2021 Domaine Chevallier, Chablis
There’s no markings – other than domaine markings – but this looks like a Nomacorc – hopefully the second generation…
Here’s a super and quite broad freshness of citrus and salinity – starting riper but opening more and more ith air – what more could I ask? Like the nose a wine of width and a small cushion that adds generosity. The finishing flavours, like the nose, with an accent of salinity and just the faintest lick of phenolics – a little tannin. No pretensions, just a very good villages Chasblis.
Rebuy – Yes

2005 des Croix, Bourgogne
David Croix’s firts vintage with his new domaine. This Bourgogne massively outperformed even this great vintage – helped not just by his winemaking but also by the fact that it contained plenty of villages Beaune and Savigny. It went through a phase where it was a little too fruity – almost cordial in style – but it seems that was a phase. Now it’s all working out fine…
Still deeply coloured. The nose still has plenty of creamy oak framing the fruit – but now it’s starting to show the first suggestion of a little maturity. Supple with a texture of velour – just a tiny, tiny grain of completely ripe tannin supports the flavours. Not a high-strung or structured wine but rather one that is round, ripe and very well shaped – a wine of generosity – shape and flavour – yet never fat or heavy. The label indicates 12.5% alcohol – I might have guessed more – but it drinks very well – a little too well, the bottle is emptying fast! Approaching 20 years old this wine is just about ready!
Rebuy – Yes

2017 Agnès & Jean Foillard, Morgon Côte du Py
A strong cork – unlike the one of the de Croix which fell into multiple pieces.
This is dark-red fruit territory with the classical, seemingly lactic background Foillard flavours – but open, clean and very attractive. The des Croix is fuller and very delicious whilst this has a bit more fresh energy – and is also very delicious! The texture is of velour – very modest and ripe tannin supports the flavour – but from the middle to finishing flavours this has a little more open style and energy – withe extra – but attractive – finishing bitters – no surprise on the bitters as this is a baby vs the de Croix. This is very attractive wine right now…
Rebuy – Yes

2020 Domaine Alain Gautheron, Chablis 1er Homme Mort
Here’s a cuvée that developed some green notes – but my nose is seemingly not on green form today as I can’t smell it – but I know that it’s still there – because my better half can still smell it!
Today this has such a lovely nose – vibrating with energy and cool, clean aromas. In the mouth it’s equally vibrant and quite mouth-filling too – impressive complex wine. Delicious.
Rebuy – Maybe

2016 M&C Lapierre, Morgon
The no-sulfur version. And here was a test for it: Opened by Mathieu Lapierre on Thursday afternoon, direct from his cold cellar at the domaine. But then the rest of Thursday and for most of Friday the bottle (stoppered only with its original cork) lay in the back of my car before arriving home in Switzerland. The first 2 glasses were taken on Friday evening – the wine then glass-stoppered in my Fridge until Sunday evening (we were at friends for dinner on Saturday) when I drank the last two glasses.
This was very stable from first to last. A broad nose, finely red fruited with a little vibration of energy, these aromas become ever-more direct and impressive. A juicy wine, still with some modest tannin and fine waves of finishing flavour. This was delicious and ultra-impressively stable for a no-sulfur wine!
Rebuy – Yes

Week(-end) 8 2023:

Ah, my memory is going – it must be my age!

I found this 2009 in the cellar (and there’s more!) and thought to myself ‘well, I have 2008 and 2010 but I don’t remember having any 2009.‘ Fortunately the search function of this site has a much better memory than I!

2009 wasn’t my favourite vintage to start – it was just sooo ripe. Given that almost every vintage since 2015 has been equally, or more, ripe – perhaps I’m more tolerant – despite my old age!

2009 Camille Giroud, Bourgogne Cuvée L
A beautiful, darker, Trescases cork – robust and with hardly 1mm of wine ingress – the end so darkly painted by this wine.
Medium-plus colour. The nose is now a little smoky – it gives the impression of oak – but swirling releases redder fruit and perhaps something floral too – these aromas are concentrated and, of course, ripe – but never too ripe. Broad over the palate, the merest ripple of tannin in support. A luxurious depth of flavour and texture – obviously not really ‘Bourgogne.’ Holding well in the finish too. This wine is crystal clear/clean, aromatic and with such generosity of top-class flavour. It’s absolutely drinkable yet still a baby. Bravo! – It must have been very well triaged 😉
Rebuy – Yes

2019 Raphaël Chopin, Beaujolais-Lantignié Blanc Theia
Lemon yellow. An easy nose, attractive depth and some interest – that’s a nice start. A supple width of sweet flavour then a wave with saline accents before a more mineral finish – slowly mouth-watering. I’d guess blind that it was a Beaujolais from the rigour of this finishing minerality but it’s not too strong and this is a very good BJVB!
Rebuy – No

1999 Jean-Marc Pavelot, Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Les Dominode
Not only this bottle, I seem to have an unopened 6-pack too – so no excuse for not opening one! Only 20 years older than the white!
This still has deep colour – and not too much browning either. The first impression from this nose is of soil and blood – with plenty of air it takes on a more attractive and fruity (red) impression but remains a slightly young (but clean!) aromatic. In the mouth I like the shape – there’s the cool, still austere, impression given by most Savigny of this era – but this is structurally very fine and, like the nose, it’s very clean – there’s no bret. Even on day two – no degradation – a clean and very impressive wine – I just wish that it was more delicious – but it seems very youthful!
Rebuy – Maybe

2020 Château de la Terrière, Brouilly Tradition
Open, airy – lovely dark-red fruit – slowly becoming floral too. Extra juicy – ooh that’s a super wine – the energy visible in all directions, visibly making the finish longer and more dynamic. What a wine!
Rebuy – Yes

2015 des Chézeaux/Berthaut-Gerbet, Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cazetiers
For a warm vintage, this colour is not so deep – medium-plus. A broad and aromatic nose – a hint of the spice of the vintage but not too much – seemingly silky and slowly adding depth with more air. Large-scale in the mouth – easy over the palate but there’s some structure here too – the flavour becoming more and more intense. 2015 is a long way from my favourite vintage but here’s a wine with energy and a really nice, sinewy, shape. Longer in the glass and it seems ever-more delicious. Modest finishing bitters and just a faint wash of tannin showing through those bitters. Super-long. I have at least one more but based on this – for drinking in another 10 years. It’s more than excellent for the vintage – it’s also very tasty!
Rebuy – Yes

I was never the biggest fan of the 2007 vintage – the reds anyway! A bit too ripe and missing the clarity of 2005, 2006 or even the 2008 wines – sometimes with a soupy style to the flavours. 2009 was a little better for my palate – but not a lot! I bought much less 2007 than in either 2006 or 2008 and massively less than in 2005. The rare bottles I open at home seem to have plateaued for a number of years now, they have been ripe and easy but far from special – or indeed, hardly worth the amount I paid for them 13-14 years ago – so let’s not talk about their current pricing! I hoped for a bit more from this one – it turned out not too bad:

2007 Lucie & Auguste Lignier, Clos de la Roche
A famous parcel of vines, now exploited by Kellen Lignier’s brother-in-law, Laurent. A thick, brittle, coating of brown wax in place of a capsule for this wine. The cork had done its job but came precariously close to splitting in half on extraction.
Good colour, without significant ageing. The nose started with a coating, almost a smothering of creamy oak – quite a lot for a 15-year-old wine – but with air and a little time, the oak became much less visible and it even developed a little, interesting, floral perfume. Otherwise, the nose was mainly of more simple ripe fruit and not too much in the way of age-related complexity – it seemed it was still a baby. Mouth-filling, some dark-cherry fruit and a mix of fine concentration and silky texture – the texture turning a little more towards velour as a small grain of tannin came to the surface. In the finish – at last! – there was some impressive complexity and a slight mineral aspect that became more and more appealing. I think I also have a magnum of this – and the more this wine develops, the more pleased I am about that – but given how young the wine shows and how overt the oak still is – I don’t think the magnum should be opened for 10 years.
Rebuy – Yes

2017 Clotilde Davenne, Saint-Bris Vieilles-Vignes
There’s a certain mineral rigour to this nose that reminds me of most Beaujolais Blancs – it’s not very inviting. Just about balancing that, was the faint menthol of the sauvignon blanc – so I correctly guessed blind that it was Saint-Bris – less impressively I said ‘clearly from 2017’ – because I knew that was the only Saint-Bris in the door of the cellar fridge 😉 I had a small amount of time in the sun! In the mouth, this is altogether more impressive than the nose suggests – starting direct and beautifully silky but then almost exploding across the palate in mineral fashion with a ripeness of citrus fruit and lots of energy too. The finish broad and recapturing the mintiness of the nose. A good finish. The nose is ‘so-so’ today but the rest of this wine is on a very excellent, high, level.
Rebuy – Yes

2021 Quatre Chemins, Petit Chablis
The second 2021 at home. DIAM-style seal (Trescases)
Plenty of colour. DIAM-style (Trescases!) reduction – so give a little air – or give it a strong shake or two. Fleshy, citrus soon takes over with an aromatic, airy top note. Mouth-filling, with a little more structure than the 21 Brocard PC of a few days ago – more burly – but still of energy and no lack of mineral steel supporting the citrus flavours. Slowly fading in mouth-watering style. That’s very tasty indeed.
Rebuy – Yes

1999 Ghislaine Barthod, Chambolle-Musigny
A sturdy cork that comes out in one – pale as if of the bleached variety – but there’s not much ingress of wine along the length.
Still lots of colour. The nose starts a little tight and suggestive of some brett but grows and grows with air – I have the impression that the brett stays on one level whilst all around engulfs it, making it practically redundant – sweet red fruit and flowers, becoming a proper, cliché, Chambolle. Direct, cool fruit, the texture now of silk, though the very last, chocolatey, flavours with the faintest chalky tannin texture. The bitters at the very end of the finish are merely accents. A wine of width and acid-led freshness like you will have hardly met in the last 10 years – even not in 2021 – but with such impeccable balance. This is the best that this cuvée has tasted since it was a delicious young pup about 18-19 years ago – the 1999s are coming! I’m sure that on day two the brett will be more obvious – so I’ll try not to leave any 😉
Rebuy – Yes

Perhaps it’s because Ghislaine, herself, is so welcoming, or perhaps it’s because the wines that you taste from barrel there are so fruity, floral and delicious, that I think that people often underestimate the wines – or put another way, overestimate their early drinkability! Ghislaine makes wine with steely backbones – I’ve waited a long time for her 1999s to start to show some accessible maturity – I think that they are only now starting to turn the corner!

I seem to have a number of vintages of this cuvée, and particularly in 2011 I was careful only to buy wines with no detectable (to me) pyrazine – it helped that I was triaging the ladybugs myself with this one 😉 It certainly worked out well in this case! I have older vintages 08 and 09 among them – but I thought the rounder, ‘tender,’ 2011 might be the best choice – that worked out too:

2011 Camille Giroud, Corton-Rognets
A great cork – only 1-2 mm of wine ingress along its length. Transparent but still a good depth colour. This nose still swirls with a bit more oak than I would like – smoky-creamy – but the nose seems quite silky and inviting – almost a little saline too – becoming more vibrant with time. Hmm, now that sits very nicely on the palate, silky wine of quite some depth of flavour, the salinity of the nose being even more overt in the middle to finishing flavours. Fading nicely. True to the vintage this is a wine with super finesse though no ‘iron fist.’ I thought of the word ‘graceful’ while drinking but felt that it implied a lack of material – this wine lacks for very little! But there is obviously no rush to drink – I’d wait 3-4 more years to see if the oak fades more – it only seems to be fading glacially though…
Rebuy – Yes

A couple more to add to the wines of the weekend:

2020 Alice & Olivier de Moor, Bourgogne Aligoté
A deep, vibrant nose – classic de Moor. In the mouth too a small bead of CO₂ prickling the tongue and pushing the energy further. Concentrated but almost dynamic flavour. Persistent and delicious. Never cheap but again, classic de Moor.
Rebuy – Yes

2019 Raphael Chopin, Beaujolais Funambule
The no sulfur cuvée of declassified Beaujolais Villages
This is holding up very well – the nose still with fine purity. Deeply flavoured and accommodatingly textured this is in fine shape – pure, sweet and delicious – again – always with fine energy. Yum!
Rebuy – Yes

I think that these wines are pertinent to the doomsday pricing impression left by my most recent post/repost. It’s important for me to to show you that drinking burgundy – and I use the term in its widest geographical sense – is not only about wines that cost hundreds (or much more!) per bottle – it would be so much less interesting if there weren’t wines that everybody could share and enjoy.

So here’s a couple of bottles, that, at retail, probably wouldn’t cost you much more than €25 – I bought them direct from the domaines – as could you, if you had the chance to visit – and they cost me under €25 the pair, no discounts. This, in itself, is a talking-point: If you want quality work, organic and durable – should any wine cost less than €15 a bottle? – I personally think not!

2021 Julien Brocard, Petit Chablis Les Plantes
I bought this and the 21 Chablis Boisonneuse when last there – they didn’t have a lot of 21 left! But readers of my reports will know of my enthusiasm for these biodynamically produced wines.
Open, citrus-fresh and addictively inviting. Mouth-filling with mineral energy, then comes the wave of citrus that widens the palate even as you head into the finish. Juicy, moreish wine – exceptional for the label. Bravo.
Rebuy – Yes

2019 Clos de la Roilette, Fleurie Clos de la Roilette
Dark colour. Aromatically broad but perfumed and fresh. Direct, silky wine but showing some muscle too but there’s a fluidity to these fleshy flavours that keeps me coming back for another sip. Impeccable!
Rebuy – Yes

Normally, here I might offer you some images of my time in Chablis last week – but given the grey, cold and damp – I decided to save the battery on my camera 🙂