It was a perfect weekend for walking, getting a little hotter each day. For the first time this year, there is more ‘definition’ in the vineyards as the vines are trimmed and more regimented – I love this time of year!
Auxey-Duresses
Despite the temperature closing in on 30° this weekend, my boss said – No, it has to be red!
So here you go:
2012 Camille Giroud, Volnay 1er Les Lurets
Hmm – the nose is not the best – it’s not bad, but I’d want more purity from my Volnay – here the fruit is very powdery – stopping short of musty, but for the whole night, stable, powdery. In the mouth – no problem. Sinuous, dark red and pure fruit with lovely energy. The shape of this wine in the mouth is really lovely – it drinks (oops – drank!) very well.
Rebuy – Yes
2013 Chezeaux/Ponsot, Chambolle-Musigny 1er Les Charmes
I hate these seals – or at least the attempted removal of them – I don’t think I’ll ever stop saying that, but the wines have always been fine!
Hmmm – dreamy pure fruit – ripe fruit – you might easily think it was from a vintage like 2009. In the mouth there is fine energy but again, despite the easy-drinking beauty of the fruit, it is very much a ripe, almost cordial fruit. Too easy? Maybe for Chambolle 1er, but certainly too easy to drink today – it is gone in double-quick time. Hopefully by age 10+ there will be more real interest, instead of simple, if appealing, easy drinking fruit.
Rebuy – Yes
Given my rotten 05 Puligny Caillerets, I decided to pop another M&M 05 to see if it was an isolated incident. As you can see – and (as you prefer) call it old age or blindness – but only after I’d poured this, did I realise that I’d actually pulled out an 07, not the 05!
2007 Mischief and Mayhem, Meursault 1er Les Charmes
Much lighter colour than the 05 Caillerets. Fresh, forward and embracing aromatics – this is really inviting. In the mouth – wow! If you are acid-shy then you might find this a little challenging, but this is a super-intense and fresh wine yet with fabulous construction and weight too. Still very much a baby – it zings across the palate and I loved it!
Rebuy – Yes
Inter Beaujolais* is the ‘southern‘ equivalent of the BIVB. Yesterday they announced some changes:
At their Extraordinary General Meeting on July 13, the members of Inter Beaujolais endorsed the appointments of Dominique Piron as President and David Ratignier as Vice-President. Every two years these positions switch between ‘traders’ and ‘growers’ – we now enter the grower’ phase.
Dominique Piron, 66 is a grower from Morgon and David Ratignier, 46, is a grower in Saint-Etienne-la-Varenne. For the full announcement, in French, click here.
*The Interprofessional des Vins du Beaujolais was formed in 1959 and has responsibility for the 12 Beaujolais appellations. This encompasses an area of 16,000 hectares in 2 départments (Rhone and Saone et Loire), producing roughly 100 million bottles per year, representing nearly 2000 winemakers, 12 wine cooperatives and over 150 Maisons de négoce.
What a modest (quantity) weekend – clearly I was also still drinking the ‘dregs’ of all those other bottles 😉
2006 Chenu, Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Aux Clous
Like last week’s 06 villages, there’s a certain attractive phenolic aspect to this wine – more for the flavours than the aromas – but it’s really that – attractive. Fresh red fruit with more sweetness and vivacity – lovely complexity too – versus the villages. This drank beautifully for 2 days – very yum!
Rebuy – Yes
Good as the Chenu is, the next wine is from another planet!
2009 Chandon de Briailles, Volnay 1er Caillerets
A wine no-longer in the CdB portfolio – and that’s a shame, because this is fabulous. It retains a modest nod to the vintage – ripeness for sure – but the clarity of both the aromatic and the flavour is simply first class. Gorgeous wine with a herby, intensity of concentrated extract in the mid-palate. Simply a fabulous wine! I must be more patient with my remaining few bottles!
Rebuy – Yes
Following the bad 05 Caillerets, I decided to keep with a 2005 theme before the start of the weekend – with mixed results:
2005 Jomain, Puligny-Montrachet 1er Combottes
Not just deeply coloured and ‘over-the-borderline’ oxidised, it was corked too!
2005 Jomain, Puligny-Montrachet 1er Perrières
A little lighter in colour than the last wine – if not by much. The nose starts with an apple-y note, but becomes clearer and finer in the glass. A nice line of flavour with a fresh intensity for the ride. 2005s are very often a little dense, but here is enough energy and flavour complexity to overcome the density. Tasty – and drunk over 3 days (the fridge in-between) with fine stability. Yum!
Rebuy – Yes
I think I will extend the 05 exercise into next week – there’s no point keeping them if they are ‘off‘…
Well my last 2005 (Bougros) was just sooooo good, that having also found a bunch of these (2007s too!), I decided I had the right material for Wales vs Portugal…
2005 Mischief and Mayhem, Puligny-Montrachet 1er Les Caillerets
Ouf – now that’s deeply coloured… The nose rotates between states of apple cider, a vendanges tardives style and an aroma redolent of a wine from the Jura. It’s big, sweet, long and complex, with exotic fruit but with oxidative overtones too. Nothing for it – I decanted it and left it in the refrigerator for 1 hour – fortunately I had started early 😉 Early or not, this wine was completely stable – even 3 hours later, it hadn’t budged an inch. Nothing for it; where’s the cork-screw?
Rebuy – No
2008 Roty, Gevrey-Chambertin La Brunelle
The Roty starts all smoky and with a little gunpowder reduction too – slowly there’s a fine, slightly cushioned and certainly attractive fruit. Modest of weight but fleet of foot and with super delicacy to the flavour. For the football, maybe I should have taken something more ‘obvious’ and easy – this demands some attention, but in the best way…
Rebuy – Yes
I appear to have had decent luck avoiding the p.ox with most of my whites, but like Wales, tonight it wasn’t to be…
The other day, I found my last bottle of this whilst ‘rummaging!’ Bouchard don’t have any holdings in Chablis, separate from those of William Fevre – so this is actually a Fevre wine, sold into Switzerland by somebody who obviously didn’t have the exclusivity on William Fevre! 🙂
2005 Bouchard Père et Fils, Chablis Bougros
I assume that this is still a négoce wine, despite Fevre being the source. Wherever it comes from, the colour is much lighter than I might have worried about – certainly younger and lighter coloured than this weekend’s Gambal 2012 Dents du Chien – a fresh, weighty wine indeed. It’s a squeaky-clean and very inviting nose – it could be a 2012! Weight of extract, a little fat, but also fine minerality and freshness – here is a slightly fat finishing grapefruit/agrume flavour. This tastes fabulous without ever delivering the extra dimension that 10 years might endow – a baby – a very pretty baby indeed – but unfortunately my last baby. Brilliant!
Rebuy – Yes – without hesitation.
Bourgogne Aujourd’hui put a article together that follows the low points of the vintage so-far (in French) at the end of last week, a week when the Rhône was badly hailed. Here. (or if you prefer a google translation, here.)
Episodes of hail are almost going unmentioned in a year such as this; Friday 24th June there was a big rainstorm in the Côte d’Or that afternoon – the same storm (presumably) that hailed Fleurie(++) on the same day – only by speaking to an owner did I find out that parts of the Côte d’Or were also hailed; their parcel of Lavaux St.Jacques being completely lost. Presumably this group of owners have no Facebook presence to announce this particular loss to the world – or have given up!
Currently, most of the Burgundian growers are spraying, and then spraying again against mildew – not entirely successfully – we have seen more treatments this year, so-far, than in the whole of 2015. Then there are the grapes; the heavy rain of Friday 24th came towards the end of flowering (some was already finished) and it seems that it did cause some further yield loss with indications of small or aborted grapes be reported to me.
In Burgundy 2016 it seems that when it rains, it really pours…
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