2006 drouhin-laroze latricières-chambertin

By billn on August 10, 2009 #degustation

Domaine Drouhin-Laroze
Domaine Drouhin-Laroze
2006 Drouhin-Laroze, Latricières-Chambertin
Decanted 1 hour before pouring. Only a little more than medium cherry-red colour. The nose starts as a relatively forward blend of red cherries and darker oak-toast and herbal aromas. Time releases a more floral note, suggesting violets. Fresh flavours that also show a dark-oak edge and medium-grained tannin with a little astringency, the mid-palate has a little saline impression. The finish is quite narrow – linear – but very long, giving only a dark mineral/saline oaky impression. Interesting, though missing a certain ‘spark’ to make me consider bolstering stocks…
Rebuy – Maybe

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room service…

By billn on August 09, 2009 #asides

Happy as Tim Atkin
Happy as Tim Atkin

There’s nothing wrong with this as a business model. In fact, it makes a lot of financial sense. As well as paying to have their brand name on a door, sponsors provide the boutique hotel chain with free posters, maps and point-of-sale material. In return, they get at least one spot on the wine list. To me, it’s a slightly uncomfortable exchange. Are these bottles selected on merit or to satisfy a sales manager?

Room Service, Tim Atkin. Intelligent Life

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in the vines…

By billn on August 08, 2009 #picture gallery#vintage 2009

A quick update on the situation in the vines, courtesy of David Clark in (of-course) the Côte de Nuits:

The vines are looking far too good at the moment. I’m doing the green harvest and haven’t found a single botrytised berry yet – plenty time for that to change, of course! I’m looking at harvest maybe the weekend of the 19th, weather permitting, although many will be earlier.

Naturally we need a Côte du Beaune-er for balance – here’s Etienne de Montille’s view:

So far so good for the coming 09 vintage.
Though it was a bit tough for organic growers, we could manage the mildew that was the main difficulty during the season. Grapes look great and well set (normal yield – maybe shorter in white) and nicely shaped grapes well set on the vine. No rot so far…
If we don’t have too much rain, we are pretty optimistic… another vintage in 9 🙂

It’s actually raining today in the Côtes and the forecast is for a couple more days too, but generally the mood is positive, but let’s think only of the sun…

Peter Palmetshofer, a long term correspondent and occasional organiser of great wine dinners shared with me (and you) these pictures of Mickey the horse in Romanée-Conti from last weekend – when there was plenty of sun!

Peter: Date/time was Saturday 1. August, 9:40 exactly. Normally ploughing is finished earlier not to hurt the berries, but due to the wet weather the weeds are growing that fast, producers working with herbicides will have serious problems in 2009, thats for sure. Mickey is gourmand, as you can see some Romanée Conti leaves on his muzzle. Correct description would be Mickey working with Monsieur Denis, that’s for sure. But it was Mr Denis who authorized me to enter RC.

At €3,000 a bottle, you can wear a muzzle!
Time for a U-turn
Right-turn
Almost there…
Made it!
Walk-on…
Finished?
After work…
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99 thomas-moillard romanée saint vivant

By billn on August 08, 2009 #degustation

1999 Thomas-Moillard Romanée St.Vivant
1999 Thomas-Moillard Romanée St.Vivant

1999 Thomas-Moillard, Romanée St.Vivant
A smelly, rubbery odour from the cork, so it was decanted and I waited for an hour. Fortunately there was only a short-lived hint of rubber on the nose. The aroma-profile kept improving all night – though at a glacial pace – so I left a little for day two, but it was exactly like the end of day 1! What was it like? A meaty depth with subtle leafy notes – some parallels to the 98 Potel RSV, but this is significantly less far down the road to aromatic maturity. Across the tongue there is more padding and width than the Potel and no tartness. The rough tannin of the last outing (3 years ago) is replaced with a more velvet impression – good mid-palate width of dark cherry fruit too. Slowly lingering – it’s still not a ‘today’ wine, but at this rate of progress, another 5 years should see it in a great place.
Rebuy – Yes

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rotund…

By billn on August 07, 2009 #asides

rotund-geddit?!No it isn’t the 1st of April:

One recent, newsworthy project has been the identification of a compound responsible for pepperiness in Australian Shiraz. Called rotundone, it is found in lots of herbs and vegetables, and it’s incredibly potent. For example, just 5 mls of rotundone would be enough to make all wine in Australia taste spicy.

Rotundone. Dr Jamie Goode

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smell…

By billn on August 07, 2009 #asides

The nose doesn’t lie.
When you smell something it passes straight into the brain without any intermediate processing. Unlike vision or hearing, olfaction is unmediated. It’s the real thing, and it works both ways: just as a scent on the air can take us back in time instantaneously and so often overwhelmingly as to be disorienting, so memory can recall smells we have conciously forgotten…

Comrades, Michael Bywater. Granta | 104

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site updates…

By billn on August 05, 2009 #site updates

notefinder

Some changes may be obvious, others less-so. I’ve updated the database for the NoteFinder, so 2,800+ notes are now available; of which over 600 are from the 2007/2006 vintages. Performance should have improved too – it was more than a bit flaky of recent – but it turned out to be because of so many ‘concurrent users’ soaking up the available RAM – or some such. Anyway, apparently I have more rams now!

More obvious is the new design – looks not perfect in IExplorer 6, but the 12% of visitors will have to suffer for a better view for the 88%. As previously mentioned, unlike me, it is much cleverer under the skin than before. Currently it mostly works too! I shall be ironing out the odd hiccup over the next days.

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nicolas potel 98 romanée saint vivant

By billn on August 05, 2009 #degustation

1998 Nicolas Potel Romanée St.Vivant
1998 Nicolas Potel Romanée St.Vivant

When last in Nuits I mentioned I had this wine the cellar and was informed by the Potel-team that I should probably open it as they had problems with the corks and 50% of the bottles were off. I had but one in the cellar so decided to pop the cork – it looked and smelled fine…

1998 Nicolas Potel, Romanée St.Vivant
Double-decanted, poured after an hour. Plenty of lumpy sediment but no fine stuff to cloud things. The nose needs another 30 minutes to open, but it becomes wide and very Vosne; spicy, leafy, somehow ‘warm’ and textured smelling – overall it’s very good though not necessarily better than a (very) good 1er cru. The acidity is slightly forward – though not excessive – no harsh or astringent tannin, just a latent velvet edge. The flavours are a little tart but there’s a slowly deepening intensity in the mid-palate and a width that’s faintly cream-edged. Very good, if not great length. There is no primary fruit here, but it’s a wine that I would leave for at least another 5 or 6 in the cellar. It’s a reasonable grand cru, but today it’s far from a great RSV. This experience was not spoiled by the cork, only by opening the bottle at least 5 years too early…
Rebuy – No regardless of quality, it’s clearly a ‘no’ given the 50% cork lottery.

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