For me, the most ‘faulty’ village in this hot year – most Chambolles were very dark coloured, half of them stewed, bretty and sometimes volatile – this one passed the test !!

2018 Digioia-Royer, Chambolle-Musigny 1er Les Groseilles
Deeply coloured, but still transparent. A nose of deep, dark berries and a little graphite. Large in scale and with vibrantly energetic flavour. This is so long and intense, it’s really quite something! That long flavour is only half good today, the fruit is clean – and silky too – but there’s an accompanying edge that’s mineral and a little harder, potentially a little reductive. This latter part will take 2-3 years to resolve – or maybe it will improve in the glass? Yes it does, but only modestly. This wine drank well over 3 days – it has great stability !! So very 2018, which some of you will love, and others not. I’d much rather have something ‘classic’ but this still offers delicious drinking…
Rebuy – Yes with much reflection…

And a new corkscrew?

I’ve been using a Pulltex for over 10 years now – apart from some broken corks, it works well.

Now Pulltex have this intriguing new model – a Durand style – but for the cost of a of a Temu knockoff! Maybe it’s just a Pulltex knockoff !!

I need more time to improve my operational efficiency with it, before I deploy it on old corks – but for €23 (Athenaeum, Beaune) it seems like it could be a winner. My (current) ham-fistendness means it’s hard to offer critique at this stage, only that the worm when it comes out of the bottom of the cork, ejects a small piece of the cork into the wine – at least for this bottle’s young, robust cork…

The last bottles while harvesting and this weekend’s modest triplet, dovetailed together…

2023 Matrot, Meursault
This domaine has slipped from my list of visits – I suppose mainly because the wines were always ‘okay’ but not more – but this is a lovely wine. One with impact, good concentration and delicious flavour – the bottle was emptied very quickly.
Rebuy – Yes

1999 Grivot, Richebourg
Far from ready 10 years ago, I decided that it was time to revisit. It was served too cold so needed lots of time in the glass – indeed it would have been a different wine if opened 4-5 hours before consuming and with better temperature management. In recent years the 96 was wonderful, the 97 not and the 98 was somewhere in-between.
Still deeply coloured. I’ve chilled this too much, so it’s going to need time in the glass. Clean, deep, muscular aromas. Slowly some semblance of flowers – clean, nothing ultra-pretty yet, despite the age. Growing in the mouth, a velour texture with the tannic dryness of youth almost gone. Very long with an aniseed accent a holding very long and wide. Drinkable, powerful wine today, but such a baby – wait 5 more years in the cellar and/or 2-3 more hours in the glass!
Rebuy – Maybe but probably only for the label! Even that’s a stretch at the old price of 295 Swiss francs in 2001 !!

And a red to follow?

2015 des Croix, Beaune
‘Only’ a villages wine, but in terms of drinkability and enjoyment, easily better than the Grivot today…
Lots of (younger) colour. Airy, but still with some more structural suggestion to these aromas. Cool, more direct, classy texture, ripe but pretty and detailed fruit. For a 2015 this is not so dark or spiced and it’s clearly the more delicious and detailed and more texturally impressive wine over lunch!
Rebuy – Yes

And at home in the last days:

2023 Gérard Tremblay, Chablis 1er Montmain
From Montmain proper
Hmm, a mineral-saline style of nose, slightly round in shape but with clarity too. Mouth-filling fruit with plenty of juicy energy. This is a wine that’s far too easy to drink

2021 Henri Gouges, Nuits St.Georges 1er La Richemone
A Maison wine, a cru that’s generally hard to find, and almost always a treat.
Coolness, but depth to this attractive nose. Mouth-filling. Like the nose, here is impressive depth of flavour and a whooshing width of mouth-watering flavour energy. Not the most luxurious of texture but a wine that keeps begging me to take another sip. Clearly, well behind the wine of Perrot-Minot (for example), but also priced much more accessibly. I’m enjoying it very much – not only that, it drank perfectly over 3 days !!
Rebuy – Yes

And the house crémant is always good 😉

Just noting for my own memory:

This was a label at the domaine until 2018 – but the domaine never had ‘regional’ parcels of vines, this was actually a blend of some Beaune, some Savigny and until the parcel was sold late in 2008, a little Pommard too.

The 2005 was one of the last in my cellar – it’s still dark coloured and powerful – atypical Bourgogne for sure. The aromas and flavours are now accented with quite an obvious oaky note – unlike the lighter but easier 2006 which I would prefer to drink today. I’ve never noted such overt oak in the 2005 before, and I’m onto my last bottle or two from a case of 12 !!

These days, at the right addresses, there is so much fun to be had with ‘simple’ Bourgogne !!

Tasted this week – I was just passing, so why not?! Now bottled for approaching 18 months…

2023 Bourgogne Blanc
From the wrong side of the road in Couchey, across the road from from Marsannay villages vines. Elevage in foudres…
A fresh, quite incisive and zesty. Wide, easy but with a juicy style to the flavour. Holding with intensity and zestiness. Modest but attractive bitters… Super and so moreish…

2023 Marsannay
From 2 parcels, the majority coming from Grasses Tetes
Hmm, this is broad and deliciously attractive – the perfume has depth and a fine blend of fruit and flowers. More direct, a frame of velvety fresh fruit – also juicy, and the last drops in the glass smell of violets. Super!!

2023 Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Clos Prieur
More vertical aromatics; larger-scaled perfume. Wider and with extra intensity. Plenty of tannin but with a little of the wood tannin too which softens the texture, certainly still some of the flavour of the wood. Really impressive – keep it 3-5 years…

2023 Chambertin
Freshness but still some tightness to the higher tones of these aromas – the lower notes are dark and brooding though. Everything framed by the subtly grained but not drying tannin. Growing more and more intense with complex bitters. The barrel is only modestly visible today as everything else is so forward. That’s going to be a very impressive Chambertin – it’s already tasty, but I wouldn’t hesitate to wait for 20 years – and that’s only for the start of many years of wonderful, mature drinking.

2019 Trapet Alsace, Schoenenburg Grand Cru
4g residual sugar here.
Deep, rich, almost musky – a slightly sunny, honied style of aroma. Generous, complex, delicious but a little richer than my favoured style from here. The flavour fades, but holds impressively…

A strong selection over the last 10 days…

2014 Verret, l’Ame du Domaine, Irancy
A good strong cork – it’s over 10-years-old but it doesn’t break.
Older colour but a nose of freshness and clean, leafy depth. Really wide over the palate – how delicious is this?! Slowly fading, complex, absolutely ‘ready and mature’ pinot. As great an older Irancy as I have ever drunk – I must find a reason to open that magnum of 2012 from Cantin! Bravo !!
Rebuy – Yes

2023 Dubreuil-Fontaine, Pernand-Vergelesses 1er Sous Fretille
This nose has a lovely, direct citrus energy. Detailed flavour. Energetic again in the mouth with almost a rasp of citrus and a quite pronounced minerality in the middle and finishing flavours – properly complex and delicious too. Excellent wine !!
Rebuy – Yes

2023 Weingut Schlössli, Mariage Noir
A local wine from the Swiss Bielersee region. A ‘mariage’ of gamaret, pinot noir and diolinoir grapes.
I’ve had a few different vintages of this and each has been delicious – from memory, this was just under 30 swiss francs…
Rebuy – Yes

2019 Thibert, St.Véran Champ Rond
Wax-sealed and with a high-quality, sweet smelling cork – all is good.
Young colour. Almost pear, but not too ripe white-fleshed fruit, initially lightly toasty but this is more towards reduction than oak – it’s also quickly gone with air. Hmm, this has a lovely combination of minerality and fluidity coupled to a stony depth of fruit – here with the smallest sensation of oak – of the now you see it, now you don’t variety. The problem with such a fluid style is that the wine gets drunk too quickly !! Oh well, that’s a great wine from the Mâconnais…
Rebuy – Yes