Having published the March-EXTRA! report in the early hours, I’m now back in Burgundy to complete my visits for April!

A brilliant visit to start the day, at Jean Fournier in Marsannay – wines certainly on a similar quality-level to Pataille’s, and the first Marsannay whites that I really like! (Shock…). Interesting that the locals are already pointing to plots of Marsannay vines and saying ‘but that’s only villages.’ 😉 Lunch was a rag-tag, but tasty, collection of things bought in the Boulangerie on the RN974 in Gevrey, then eating said items while wandering through the earthworks of Bertagna, checking-out at the bedrock of Amoureuses, and looking back towards the Clos de Vougeot.

Despite a little rain in the last days, the vineyards are dry, dry dry – really low rainfall this year – so far! A quick detour into Aloxe-Corton gives the impression that a battle has taken place there – the roads are simply awful just now – new drains but no new road surface – so far!

Bedtime in Chablis. Two full days of domaine visits await. It’s funny how I get to drink less wine while I’m in wineland – so far! 😉

Baby Amoureuses

The bedrock of Amoureuses

Bertagna’s new construction

Etang de Vougeot

Château de La Tour

Time seems of the essence this week; more tastings than makes sense if you get entrance to them all, but the BIVB have been careful to spread people out. Still, you might not have thought so with the throng of people at the Vosne-Romanée tasting yesterday morning! In the end, it’s hardly possible to taste all the wines from all the exhibitors, it makes more sense to taste ‘all x in the room’ and go for this surgical-strike option.

Of-course a full-packed program means disappointments too. Arriving for the Morey-Chambolle tasting at 15h30 I found close to half of the exhibitors had already left – it was scheduled from 09h00-17h00. Oh-well. I didn’t taste, I just went to my hotel in Gevrey and a little jog before dinner.

First some jogging pics from my phone; hopefully you can make out the vines ‘crying’ (the sap rising and forming drops) on the picture taken in Clos St.Denis…

And more pictures taken during the day :

Of-course it’s Grands Jours de Bourgogne week, and you know that there was a bit of early jogging – but it was worth it, despite the freezing hands 😉

Tastings in Chablis today, and the it’s an impressive undertaking to get so many producers and tasters together, so much so that it can be rather difficult to get near many producers’ wines – I expect it will be no easier for Chambolle and Vosne, tomorrow, either! Anyway, I set myself the simple target of making notes on 50 1ers from 2012 and 15 Grand Crus from 12, the latter selected by the Union des Grands Crus – no easy task as it turned out. Still, by tasting GCs when many people were eating lunch, life proved easier – less elbowing required!

Back to Beaune for a tasting this evening – and it was such a let-down that I gave up! I have 15 notes, but I won’t be bothering to publish them. The problem wasn’t the wines, rather the small, thick glasses that were provided. Nothing smelled of anything – so what’s the point(?) Such a shame, a nice selection of bottles and wonderful surroundings. Oh-well!

I returned to type for a couple of hours, then another jog, check emails, do this, shower and …. BED!

Awake at 6:30am, so I decided to go out for a run. Virtually 7:00am, on the nail, the first rays of sun penetrated the frosty morning:

A lovely day Spring day, where I am mainly (but not completely, obviously!) in Chablis.

Let’s just do the portrait-shaped ones…