Camus have long been an easy target for the pooh-poohers, but this is really on another level vs the Lambrays of yesterday, for less money…

1998 Camus, Chambertin
The nose takes just a little while to take its coat off, but it has a real floral perfume – and quite a rare one – lavender mixes with the silky red-brown fruit impression. It’s very inviting indeed. Mouthfilling, fresh, lots of intensity and even more complexity. I’m simply enjoying this wine profusely. Good length and it has a certain distinction…
Rebuy – Yes

The performance of the (half-dozen) 2000 Lambrays I bought en-primeur have been all over the map. The last was bretty and old, the one before that was drinking perfectly – and this? Well, if anything, it’s almost too young!

2000 Clos des Lambrays
A good, deep, colour – showing some age. The nose is fresh, showing a suggestion of pyrazine, and a herby dark fruit. Wide, fresh and very tasty on the palate with a growing intensity, some tannin and a mouth-watering sweetness. Very much a young showing here, some angles to the shape but overall this is worth my time (unlike my last bottle). To be clear, there is no extra distinction here vs a creditable Gevrey 1er, but in this instance, some flashes of good flavour – so a tasty wine, but one to wait for!
Rebuy – Maybe With such inconsistency, I can’t unreservedly recommend it…

This Fixin has, for a long time, been sub-optimal in terms of approachability, but it seems to have turned the corner now, albeit with this bottle bringing a little extra something that was unwanted.

1998 Pierre Gelin, Fixin 1er Clos Napoléon
Medium, medium-plus red colour – not a very mature colour but still with some age of-course. The nose has a fine and silky red berry fruit with a just a little faint roast impression and, less attractively, a subtle, but present, impression of brett. In the mouth this is fresh, with fine energy – red-fruited again, and actually with a very nice clarity of flavour. The (previously harsh) tannin is really now something of an anecdote. Overall – the brett excepted, and every bottle will be different – this is a big turnaround performance. Tasty wine.
Rebuy – Maybe

2010 Camille Giroud, Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Les Vergers
Medium, medium-plus lemon yellow. Fresh, mineral, a hint of citrus – a warmer ripeness of yellow citrus at the core – very attractive! Fresh and citrus in personality with a growing intensity – this is very light and seemingly mobile over the palate – faint sweetness that brings a hint of oak flavour to the fore too. Less full, seemingly finer in shape, than the Tête du Clos from earlier this week. A super crescendo of finishing flavour, here with a very late arriving suggestion of firework reduction. Simply lovely!
Rebuy – Yes

And I think I have a third 1998, a red grand cru lined-up for later today 😉

2008 Sylvain Pataille, Bourgogne Le Chapitre
Medium plus colour. What a lovely nose – almost a coal-style mineral impression, and a fine red fruit edged with reduction. Fresh, mouth-filling, growing in intensity – really growing! This has a lovely texture and lots of flavour complexity. It’s really a beauty, holding onto a good note in the finish too. Very yum indeed!
Rebuy – Yes

2010 Camille Giroud, Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Tête du Clos
Quite a deep colour. The nose is full and gunpowder reductive. In the mouth this explodes over the palate, leading with a lovely intensity of acid-led flavour that melt with sweetly-acidulated fruit. Quite a big wine and one that brings an extra wave of flavour in the finish. Big, almost brusque, but deeply involving. Really super!
Rebuy – Yes

2012 Dubreuil-Fontaine, Pernand-Vergelesses 1er Clos Berthet
Here I definitely took my own advice – this is already the last bottle from the case, and each has been excellent – keenly priced too! Medium-pale colour. The nose is never massively endowed, but offers fine, nicely defined, pure fruit notes, fresh fruit. Wide and fresh in the mouth; a growing intensity of penetrating flavour. Rounder on style than, say, St.Aubin, but ingraining flavour and no lack of mineral, stony finishing flavour. Simply excellent, a bottle that always emptied very fast…
Rebuy – Yes

1998 Louis Jadot, Beaune 1er Les Grèves
Here a négoce bottling.
Here is a good and deep fruit, mineral inflected in a coal way that reminds me of the Pataille – just with more age. Wide in the palate – and quite fresh too. There is the last vestige of what may have been slightly astringent tannin, but today not-so. Certainly there’s a little bitterness in the finish, but more towards bitter-chocolate than outright (not nice) bitterness. Over time in the glass, the mineral component diminishes if never leaves, the fruit gets redder and adds a suggestion of flowers. Still slightly young, but definitely entering an early-drinking phase.
Rebuy – Yes

Typical – perfect condition for this, the last white from my case of 08 Pillots – but the one with my least favourite profile due to the riper fruit and vanilla, still, rather a tasty wine. Can’t win them all…

2008 Paul Pillot, Chassagne-Montrachet 1er La Grand Montagne
Hurrah – yellow colour! The nose is fresh, ripe-fruited and with a hint of oaky-vanilla. In the mouth this has a lovely intensity, a little fatter bump of ripe fruit in the middle before fading on a great line once more. The flavour is still a little vanilla inflected. A great line of intensity, indeed tension though – yum!
Day 2: ouf! No fat, no vanilla – just fabulous wine – it turns the screw of pain re the two lost caillerets…
Rebuy – Yes But no, for obvious reasons…

2009 Gilles Bouton, Chassagne-Montrachet Les Voillenots Dessus
Deeply coloured – ooh, and what a beautiful nose of silky ripe fruit – super enticing. In the mouth, there’s now none of the rusticity of this wine when it was young – but there’s still plenty of power for a villages wine. More a pizza than a salmon wine, but really enjoyable – yum!
Rebuy – Yes