I haven’t bought any wine through Sotheby’s for the best part of ten years – I certainly don’t have a catalogue subscription. Last week, despite that latter minor detail, a hardbacked catalogue arrived – it must have cost a fortune to send given that the auction is in Hong Kong. The Coulthard-jawed ‘wife of Saruman’ smiles from the the introduction – actually she could be from from Hong Kong!

The USP of this sale is 2,800 bottles of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s finest. Mainly in wooden cases and many sourced directly from the domaine – apparently. If I’m honest I have the impression of bling and ostentation – the estimates are modest by recent standards so I expect they are clearly under-estimates.

I guess that auctions are two-edged swords for some; the domaine would probably have been happy at such a profile-raiser in the 1970s, 1980s and even much of the 1990s, but of-course the boot is on the other foot today when they could probably sell ten times what they currently produce – people can have short memories. Given the domaine’s harsh stance of ‘disenfranchising’ those caught selling their recent meagre allocations I assume they are not too impressed by this and the seller concerned will not be welcome at the domaine’s impressive new stone, glass and oak offices. I guess that Sotheby’s will also not be Maison du Jour in Vosne-Romanée – particularly as the catalogue is full of quotes attributed to Aubert de Villaine and also a few pictures of him as if endorsing the sale!

I’ve never been disappointed by a DRC – actually not true, there was once a corked 1997 La Tâche! – okay I’ve never been disappointed by a DRC with a decent cork, but it seems to me that the wines bear little relevance these days even to mainstream Burgundy drinkers – only the domaine’s viticulture does.

If somebody lays on a Barbie-pink Bentley, some nice gold chains and diamond tooth studs I think I could be persuaded to attend though

CLOS DE TART 2009 – Subscription

CLOS DE TART Grand Cru 2009 75cl 298.00 (Swiss francs)
CLOS DE TART Grand Cru 2009 150cl 626.00

In current circumstances this is too rich for my blood, but the valid question is: Given that this is cheaper than most Musignys, are you tempted?

On a related note, the first 2010 subscription offer came through the post las week, interesting pricing – more in the Spring Burgundy Report – hopfully sometime during the 1st week of April.

You might remember my “alex gambal buys 5 hectares – or does he…”, note from December. Things were not exactly as reported by Clive, so Alex said he’d come back to me when everything was ‘sorted out’. Here’s his news-release:

Dear Bill,

It is official as of Wednesday AM and I wanted you to have accurate information on my acquisition of Batard, Puligny and Chassagne vineyards. Also, here are photos from the first day’s work.

Please let me know if you need any further information.

Regards,
Alex

——————————————————————————-
Gambal acquires Grand Cru Vineyard Batard-Montrachet
First American in history to purchase vines in the Grand Cru Montrachets.
March 2, 2011

Burgundy, Cote D’Or, France: Alex Gambal, a successful American winemaker in Burgundy, and owner of Domaine Gambal, announced today that he has acquired vines in the Grand-Cru Vineyard Batard-Montrachet. He becomes the first non Frenchman in history to purchase vines in this storied area.

Gambal put under contract Domaine Brenot of Santenay, consisting of 3.5 hectares of vines in Puligny-Montrachet, Chassagne-Montrachet and Santenay in Fall, 2010. The seller, Philippe Brenot, was Gambal’s professor at the wine school in Beaune from 1996-1997. The parcels of Batard-Montrachet had been in the Brenot’s family for many generations. One parcel was given to Philip Brenot’s grandfather as a payment for medical services early in the 20th century.

The Batard-Montrachet parcels total .3744 of a hectare (~.92 of an acre) and can produce a maximum of ~ 7 1/2 barrels of wine (187 cases). The Batard consists of four parcels, three of which lie in the upper part of Batard that is considered the best or “Premiere Classe” according to the 1860 classifications, called “Les Batards Montrachet.” Gambal kept two of these parcels that equal to a bit less than one half of the surface area and will make 75-85 cases a year.

The parcel of Puligny-Montrachet Les Enseigineres is classified a village wine but because of its excellence it is often referred to as “Baby Batard.” The vineyard covers .3020 of a hectare (~.75 of an acre) and can produce ~ 7 barrels (175 cases).

The Chassagne-Montrachet vineyard “L’Ormeau” has a surface of .1299 of a hectare (~ 1/3 of an acre) and will produce 3 barrels (75 cases).

Also acquired was a house on the square in Santenay that will be turned into a guest and rental residence.

Gambal’s vineyards now total 3.4 hectares (8.4 acres) and include an old vine vineyard in Savigny-les-Beaune that was recently acquired under a long term lease. All of Gambal’s vines are farmed biodynamically and will be certified “AB” after the three-year certification process.

For more information, contact Alex Gambal at: alex@alexgambal.com

Alex Gambal
14 blvd Jules Ferry
21200 Beaune
Cote D’Or, France

alex@alexgambal.com
www.alexgambal.com

(33) 03 80 22 75 81
(33) 03 80 22 21 66 FAX

For those of you with an interest, I recieved this in the mail yesterday.

No, not Burgundy and not Bordeaux either:

A bottle of wine made in 1774 was sold for 57,000 euros in the eastern French region of the Jura on Sunday. The lucky bidders could drink their purchase if they dare – a group of experts declared another bottle from the same batch “excellent” when they tasted it in 1994.
Source: RFI

Maybe they will invite François Audouze when they taste it!

DOMAINE RAMONET 2009 – Chassagne-Montrachet
Villages blancs 2009
CHASSAGNE-MONTRACHET 75cl 38.00 (Swiss Francs)
PULIGNY-MONTRACHET Enseignères 75cl 49.00

Premiers Crus blancs 2009
SAINT-AUBIN Charmois 75cl 59.80
CHASSAGNE-MONTRACHET Les Vergers 75cl 59.50
CHASSAGNE-MONTRACHET Morgeot 75cl 59.50
CHASSAGNE-MONTRACHET Boudriotte 75cl 59.50
CHASSAGNE-MONTRACHET Ruchottes 75cl 69.50

Grands Crus blancs 2008 -2009
BIENVENUES BATARD MONTRACHET 2008 75cl 239.00
BIENVENUES BATARD MONTRACHET 2009 75cl 179.00

BATARD MONTRACHET 2008 75cl 248.00
BATARD MONTRACHET 2009 75cl 189.00

Rouges 2009
BOURGOGNE 75cl 18.00
CHASSAGNE-MONTRACHET 1er cru Morgeot 2009 75cl 48.00
CHASSAGNE-MONTRACHET 1er cru Clos Boudriotte 2009 75cl 49.50

Lower prices for white 2009 – by a bump in the GCs! I might be tempted by some of those red prices (shock!)

[In fact – there – I’ve gone and done it, finally bought some merchanted 09s! Bourgogne and Boudriotte reds…]

Vins blancs
PULIGNY-MONTRACHET Les Combettes 75cl 69.00 Swiss francs (2008-69.00, 2007-78.00)
MEURSAULT Perrières 75cl 98.00 (98.00, 109.00)
CORTON CHARLEMAGNE 75cl 109.50 (109.50, 128.00)
CHEVALIER-MONTRACHET 75cl 199.00 (198.00, 219.00)
MONTRACHET 75cl 389.00 (388.00, 399.00)

Vins rouges
CLOS DE VOUGEOT 75cl 109.00 (99.00, 109.00)
CHAMBERTIN 75cl 169.00 (149.00, 159.00)
ECHEZEAUX 75cl 169.00, (158.00, 169.00)
MUSIGNY 75cl 229.00 (199.00, 218.00)

Steady as she goes for whites, reds mainly back to 2007 pricing after a dip in 2008. Nothing to tempt me today…

Last year I listed a few merchant offers that the merchants themselves paid for – not much, just the equivalent of a bottle of premier cru – I haven’t done it this year, simply because the wines are selling (have sold!) so fast. One year later the same amount of cash that bought that bottle of 1er cru, for a certain sector of producers, might only pay for a bottle of villages wine! Times change, but for a certain segment of producers prices have doubled since only the 2005 vintage and a majority of that increase came since the 2008 offer; the £100 premier cru is becoming common-place.

Let’s be open: Bachelet, Cathiard and Fourrier are the ones pulling in the extra £££s this year – and putting daylight between themselves and people like Arnoux, Grivot and Ponsot. But don’t fret about the increase, while you’ve been scratching your head looking at the offers, the wines have already sold out – okay perhaps the merchant will do you a favour and find a few bottles of villages wine for you! It’s a measure of the demand for 2009s that so many people can so easily put to the back of their mind that they are paying double, yet still be ‘thankful’ that the merchant honoured them with the opportunity to ‘be allowed to’ purchase 2 bottles! Given the potential quality of the red 2010s (at least based on the raw materials) it certainly won’t be easier next year. One cheeky chappie told me that some merchants were posing as private buyers to augment their own stocks, but with a view to shifting the wines to Hong Kong…

Three quirks of this EP offer: everyone has identical prices for Bonneau du Martray and Domaine Leflaive – what a coincidence 😉 – this is the first vintage where the £400+ case of Nuits 1er cru is commonplace – and the insidious arrival of the 3-bottle case price. Okay the latter has been a feature of DRC offers for the last few years, but I had to laugh as a former buyer of Fourrier to see the 3-bottle ‘cases’ of Clos St.Jacques and Griotte; I used to like buying many different wines in 3s instead of just a few 12s, but the merchant moved to minimum 6-pack orders so I lost my allocation because it couldn’t increase, now they sell in threes. Clearly the introduction of the three-pack has a very different goal to that of the 6-pack; it is designed with just one aim, to reduce the headline price of the wine, the 6-pack was about flexibility and portability – 12-packs are heavy.

I really don’t need to add anything to what I’ve said in this place about the character or quality of the vintage, but there are clearly some producers in the lists who chose not to make major increases – here there is quite some value if you steer away from the crowds. I suggest buying in the lower tiers of the appellations, but at the top buy some 2008s instead – you’ll save plenty of cash and often have classier wine!

My broad-brush view of the offers is as follows:

Small but perfectly formed: AB Vintners and Private Cellar
Large but still perfectly formed: OW Loeb
Comprehensive with bespoke service (It’ll cost you!): Berry Bros & Rudd