Tonight I deserve to eat and drink badly (actually I tend not to drink badly – I prefer to abstain!); I’m alone in a hotel and a colleague has given me the name of two good restaurants – the thing is (without a driver) I’m far too lazy to arrange taxis in each direction – that’s my main excuse, though the fact-is, I have more than enough work to do to fill each waking hour. So it’s time to take my ‘medicine’ and accept what the hotel is serving up!

My experience leads me to believe that hotels are (typically) worse than restaurants when it comes to wine. Middle-ranking restaurants often have wine sourced from one supplier – and usually very bad value wine at that. Hotels are even worse, even half-decent hotels typically keep wine-lists that appall. So tonight I shall spend in a Hotel Mercure (part of a very big chain), in that cultural hotspot – Zwolle! Who would have thought? Grand Cru Chablis from a good producer is a mere 25 Euro per bottle (I paid just 15 Euro for the half bottle!) and a very good village Vosne-Romanée (Bichot) is 32 Euro – seems rather churlish to say ‘they are only 2003’s’ – bravo Mercure, some merchants charge more!
2003 Jean-Marc Brocard, Chablis Grand Cru Bougros
Medium yellow. The cooler the wine, the more mineral the aspect, but at the correct temperature, aromatically this is a more about honey than rocks, with just a faint savoury edge. The palate is soft and supple – ripe obviously – good texture and a medium-plus length. The vintage is doing the talking here, so this is not a great Bougros, but it is a great value wine enjoyed in a restaurant.
Rebuy – Maybe

That’s most-likely the last visit to the Côtes over for this year – so I expect a slowing down of posts. My last domaine visit was at Prieure Roch in Premeaux – the horse to the left was ploughing just down the road in Les Argillières before my visit.

Talking of Tools; I got over the first hurdle no problem; the worm of the ‘screwpull’ snaked easily into the cork without pushing it into the neck. I knew I was in trouble as soon as I got to the second hurdle; it was easy to withdraw the corkscrew – unfortunately all but the centre of the cork stayed put. I knew I didn’t have one of those two-pronged implements (note to self – personal Christmas present list), so I was going to have to make do with two angled worms: bum! – that didn’t work either. Helpfully, as I was clearing the cork debris from the top of the bottle, the rest (~65%) of the cork fell into the wine. C’est la vie – but fortunately, there were no cat-calling witnesses!

1976 Tollot-Beaut, Aloxe-Corton
Clean and bright, medium, medium-plus colour – a mahogany rim but clearly still a ruby-red core. From opening, this was just a little monolithic on the nose; faint baked fruit and a savoury undercurrent. If you wait – over 1 hour – the nose tightens to a very nice and tight powdery red fruit impression The palate is surprisingly plush and intense – it’s hard to keep hold of the wine, as your mouth starts watering in response to the acidity. I’m very impressed by the balance here. Slowly some sweetness builds to counterbalance an edge of tartness in the finish. The tannins are still there and quite chewy. This is a surprisingly robust and healthy wine – just like the label says, this is a village wine so no real fireworks or mind-bending length, but it’s always interesting to drink a wine that was harvested around your 14th birthday!

Everything was coated in a layer of frost this morning, and despite the perfect blue sky there’s more than a hint of chill to the breeze. In the Côtes, most of the vines have lost their leaves, but here and there, there are parcels that still reflect yellow and red in the sun – I’ll add a picture later…

This morning I visited Domaine Antonin Guyon in Savigny, for its size this is a seriously ‘under-the-radar’ domaine which produces good+ quality as its basic level and can hit wonderful heights – a full report in about 2 weeks in the November issue.

This afternoon (in an hour) I will taste with Carel Voorhuis at d’Ardhuy for appraising some 2005’s and to ask him about those pine-needles in the Pommard below…

😉

Only a tenuous link in the post title – despite what it might look like! Tomorrow I head for a few days in the Côte d’Or, possibly for the last time this year, but with some good visits (I hope!) arranged. The weather has finally turned colder and we could have freezing overnight in the next days, but hopefully my camera is to be greeted with plenty of blue sky.

Pommard; I’m slowly embarking on a profile of the village and the degustatory research starts this week with 2004 which had a trying time due to hail:
2004 d’Ardhuy, Pommard Les Lambots
A shiny medium cherry-red. The nose is pure pine-needles and cedar – slowly a more fruit-driven effect comes into the mix but over about 20 minutes it is never more than a secondary characteristic. The palate is acid forward, seemingly it needs just an edge more ripeness. The best part of this wine is its texture – very nice finely grained tannins – the finish is not too bad and seems riper than the rest of the wine. Works reasonably well with food, but the borderline ripeness means it would be challenge on its own. Rebuy – No
[EDIT: This was picked at a natural 11.9°, though the pH is not too low at around 3.5]