2022 The Odd Couple,Santa Rita Hill California – Sandford & Benedict Vineyards
And people laugh at the length of some burgundy wine names! (Retired) Flying winemaker David Lloyd and friend of Burgundy Report’s wine – one of many. A resounding pop as the diam leaves the neck of the bottle.
Medium plus colour – soft red fruit aromatics with a warm, rounding oak spice. Filling the mouth well. There’s a small textural cushion but with good fluidity and clarity to the red fruit – like the nose, framed with the light oak-spice and a finishing sucrosity, maybe partly from the barrel. Plenty of very fine-grained tannic bitters in this finish. Tasty but missing the x-factor…
Rebuy – Maybe

2022 Thenard, Pernand-Vergelesses 1er Île des Vergelesses
Trescases, NDtec cork – about as long a name as you will find in Burgundy 🙂
Darker colour. The nose is wider, with darker fruit – also a small accent from the barrel, but not spiced – these aromas with a bit more detail and incision plus a modest floral perfume. Much larger in the mouth, with sweet, creamy barrel flavours too – I’d wait a couple more years before opening the next one. Wide finishing wine – I like the texture and the personality more here. This is a simply excellent young wine – I love it!!
Rebuy – Yes

Lucky enough to taste – pre-bottling…

2024 Bourgogne Aligoté Sous Chatelet
Vines from 1937
Fresh to notes – a little yellow citrus. A small touch of gas, but still vibrant and zesty. I might not guess Aligoté, but I recognise how much I love it – super and intense…

2024 St.Romain
Broader, fuller, more cushioned aromas – lovely. Also some gas. Long, mouth-filling, juicy wine – again in a zesty style, but here with extra depth of flavour. So long and delicious…

2024 Meursault Vireuils
Linear styled aromas – faintly spiced, faintly aniseed. Gas, with slowly melting flavour – at first incisive and the support is more generous, but still mineral behind. The longest of these with a certain calm to the finishing notes…

Today, it’s hard to look past the aligoté !!

It can’t always be Romanée St.Vivant – well, not for that many weeks, anyway 🙂

2017 William Fevre, Chablis
A satisfying ‘pop’ from the diam seal.
Starting reticent, but these aromas have a nice zesty citrus skin complexity – the dis/advantage of the diam instantly clear, it’s just a matter of perspective. Clean, pure and young, with only suggestions of mature notes despite being an ‘older’ wine. Wide, mineral, modestly juicy with an underlying delicious energy. Not the impact of its youth, but still a super wine – and this finish, I love it!
Rebuy – Yes

2012 David Clark, Côte de Nuits Villages
I still have a fair quantity of David’s wines in the cellar – this is not a special showing though. A fine, strong cork.
Lots of colour here – though not a young colour. Dark. Mineral, railway sleepers aromatic. Nicely mouth-filling with a silky cushion from the concentration – the flavour is fine and fading, though far from demonstrative. Subtly long with emphasis on the subtle. Half elegant, half leaving me asking for more – but there’s the nice purity of the vintage.
Rebuy – Maybe

2021 Laurent Tribut, Chablis
A robust and sweet-smelling cork…
A generous width of aroma – of cushioned, modestly ripe citrus. In the mouth, we have good scale and a slowly melting, slightly saline accent to the rounder, more generous flavours than was the case 3 years ago. The middle to finishing flavours are wide, mineral and have a tiny note of barrel caramel. Very, classy, delicious wine – yum!
Rebuy – Yes

2021s from Chablis, in general, no-longer show the effervescent citrus energy of their youth – they have become rather classic as they age in bottle i.e. they are much less the acquired taste (citrus acidity) of their youth. I’m glad that I recommend so many of those young wines – this is really such an enjoyable Chablis vintage right now!

The old label to the left – this wine. To the right, the new label – to drink another day…

2019 Jeremy Recchione, Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Nuits
‘Only’ 13% – modest for 2019.
Deep colour with pure, silky, dark fruit aromas – apart from a little supporting smoky roundness, there’s nothing to suggest ‘no added sulfur.’ Wide, fluid, beautifully textured wine – clearly with fine concentration. Like the nose, here are dark fruited flavours – juicy and lingering on a super line of acidity. Love this energy and width of finishing flavour – different dimensions of finishing flavour. Just a small finishing grain of tannin. What a supremely fine, delicious Bourgogne!
Rebuy – Yes

Only one at home this weekend:

2022 Jane Eyre, Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Aux Vergelesses
There’s some density to this red-fruited aroma, but it’s a compact, not-so-open style today. It sits well in the mouth, with slightly generous, cushioned red fruit – and clearly I’m drinking this too young, as, apart from some middle stony minerality, there’s a little too much creamy-caramel oak. The effect today is delicious, but I still prefer my wine to taste more of wine! I’d wait another couple of years before returning – but completely delicious, if a touch more ‘easy’ than I remember from tasting at the domaine.
Rebuy – Yes

A wine that I tasted blind, loved, and later bought. It was this wine that brought me to the young domaine of Alexandra de Vazeilles in Fleurie.

Now under new ownership, Bachelards became, for a short time, the pinnacle of the gamay grape, and the year I tasted their 2019s it was the greatest estate that I visited – including all the other visits in the Côte d’Or!

2014 Château des Bachelards, St.Amour
Exemplifying what DIAM can bring, 10 years in the bottle and not 1mm of colour ingress on the ‘cork.’ Also, a satisfying ‘pop’ as it exits the bottle.
What an impressively dark, young colour! The first aromas arediscrete but silky, dark fruit, even a little graphite, before hints of flowers. Fine width over the palate and an expanding flavour that is gently supported by a little creaminess. Very slowly, elegantly finishing – narrow but long – almost linear. Ageless !!
Rebuy – Yes

Weekend drinking…

2012 des Croix, Beaune 1er Les Grèves
A cork that easily snaps in 2 with the waiter’s friend, but the centimetre that remains on the neck is well enough lodged that the ah-so doesn’t move it down – it was easily removed.
Ooh! Deep, dark and a little, attractively, dirty – it does get cleaner and tedder – cushioned even – but those first notes were still very attractive. Mouth-filling, cushioned, enveloping flavour – and the hallmark of the vintage: clarity and delineation of the flavours – just as I hoped. And, today it’s quite open too – time to start testing some other 2012s!! Really super…
Rebuy – Yes