2001 Bouchard P&F, Beaune 1er du Château
Last tried almost 3 years ago and it was very ‘awkward’. Medium ruby-red colour. Softly sweet red nose – primary but pretty. Medium weight, nicely transparent and with good acidity. This is altogether quite a charmer today – shame I held of more purchases as it’s all gone now!
Rebuy – Yes
1998 H&G Remoriquet, Nuits St.Georges 1er Les St.Georges
Medium-plus ruby/mahogany colour. The nose is heavily scented; deep, dense and dank, with wet wood and aged vanilla-cream cherry. Concentrated and rather well textured for a top Nuits from a vintage that enjoys more than a hint of tannin – there’s very little astringency. The acidity remains fresh and mouthwatering though with just a little bitterness at the end. The length is very-good rather than great. Overall, this is impressively open for what is a relative youngster though it’s certainly brawny rather than elegant – but isn’t that the epitomy of a good Nuits? Oh and at ~£20 in the sale – a bargain! For drinking now and over the next 10+ years.
Rebuy – Yes
By the way, did I mention that it rained when we got back from the UK? Here’s the ‘middle bridge’ in Basel, lunchtime yesterday…
Back from a few days in the UK – and amazingly, lovely weather. We took in Harrods, Henley, putting up a tent, a garden party, Chichester, Selsey Bill (above) and Bosham – back to pouring rain in Switzerland…
From the Berry Bros website (where I also stole the picture):
“This is the flagship wine of the Dubost estate from his top single vineyard (which translates as `heather’).”
After testing a sampler at their Basingstoke ‘outlet’ I bought a few for the garden party – this is the last bottle.
2005 Dubost, Brouilly Vieilles Vignes La Bruyère
Medium-plus purple/cherry-red. The nose is high-toned, clearly Beaujolais with a deep and ripe raspberry note. Intense, nicely concentrated with very good acidity. Medium, medium-plus length of tart black cherry coupled to understated but grainy tannin. Fresh and very nicely balanced it’s a long way from the massive Potel-Aviron wines from 2005, but it’s very pretty and drinkable.
Rebuy – Maybe
in lake UK (hopefully not) for holiday, back in a week….
Hopefully none of Burgandy’s (sic) killer bees await!
Two nice pieces spotted today:
2004 Comte Liger-Belair, Vosne-Romanée La Colombière
Medium, Medium-pale colour. Aromatically more impressive than you expect from the colour, deep with a faint edge of coffee – only turning redder and finer with a little tobacco and spice as you slowly drain the glass – no green notes. Light but intense in the mouth – it’s the slightly bright acidity that adds to the apparent intensity. Red berry fruit that slowly fades, good, understated velvet tannins. It’s precocious though quite well balanced, I’d be tempted to drink this younger rather than older. Tasty.
Rebuy – Maybe
From Berry Bros & Rudd website:
“18, July. It’s all doom and gloom in the press at the moment with reports coming in thick and fast that there might not even be a harvest in Bordeaux or Burgundy. In actual fact, many vineyards are looking healthy and happy with a very early harvest predicted.
This is in part thanks to a beautiful April which prompted early flowering, with the combination of rain and sun successfully managing to prolong the vines growth cycle.
Dominique Lafon reports a little mildew in one vineyard, and localized hail damage has been reported in St Aubin, Beaune and Chablis, but there has been nothing too dramatic thus far and the general outlook is good.
This may in part be due to the recent cold weather which has prevented the mildew damage from spreading further.”
Clearly the weather has been quite sunny for the (almost) two weeks since they posted this piece, with only about 1-2 days with rain in every 10.
Humidity has been quite high, but the fact that it’s not been too hot (only 22-28°C) has provided relief from rot. Clearly, many producers have taken a belts and braces approach, and have been doing as much spraying of copper sulphate solution onto their vines as possible as a safeguard.
We are now around 1 month from harvesting – perhaps less – and we are fast approaching a ‘classic’ vintage in the best (non pejorative) sense of that word. Plenty of sunlight and enough heat for ripening, better still – coupled to cooler nights – I find uniformly hot weather wines very one dimensional, at least in their youth.
Many fingers remain crossed.
The newly married Kellen Lignier was bored in her new life, since she didn’t know the language and hadn’t yet made friends in France.
So she began working alongside her husband in the vineyards. That wasn’t always smiled upon, Lignier said.
“A woman’s job was to provide heirs,” she said. “Or if they wanted to work in the office, that was free labor. Some people even believe that a woman can cause a wine to go bad.”
You are using an outdated browser. Please update your browser to view this website correctly: https://browsehappy.com/;