When I did my big tasting in Beaujolais, way back in April, there was a problem with one producer’s wine – so he asked if he could send a replacement – and while we were at it, why not the whole range?

Domaine Bertrand
“Bonnège”
69200 Charentay
Tel: +33 4 74 66 85 96
www.domainebertrand.fr

2015 Beaujolais Villages
Medium-plus colour. Fresh, a little herby, but with some flashes of pretty and precise red fruits. An obvious BJ fruit but also with vivacity and energy. Packing a mid-palate punch, this is a tasty wine which holds a great finish for the label. I like!

2014 Brouilly Pisse-Vielle
This time the back label says only Brouilly.
An open and fresh nose, perhaps a little smoke and menthol too. Much fresher wine, lots of energy with the backing of lots of herb-inflected fresh fruit. Bigger in the mouth but less fine than the Vuril. Impressively finishing, but I prefer the last wine.

2014 Fleurie
Modestly medium-plus coloured. Pinched top notes but a deeper bass-line of fresh fruit – it seems a little tight, but this nose remains very inviting. Lots of energy and complexity here – perhaps a little minerality too. A super, narrow line of intense flavour, perhaps with a hint of licorice in the finishing flavours. Tasty!

2013 Moulin-à-Vent Cuvée Infini(ment)
Deeper colour. Here is a nose that takes a little time to unwind but slowly offers more and more dark fruits edged with a little after-eight mintiness – cold from the fridge (it’s 30°C outside) there’s a clear creamy, oaky-vanilla impression, but as the wine warms it’s gone. Supple, and concentrated, here is some herb-edged dark fruit – but this is a wine of concentration – super texture and just a little bitter-chocolate finishing flavours to add to the fine blackcurrant fruit. Of all these, this is the one that would most obviously benefit from more cellar time – but I like the fact that it’s showing no obvious oak artifacts at a correct drinking temperature, despite its 25 months in barrel. Really super! I re-checked this on day 2, and the oak impression was much more forward – not my favourite when showing like this – but you should probably wait another 5 years…

To drink today, I think I’m going to take the Brouilly Vuril – a good set of wines…

2015 Beaujolais Blanc
From an argilo-calcaire soil.
Medium-pale lemon yellow colour. A pungently deep, sweet nose – some boiled sweets perhaps. Mouth-filling and with quite some concentration of sweet fruit, almost a little cloying – yet the acidity seems not so bad. A frank wine…

Two worthy wines, one of which offered much more pizzazz…

2011 Nicolas Rossignol, Volnay 1er Roncerets
There’s just a trace of oak on both the nose and flavours to this wine – nothing overdone, it’s just a faint accent. The wine itself is much more subdued than all the other 2011s I’ve drunk from Nico. It’s a tasty wine yet it’s also a wine that makes me think that I’m missing something. Quite possibly it has been scalped by the cork.
Rebuy – Maybe

2007 Camille Giroud, Chapelle-Chambertin
I seem to remember that the last time I tasted this wine it was a bit tight, surly and young. That’s really not the case today. The colour is rather light – certainly more-so than last weekend’s Camille Giroud 07 Cazetiers. This nose is almost but not quite as good as that wine – there’s a hint of a harder minerality in the aromas here – but wonderful depth of aroma too. In the mouth this belies its colour, offering dimensions of flavour with great clarity. Actually I’d still put it behind the Cazetiers for clarity, precision and deliciousness, but this is way improved on the last time I tried! And still yum!
Rebuy – Yes

Well, the 2007 Camille Giroud Cazetiers was simply brilliant; a floral-inflected fruit of freshness and purity that you rarely find in an 07. I drank this over two nights – with massive joy. The 2006 Chenu Savigny Lavières was a lighter wine – in both intensity, concentration and colour! Yet it was a delightful ‘small’ wine that well-showed the earthy-flavoured characteristics of a good Lavières – of-course if you’re looking for a concentrated Lavières, you would be better choosing Chandon de Briailles, Bouchard Père or Tollot-Beaut – though you need a hint more oak tolerance for those latter two wines. Then we have the 2000 Jean-Marc Boillot Pommard 1er Jarollières – a wine that, over the years, I’ve found to be highly variable and sometimes bretty. This was a very good one; strawberry-fruited aromatics and a nice width of decently concentrated and well-textured flavour. This Jarollières was really enjoyed.

Lastly, my final M&M, the 2007 Puligny-Montrachet 1er Les Caillerets (again!) This bottle, like the last, delivers a deeply coloured wine but without any obvious oxidation. Like the last, and surprisingly given the vintage, it shows quite some fat – and certainly a very impressive volume in the mouth. It’s very complex without actually being moreish – for that you would certainly have to wait for a higher level of maturity – give this summer’s experiences of the M&M 2005s, that’s not a ship that I would personally sail on, but this is an impressive wine all the same!

A chance weekend tasting 😉
Whilst the local pricing is rather high, these wines really do have more than a pretension to be high-value wines these days…

2013 Beaune 1er Les Grèves
Optical sorting with 3 different cameras, foudres too since 2013
A really super depth of aroma – clearly edged with oak notes, but this nose is really inviting. Good volume in the mouth, fresh fruit, lots of complexity too. This is very tasty, the oak component is not too overt and seems quite attractive here.

2013 Pommard 1er Clos des Epenots
A more obvious floral aroma, pretty, though cushioned red fruit. Layered, complex, very faintly salted – I find this very much more elegant and gorgeously tasting than the Beaune. A long line of flavour, faintly herbed, but fabulous!

2013 Volnay 1er Clos des Chênes
‘The only plot in Volnay where you will find white marl – something much more common in the Côte de Nuits’ – says our host…
A deep nose of dark red fruit, faintly herbed. Lovely mouth-feel – there is a tannin that you can chew, almost, but velvet and no dryness. A wine of more volume than the Epenots, but super, super in the mouth.

2013 Corton
A faintly smoky-fruited nose, but there are no stems. Pure silk – hmmmm… This has fine freshness and a cushioned delivery of flavour. Really not the most powerful of Cortons and rounder rather than direct and sinewy – but really something to appreciate in the glass. More mineral and faintly saline in the finish. Super stuff to drink, already!

Whites

2014 Bourgogne Clos du Château
From the vines planted in the front ‘garden’ of the Château.
A discreet nose, rounded. Fresh, direct, round – a growing complexity with a slowly growing mouth-watering aspect. A sneakily good wine.

2014 Meursault 1er Charmes
A wide fresh, not super-powerful nose, but I find the width super. Hmm, layered, growing in volume. Just a great wine. Some tightness but really a rather haunting length – just a brilliant wine in the making.

2012 Meursault 1er Perrières
A bigger, rounder nose, accented with a faint barrel vanilla. Big, clearly mineral, layered and complex – honestly I’d like just a hint more acidity, but that won’t matter at all in a couple more years.

2013 Puligny-Montrachet 1er Champs Canet
A lovely bright bouquet of fresh yellow citrus. Silky, mineral, very silky – this is lovely. What a super and elegant wine. Excellent!

Quite a ‘classical’ weekend selection:

2000

2007

2007

More concise reflections/recollections than full tasting notes:

The Faiveley 2000 Mazis-Chambertin wore a normal Faiveley label to the front, but a Tastevinage label to the rear. This opened up very slowly from an ultra-discreet start to something that opened out ever-wider on the palate. Not an amazingly complex wine, and not a hairy-chested Mazis either – but really a tasty and surprisingly elegant one – even the sediment was tasty 🙂
Next up, the 2007 Clos des Epeneaux – decanted! This started as typical direct, sinewy Clos des Epeneaux – typically unyielding. About 30+ minutes in the decanter and it was starting to become more friendly and certainly more interesting.
Similarly the 2007 Forge de Tart was also decanted – in this case to aerate and hopefully reduce aromatic and flavour aspects imparted by the wood elevage. It needed at least 30 minutes to have some effect, but I must say that, eventually, this was my favourite wine of three – really a fine and complex nose, a wine of power and enjoyment. Yum!

I don’t consider myself to be an ultra-classicist, actually I really don’t know what to call myself, but (not so) secretly I’d prefer my whites to be sealed with DIAM these days – not having personally experienced a bad bottle. The producers will tell you that the best corks produce the best bottles, but frankly that’s fine for them to say, if they are opening dozens of bottles each day – but most consumers have perhaps one chance per week to open something good. I understand that screw-caps can also be good, but it’s not often I get the evidence in my hand – like today.

I know it’s personally galling for the winemaker that the market for wines sealed like this consists of just a few countries – the rest have no interest. In my conversations with him he says that he’s still never experienced a ‘tired‘ bottle sealed in this way by him.

2007 JC Boisset, Savigny-lès-Beaune
A simple villages, if from a great year. At about nine years-old this tastes more like 4 or 5 – apparently this is the most permeable membrane for the Stelvin Luxe seal of that (2008) time. Frankly you won’t taste better Savigny blanc, villages Savigny blanc at that!
Still a medium lemon yellow, with just the merest suggestion of gold. A little cushioning and flowers on the nose. Fine acidity and cushioned texture – less direct (acidity) than most villages wines in this vintage. The intensity comes to a fine point just before you swallow. Just a super wine, perfectly aging – yum!
Rebuy – Yes

Two lovely mid-week wines, both eminently ‘recommendable’ but the Gueguen comes first on a scale of absolute deliciousness!

2014 Gueguen, Bourgogne Côtes d’Auxerre Chardonnay
A pale lemon-yellow colour. It’s a fresh nose, and honestly, if I told you it was a nice crisp Chablis with a hint of salinity and some citrus fruit – you would believe me. Bright, pretty citrus, mouth-watering with that sweetness and (in this case a modest) minerality that I associate with Chablis. Modest in length but so über-tasty. Deliciously perfect Summer wine – really!
Rebuy – Yes

2006 Albert Bichot, Beaune 1er Champimonts
Cold from the fridge, there’s more than a suggestion of vanilla to these aromatics, but as it warms, those barrel notes disappear completely – what remains is a lovely, dark, sour-cherry impression, padded with faint violet notes – nice! This rolls over the tongue in fine fashion – like the nose, the fruit offers an attractive sour-cherry character, freshness and a nicely delivered acidity that welds flavour to your gums in the finish. Really tasty and really attractive wine as it comes to its 10th birthday – no rush either, this is still a baby! Excellent.
Rebuy – Yes

2010 François Mikulski, Meursault 1er Caillerets
I was quite surprised when I opened this, there was a toasty oak note on the nose – it was on the palate too. I went back to check my note from the domaine, there was no oaky reference – though the wine was tight. On the positive side it had lovely energy and indeed vivacity coupled to fine fruit. Day 2 after spending the night in the fridge – almost zero oak – and what a gorgeous nose! Fresh, mouth-watering flavour and a fine weight of mid-palate concentration. The wine lingers, indeed almost dances, on a fine, mouth-watering note. A very fine pinot indeed – I have no reference points for it, but it brought far more enjoyment on day two. I would say decant a couple of hours before drinking if you want to open today. Yum!
Rebuy – Yes