All the wines were tasted blind and then the label shown before the next wine. The last white and the reds with dinner – a nice salad, blanquette de veaux, pears in burgundy wine, cheese…

2014 Céline et Frédéric Gueguen, Côteaux Bourguignone Sacy
A super saline, faintly herbed nose. Fresh acidity and an almost piercing intensity- herby, mineral, direct and delicious – yum!

2007 Camille Giroud, Corton-Charlemagne
Deeper colour than I want. The nose is not obviously oxidised, faint lanolin. In the mouth this is big, delicious, sweet, layered, a suggestion of oxidation/age that I would obviously prefer wasn’t there though. If it was the only wine open I’d still drink it with a mix of joy and disappointment, but:

1977 Dubreuil-Fontaine, Corton-Charlemagne
A deep nose, mushroom, an impression of barrel toast(?) Super fresh, saline, long, mouth-watering, complex. It’s really not a wide wine but super long and mineral. Not everyone’s taste but i love! This gets better and better, and hardly more oxidation than the last!

2006 Jean-Marc Pillot, Chevalier-Montrachet
The nose starts tight, slowly opens with freshness and a some floral notes – a young colour and young nose. Very wide and freshly mouth-watering. Layers of rich but beautifully balanced flavour – really a long wine – still some oak,but a flavour that goes on and on. Bravo – this must be grand cru. It keeps getting better and better.

Les Reds…

2009 Fourrier, Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles-Vignes
Hmm. This is modestly coloured, rather a floral, almost mineral nose with a fine, almost balsamic, accent to the fresh notes. Direct and fresh, rather intense. Really wide, layered in the finish. This is lively, lovely wine, but I have no reference points here. The tannin is virtually hidden, but the acid is super.

2006 Tortochot, Chambertin
A big open and attractive nose – clearly more mineral and a little dark fruited. The palate is fresh, side and with a tasty and very Gevrey style structure. Layers of concentrated finishing dark fruit too – young, and very tasty wine. – but Chambertin?

1999 Arnoux, Vosne-Romanée 1er Les Suchots
Tight but a nice spicy edge to this. Nice line and intensity here – a little metallic in the mid-palate. Long, long, long. Really complex in the mid-palate. This gets better and better in the glass – just fabulous, easily the best so far.

2009 Perregrine Pinot Noir (Central Otago, New Zealand)
Modest colour. The nose is quite fresh and a little herby – Côte de Beaune? Ouf! – this is direct and very intense – almost too much in the finish – fresh and bright acidity but almost strident. A little dryness in the finish… super-overt red fruit though- Again, no reference points…

1993 Jean Grivot, Echézeaux
Ooh, this is very deep and dark ,but silkily dark – a little sous bois. Older colour though, despite how deep the colour is. Direct, intense, mouth-watering – ooh this is intense with a little tannic texture in the finish. Very, very long with waves of almost painfully delicious flavour in the finish. Really super, but also really still a baby!

2007 Bart, Clos de Bèze
Medium colour. Aromatically rather narrower than the last wines – herby and fresh – overtly herby. Bright and really intense in the mouth. Sweet sour style – almost 2008 style but it could do with more balance. But this is very long – not delicious today, but long, very long, long, long…

Then bad bottles of 1993 Jadot Clos de Vougeot and 1991 Savour Club Chapelle-Chambertin 🙁

2002 Comtes Lafon, Volnay 1er Santenots du Milieu
Hmm, wide and seemingly silky red fruit – good herby depth too – fine Côte de Beaune style. Very fresh, very direct – an intense line of flavour. Super! I was surprised, not by the aoc, but the vintage…

There was a half bottle of 1999 Mondavi sweet botrytised sticky wine too! Also a little Hospices de Beaune (that still tasted great) from 2 days before…

Tonight will be big wine night, so, to prepare, I did a modest warm-up this week, mopping up a few half bottles along the way…

2002 d’Angerville, Volnay 1er Clos des Ducs (375cl)
There may be a bit of 2015 about this wine. 2002 was a big and concentrated vintage for Volnay, yet the Marquis made a wine with beautiful poise and line – rather like the comparison to him and his neighbours in 2015. This is a beautiful wine in all respects – not a wine of density, a wine of beautiful line – love!
Rebuy – Yes

1996 Grivot, Clos de Vougeot (375cl)
In this format, the wine is really rather open and ‘giving.’ There’s plenty of depth and concentration of-course, both aromatically and in the mouth – perhaps the delivery could be a little more layered – but this is a mouth-full of very tasty wine that has good but hardly remarkable freshness vs many from 96. Yum! Actually this is much more ‘ready’ than Grivot’s 93s – maybe I should check that at the weekend 🙂
Rebuy – Yes

1996 Germain – Château de Chorey, Beaune 1er Les Teurons (375cl)
Ooh wow – this is perfect – open, round, layered and beguilingly inviting – what a nose! In the mouth it’s also round, very red fruited, caressing wine. The freshness is pretty much perfect and the oak of its youth is vanished. This is as pretty a wine as I’ve had in a long time – bravo! This was even tastier (better today) than the Clos de Vougeot.
Rebuy – Yes

1996 Antonin Guyon, Volnay 1er Clos des Chênes
There’s a little cloudiness to this wine. The nose starts with a reduction or oak toast that very quickly fades in the glass and it just gets better and better from there. In the mouth there’s a more direct acidity – a true 96 acidity – but with air (and also food) it’s really nothing remarkable. Fresh wide and with and extra complexity in the mid-palate – but also an extra tannin too – is that the cru or the larger bottle size? Hard to know, but despite how tasty this bottle is, given the cloudiness I’d drink these sooner rather than later, and would be tempted to buy more. Still, very yum!
Rebuy – No

1996 Hospices de Beaune (Chanson), Beaune 1er Cuvée Nicolas Rolin
Probably opened a little too late in the evening – so only a glass and a half taken – but a great glass and a half. This is really the brother of the Germain – the same round, red, delectable style of nose and a beautiful melting flavour on the palate – really perfect right now. Bravo!
Rebuy – Yes

Okay, time to prepare my 7 wines for tonight – I wonder what the others will be bringing… 🙂

This Mugneret-Gibourg was just an unbelievably sumptuous, delicious wine when young – I drank more than half a case in the first year without any pangs of regret. The wine then slowly began a diet, getting thinner and thinner – the last time I tried it – 3 or 4 years ago – it was rather meager. The Bichot 2001 was so good a few days ago that I was reminded to return to this – and this may indeed be my last bottle. It turns out that it was quite a good idea to enjoy these Vosnes when they were young.

2001 Mugneret-Gibourg, Vosne-Romanée
It has a medium-plus colour – a little age, but not too much. The nose is pinched – there is that faint Vosne-spice, and being courteous, I’ll say an implied depth of aroma. Essentially there’s not much here to see – or, rather, smell. In the mouth I have the impression of a hint of fat to the texture, but only a hint. The wine is rather acid-forward still with a very faint rasp of tannin – the two in combination are hardly delicious. The high-point – if I can call it that – is that there are still some nice layers of finishing flavour, if of rather modest intensity. I would say that today this is no better than a half-decent Bourgogne.
Rebuy – No

And just to test that suggestion….

2001 Ghislaine Barthod, Bourgogne Rouge
Still a pretty red colour, but the depth of colour is less than that of the Vosne. Here the nose is also a little tight, but there is both pretty red fruit and a modest and attractive floral too – age may have added a faint meatiness to depth of the fruit – but only that. In the mouth this has very good volume, plenty of acidity too – but it’s well-balanced compared to the ‘extra acid’ of the MG. I like the energy here and the mouth-watering way the flavour spills over into the finish – faintly floral, faintly tannic too. Tasty wine that’s the more attractive of the two today.
Rebuy – Yes

2015 Château Thivin, Côte de Brouilly Clos Bertrand
A good, deep 2015 colour – though still transparent. Ooh… That’s a deep and ripe dark-red fruit – lots of freshness though. Oof! It’s really the same on the palate too; a super line of fresh, ripe, red-fruited flavour of width and dimension. Tons of complexity and simply brilliant, fresh, presentation. Personality personified – bravo!
Rebuy – Yes

1999 Jean-Marc Pavelot, Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er La Dominode
This wine is still a very darkly coloured thing – just a little browner at the rim today. The nose really pulls you in with its mix of dark depth and freshness – accented with some sous bois complexity – simply great. In the mouth there is a ton of freshness and still plenty of structural tannin. This is still a young wine – at least 5 years from maturity I would think, and after the Thivin, clearly a lower order of sweetness. The flavour is complex and fun though – it’s just very young and less overtly delicious than the last wine – you will just have to keep patient!
Rebuy – Yes