Last week, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of Domaine des Croix – doesn’t time fly !!

David put together a celebratory day which started with a look at the terroirs of Beaune. Of course, it was mainly illustrated by the wines of his own domaine, but he extended his coverage of the soils that make up Beaune’s 335.5 hectares of premier crus, with the presence of interesting wines from other producers too. Our discussion was more than ‘elevated’ by the presence of Françoise Vannier:

2021 Boris Champy, Beaune 1er Coucherias
Steep but also high and more south-facing than most of Beaune, and because of the slope, quite a modest depth of soil
Pretty, perfumed, cushioned red fruit with a small chalkiness. Sweeping, wide flavour character. Still red-fruited with a super vibration of wide finishing fruit – again with a small chalky note of finishing tannin. A wine in a quieter phase than 2-3 years ago, but with super length …

2021 Bouchard Père, Beaune 1er Clos de la Mousse
Bottom of the hill with hardly any slope. More marl soils and deeper…
Deeper, richer, darker, ripe red fruit. Widening and losing some of the darker elements as the aroma widens. More generous than the Coucherias and very silky – that’s a beautiful texture. A more energetic core of fine dark fruit. This is showing really well today, the finish retains its darker red fruit and width…

2021 des Croix, Beaune 1er Cent Vignes
From the bottom of the slope with an alluvial soil, it’s also an earlier ripening place.
Larger scale and perfumed energy. Round, slightly generous for the vintage. Wide, lovely energy. Slowly fading, delicious, slightly strict today in the finishing flavours, but it’s a strictness that won’t last. Still such a fine wine…

2021 Joseph Drouhin, Beaune 1er Clos des Mouches
The most southern Beaune 1er, bordering Pommard. Some Dolomite* in the soil here.
A modest generosity and immodest volume of fresh but darker, ripe red fruit. Large in scale – cool fruit – and it’s growing in stature, too. Then comes a super vibration of flavour energy that is rather wide. Far from the minerality of the last wine, but so drinkable and impressively long. What an excellent wine !!
*Limestone turns into ‘Dolomite’ when complexed with magnesium…

We had an interesting discussion of the effect of 2012-2014 hail on the vines of Pertuisots and the few years that followed, where (for a time) the Pertuisots was no longer the class of the cellar – it has now come back, firing on all cylinders, but it took a long time to recover…

And for the road, direct from the cellars of Chateau de Chorey:

1995 Benoit Germain, Beaune 1er Cras
Of course, some browning of the colour. The volume of aroma impresses, of course, also with a very different style of aromatic complexity – here with crushed red plum fruit and more a blend of flowers – there’s nothing primary here. Large in scale. Flavours of soil mixed with fruit – still framed with a young but now almost grainless tannin – now comparable to the 21s. Energy and full of delicious flavour. At this stage no comparison with the primary flavour of the other wines – but what a treat !!

Yes, there was only one – and if I don’t start drinking harder, I’ll never finish my cellar 🙂

2022 AF Gros, Moulin à Vent En Mortperay
I like this wax – flexible enough that it doesn’t shatter as the cork starts to rise…
The lightest of spice, the impression of width too, but it’s shy to start. Ooh, in the mouth that’s concentrated and oh-so silky. Really wide over the palate with the tiniest cushion of grainless tannin. The flavour, with a saline accent to the fine complexity, spreads really wide over the palate – almost panoramic. It’s a super-long finish too. Shy to start and lacking the energy of most Beaujolais, yet beautifully crafted in a Côte d’Or-ian style. A wine of class too!
Rebuy – Maybe

Today a blind wine:

Young colour. But this nose is not so young; freshness but also richness – slowly more floral – but some cushioned texture of- and the aroma of – middle-age. I find density to these flavours, so a warm vintage – or a warm end to the vintage(?) But with a good sizzle of acidity and plenty of floral references. The nose and flavours could say Folatières. Okay, middle-aged Folatières with some richness – so that could be 2015 but the sizzle of energy could say 2016 – Puligny avoided most of the 2016 frost (unlike Meursault) so the density can’t be from a very low crop, but could still be from a vintage finished well-ripened. So, I plump for 2016 Folatières – so I was close (actually 100m away) – that’s not bad in the context of the whole of the Côte d’Or 🙂
2016 Vincent Giradin, Puligny-Montrachet 1er Combettes

2022 Morey-Coffinet, Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Caillerets
A hint of extra colour after the 2024s. Impressive aromatic scale, with a sweetness to its cushioned complexity. Direct. The initial linearity gives way as the flavours spread over the palate. The finish is very wide – not quite panoramic – but getting there. Very long finishing, though in a discrete way… Impressively delicious wine…

As I’m making my tour of 2024s, there are often some older wines to taste, so why not include them here – better than a white space I think 😉

Domaine du Couvent, 3x 2023s…

Gevrey-Chambertin 1er La Romanée (Monopole)
Open, airy, red fruits. Mouth-filling, complex, lovely energy. With super finishing intensity. More excellent than the great that I felt last year, but still a wine to be happy to own !!

Clos de Vougeot
Fresh, open, lots of tiny aromatic complexities. So much extra density but still with fluid energy – now that’s already quite approachable and could be a great one – it’s so long lasting…

Nuits St.Georges 1er Aux Murgers
This was bottled in April, the previous 2 were done in July (2025)
Ooh, cordial fruit accented with an (almost) austerity of rose petals. So large in the, so muscular, almost too muscular for me, but without ever losing the perfume – I could be persuaded to take a second glass !!

2018 Pierre Cotton, Brouilly
Deeply coloured with a dark sweet fruit – still quite detailed but now showing a little age-related spice. Large scale in the mouth – like the nose with good detail but also layers of dark, sweet, fruit – maybe too sweet for more than 2 or 3 glasses 🙂 The last glass cloudy from sediment but still completely drinkable. It’s a lovely wine but to be honest, if I had more, I’d be drinking them…
Rebuy – Maybe

2022 Alvina Pernot, Meursault 1er Poruzot
Wax-topped with a strong, long cork however, despite the label being Poruzot with a Z, the cork is Porusot with an S – just saying!!
Depth of toasty aromas – there’s some impact but still plenty of freshness. Large scale in the mouth – oh yes – bright, intense, juicy wine – though with an overt sweetness of toasty oak in these finishing flavours. But it’s still delicious.
Rebuy – Yes

2022 Julien Duport, Côte de Brouilly La Boucheratte
As deep a colour as the Cotton from 2018. The aromas more incisive, more graphite but with equally dark fruit. Far from a wine of shyness – these dark, extrovert flavours have, like the nose, just a hint more incisive and architectural style to them. Also quite a sweet wine – from the dark, ripe fruit – not sugar – this one a mere 13.5% – but less overtly than the Cotton. A wine that drank beautifully over 3 nights – 2 good glasses a night and the bottle was empty! Drink or hold for another 20 years – a simply superb wine.
Rebuy – Yes

2019 Raphael Chopin, Beaujolais-Lantignie La Savoye
Dark colour. Dark fruit too but with very nice detail and nothing overdone. Mouth-filling with just enough softness – maybe just a mm or two of padding but here is silky, delicious, wine. Finishing wide over the palate then very slowly fading with a small uptick in intensity and a touch of graphite. Holding well too. Just a super, and still young, wine…
Rebuy – Yes

Triple Richebourg – nearly

First of all, this year has been a little different: For the very first time when tasting wines, when prompted with the thought ‘wait 10 years, better 15…‘ I’ve started calculating my own age in 15 years, and it takes me way past 3 score and ten! So I’ve started (roughly!) estimating how many bottles are in my cellar and even with an assumption that I will still be happily drinking at age 85, it seems that I have to drink 6 bottles every week for more than 20 years. Today I hardly drink 3 – and rarely actually finish any of those 3.

My cellar is intentionally an uncatalogued free-for-all: I love the intention of looking for bottle X but, by chance, first finding bottle Y – and drinking that instead. The Grivot in the image above was already standing in the cellar, waiting for Christmas, but I just happened on these other two when finding last week’s 2001 Bèze…

Just as I was partway through these bottles, I caught sight of note this week on the 99 Richebourg – brutal! So I put it back in the cellar for another 2-3 years – though my better half pointed out that maybe I shouldn’t be making plans for in 5 years(!!) so maybe I’ll open one anyway – as I do have more… 🙂

1974 du Clos Frantin, Richebourg
The domaine named after the parcel which is now called the Clos d’Eugénie – such a loss of history for this domaine. Plenty of black mold under the capsule. I opt for an Ah-So but the first touch of the prongs and the cork drops into the bottle – plop! I revert to a sieve and a carafe!
I didn’t dare properly smell the wine whilst filling the carafe but the colour and clarity were really not bad. Once in the glass – fresh, leafy though direct and a little metallic too – but really no faults – maybe the mold had made enough of a seal to keep the oxygen out !! In the mouth, a narrow, slightly mineral entry but then the wine widened out with good energy and many dimensions of sweet flavour. This was actually very tasty wine – to benchmark, honestly not better than a very good 2010 Chambolle 1er – but you enjoy it more when you take into account that it’s 50 years old and from a far from great vintage. Indeed all told, for the age and vintage this was still a great wine with such caveats in mind. I loved drinking three large glasses too. The tiny balsamic note from the first evening was hardly magnified on the second – not even even a trace of oxidation – given 24 hours in the carafe, and the age, what a robust performance!
Rebuy – No chance!

1985 François Gros, Richebourg
Bottle #79 of 320 – having previously drunk bottle #78 more than 10 years ago. Again with the Ah-So, this time a more robust but shockingly short cork.
Slightly less colour than the ’74. Cleaner smelling and similarly direct in character to the Frantin. A small but sweet start to these flavours and there’s extra structure visible too – but mild vs a 5-year-old villages! The middle flavours are a little more mineral but less ‘growing’ and less delicious too – it’s still very drinkable, but behind the ’74. A slight balsamic character – more than the 74 – but character is still an apt word for this performance. A long way from a great Richebourg – but still with the proper excitement of opening a 40-year-old wine. At roughly 30 years-old bottle 78 showed more oxidation – that’s old short corks for you – but at least this one didn’t fall into the bottle with the slightest touch!! Overall, I gave it to the Clos Frantin by a short head!
Rebuy – No Chance!

2024 Beaujolais Nouveau Cuvée Novalis
This is my local (Swiss) Coop’s wine. As always, producer details are opaque – ‘Coop Bâle’ are the only details – except that the wine originates from Beaujolais! Some years this is to protect the obviously guilty – as the wine can be so bad – but this year, it’s a pleasant surprise – particularly given the variability of the 20024 primeurs. I do ask myself who makes any money here – this, 2 weeks after Nouveau Day costs only 4.75 Swiss franc with its 20% discount. Screw-cap.
Modest colour. The nose needs a couple of swirls but quickly offers an open, clean, quite bubble-gum aromatic – it’s not bad. Decent width of fresh flavour and a properly juicy, almost creamy depth of very tasty flavour – I took a second glass. The tannin is ultra-fine with just a faint initial dryness but afterwards I didn’t really notice. For the price it’s excellent – and I can’t say that every year about the Coop’s wine…
Rebuy – Why not!

2009 Gilles Bouton, Chassagne-Montrachet Les Voillenots Dessous
This was far from my favourite vintage on release – it seemed just too ripe – little did I know that this would be the template for just about every vintage post (and including) 2015!
Neither a deep colour, nor an obviously ripe nose – in fact this nose starts a little meagre. The palate too – there’s decent scale but a herby complexity and an obvious structure – the the finish is quite good. This is a wine that still needs some aging because on day 2 it was more acceptably softer and accommodating in flavour – it was quite good. At this stage not good enough to make a special search to buy – but a serviceable bottle. Probably much more approachable in 4-5 years…
Rebuy – No

2001 Frédéric Esmonin, Chambertin Clos de Bèze
2002 is a more consistent vintage than 2001 – but most of the best wines come from 2001 – there I said it!! I break far too many corks in bottles that are pre-2010 so I went straight for the Ah-So – so no problems.
More than medium colour but clearly a colour with some maturity. Ooh! That’s deep – and it’s inviting too – a silky depth of macerating red fruit and darker cherries – far from tertiary. Mouth-filling and silky too. Here is energy and complexity – some last vestiges of creamy oak but only as part of a large scale of complexity. Still some small finishing bitters too – but already quite silken. The finish haunting. More sensual than ‘grand’ as the structure is so hidden – but sensual works for me too*
Rebuy – Yes