2023 Roc des Boutrires, Pouilly-Fuissé
An attractively pale colour. Cushioned fresh citrus – richer at the core. Hmm, a generous wine – it coats the palate with flavour. It could be more incisive, but this flavour is good. Slowly fading. A good wine, but not a wine to search out.
Rebuy – No

2022 Beaujolais Villages Aux Gauthiers
My last bottle. Vines near the Col des Truges – a shame that this exploitation is no more…
Still great, young colour. An inviting dark fruit, and I like this energy too. Tasty, young and juicy. Holding well. There’s a small deposit in the bottle – maybe the last of the tannins – as I didn’t find any in the wine. Delicious !!
Rebuy – Yes

The 2019 Champagne? Well, pinot meunier is not my favourite, maybe thanks to that, there were some high-toned esters I didn’t like – but what a wine! Powerful, intense and very long with a strong salinity. This was absolutely a wine that had to be drunk – none left for day two – and also a wine I might consider buying 😉

2022 JJ Archambaud, Vosne-Romanée Aux Réas
Lots of colour. Still a cherry-purple rim. A deep and concentrated nose, unfortunately with quite a lot of creamy oak today – that’s not unfortunate for the future, but my bottle is open today! Wide, intense, a first texture that’s silky but slowly adds some bitters too. Saline, ultra-wide finishing. This is a powerful wine but clearly a bit too young for drinking (with pleasure) today…
Rebuy – Maybe

Two 1999s – currently one of my favourite vintages, but not for these two! Both have been stored in the same corner of the cellar for many years. Every wine will be different, and mainly due to the quality of their corks:

1999 Camille Giroud, Bourgogne En Crêots
A wine-saturated cork, though I only broke the first cm. The cork itself smells of oxidised wine – but for older wines (usually 30 years older!) – that’s often the case for a wine-saturated cork, and it doesn’t mean that the wine will be the same.
Medium, medium-plus colour – and no cloudiness. No, there’s hardly any oxidation. Unfortunately, there’s a bit of brett. Direct, silky, plenty of acidity, but also an interesting depth of flavour with a slight accent of oxidation, but no flavour of brett. Long, quite direct and intense finishing. Holding impressively long, a metallic, blood-iron type of flavour, still with some subtle bitters – but no tannic grain. This was potentially a bit of a brute for the first few (15?) years of its life, but it seems quite drinkable – and with a better cork, this would probably be a super Bourgogne.
Rebuy – No but with a better cork, probably.

1999 Michel Gay, Beaune 1er Les Toussaints
What a great cork! Just 2mm of colour from wine ingress – and it comes out in one piece too!
The basic colour is similar to that of the Giroud, but here it’s cloudy and with plenty of sediment that hasn’t settled in 48 hours of ‘uprightness.’ To add to the cloudiness, there’s a pervasive note of brett – really as much as I’ve smelled in a wine for a long time – DNPIM*
Rebuy – No

*Do Not Put In Mouth !!

Old wine

New wine

Frozen wine

Drunk wine

Corked wine

Some tasted wine

Chablis

Time for Chablis honey

Frozen but good

And a good cork too…

Last week I was in Chablis – not too cold and not too wet. Unfortunately, the refrigerator in my chambre d’hôte was set way too cold !! So cold, in fact, that two of my bottles froze in there!

The Leroy – the last of a case of 12 – almost lost its cork completely. Truth be told, it was of no loss as the wine was completely corked – yuk – but it was the only bad wine from this case. The Bonnes-Mares fared much better – it was delicious…

It was not the only wine though:

2022 de Moor, Chablis 1er Montmains – delicious, slightly apple fruit aroma as always at this domaine – but a wine of concentration and fruit6 but also of minerality and ‘place!’
2022 Vincent Dauvissat, Chablis 1er Fourneaux – a new wine here since 2021, lost for a couple of years but returning in 2025. A subtle aromatic ripeness of fruit, but a wine of architecture and minerality – it’s a Dauvissat !!
1998 Fougeray de Beauclair, Bonnes-Mares – A fine, robust cork That survived the wine being frozen! Medium colour. Complex and ‘ready’ aromas. Not the power – or tannin – of its youth. But delicious, complex, almost easy drinking…
2021 Alain Geoffroy, Chablis 1er Beauroy (Mag) – Deep but fresh citrus! Open, deliciously energetic and complex, with a little salinity too. A crowd-pleaser !!
2013 Château Mopulin à Vent, Moulin à Vent Croix des Vérillats (Mag) – A beautiful depth of complex, slightly spiced aromas – plenty of attractive development here too. Easy-going, delicious wine – not ultra complex but delicious, easy drinking…