower, more blueberry impression. Though well balanced, the palate seems rather tight, though the extra mid-palate dimension and corresponding length is on a super level, it really does linger. A super bottle.
Rebuy – Yes

It would be hard to guess that this came from the same vineyard as the recent Faiveley Santenots. The Faiveley was more butch, and perhaps longer – an ‘hommage’ to the style of Lafon – but the width and complexity of fruit here seems more ‘Volnay’ though the oak needs to fade a little more. Today I’d drink the Faiveley, tomorrow the Rossignol, though at the weekend I’m not sure – choice is no bad thing!
2005 Nicolas Rossignol, Volnay 1er Santenots
Medium, medium-plus ruby-red colour with some purple still at the rim. The nose was overwhelmed by dark, slightly toasty oak for the first couple of minutes, wait and there’s a lovely width of beautiful fruit but it unfortunately still holds onto a slightly reductive-style oak base. Good intensity, and again the fruit is lovely, complex and occasionally shows a little creamy edge. Very well balanced but again with plenty of background reduction/oak – that said, it’s almost gone after about 90 minutes. This is lovely and if the oak fades further, it will be even better than that! For drinking now, open 2 hours before, or decant 20 minutes then pour.
Rebuy – Yes

2003 Lignier-Michelot, Morey St.Denis Vieilles Vignes
Medium-plus colour. The nose is forward, maybe a hint porty and certainly very ripe but generally the fruit talks of pinot. Ripe, plenty of concentration and very well mannered tannin. The understated acidity provides good balance and just enough freshness. It’s riper than I prefer, but if the nose talks of pinot then fruit on the palate clearly says burgundy. A good effort.
Rebuy – Maybe