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

2007 Mischief & Mayhem, Puligny-Montrachet 1er Caillerets
On pouring in the kitchen, the dark colour hard my heart sinking (once more) but outside in the garden, it was clear that this remains yellow not golden – even if dark yellow! The nose actually has a reductive twist and some exotic yellow fruit. In the mouth this is very large-scaled and with much less overt acidity, indeed freshness, than M&M’s 2007 Meursault Charmes. In style, I might have guessed this to be a typical (un-p.oxed) 2005 – i.e. mouth-filling and massively scaled – highly impressive, without being particularly delicious. Quite a good wine. I have another but many other things taste better to me at this stage, so I’ll bite the bullet and wait a while longer – I know I’m not taking my own advice, but why drink it if I don’t enjoy it?!
Rebuy – No

2005 des Croix, Bourgogne Pinot Noir
Still deeply coloured. The nose offers up sweet fruit of decent freshness, and now, for the first time, a vibration of extra age-driven complexity – yum! In the mouth this has plenty of volume and great texture. Without being super-fresh this is very well-balanced and nicely weighted – the fruit is, however, rather sweet and close to cordial-like. I find the fruit just a little distracting – but I can wait 😉 For a Bourgogne, this sits below the Barthod 05 today in terms of pure deliciousness, but overall, it’s really not far behind!
Rebuy – Yes

2008 Prince Florent de Merode, Ladoix Les Chaillots
This wine was always brilliant value, usually cheaper than a whole swathe of Bourgognes – but young, I found a few odd flavours in this wine – but no more! The nose is fresh and really only very modestly herbal – in that 2008 vernacular. In the mouth this has a good dose of complexity – herbs and fruit – and a very endearing freshness that makes it moreish. This wine is really coming into its own now – fresh, herby but with decent fruit and a certain ebullience. Yum!
Rebuy – Yes