A little typing, a little tasting but mainly email today, though clearly the weather has shaken-off the flurry of hail from the other night – there’s still a chilly wind, but wall-to-wall blue sky in the Côte d’Or…
Also there’s a dinner on Saturday and I only have young wines with me in Beaune – but this pair don’t look too bad I think 😉
Bern, courtesy Bern Tourismus.
Well yesterday I opened the booking for the Paulée Suisse – I’m very pleased to see how it’s coming together. See for yourself here.
Then, just for the fun (I suppose!) we had hail yesterday in Beaune – about 17h45 – it looked like snow to start with, but got harder! Hopefully there’s not much more of that this year.
To reduce the consequence of the weather, I found the Crémant of Collet highly effective! Made from Petit Chablis, it’s direct, fresh and very moreish without undue sweetness… Yum!
Last week saw the publication of my first subscription report of this year – from all my visits in January (now I’m starting to type up all my visits from February – ouf – no rest 😉 ) Anyway, this was the Chablis 2013 report – 34 domaines visited to taste – 50% up on last year. Not an easy vintage if you are looking for ‘pure’ Chablis, but tasty wines all the same.
Ah, I remember when it was easy (financially!) to buy wines like these…
Quite a nice selection this weekend. I also like the fact that you never ‘know’ beforehand (with any certainty) what the result will be – who would have called that the Cathiard would be the support-show for the other two…
1995 Sylvain Cathiard, Vosne-Romanée 1er Malconsorts
Quite a deep colour. The nose alternates between pretty, older tones of dark roast fruit and something more of beef-broth – alternately nice/less nice. Good concentration of flavour still with a weight of tannin structure – plenty of shape to the tannin but they are not unlikeable. The flavour is good and quite long. This was a case that I bought through Sotheby’s about 2000 for £150 – that’s probably the price of a bottle now – but this vintage is a good drink, but not a great drink.
Rebuy – Maybe
1996 Guy Castagnier, Clos de Vougeot
Medium, medium-plus colour. Round and open nose with sweet plum and faint spice – this is very inviting. Sleek, smooth and with a little fat plus beautiful acidity and a very fine line of flavour. I’d say this is very ready and very, very tasty. Super wine – with a haunting finish. Excellent!
Rebuy – Yes
1999 Gilles Remoriquet, Vosne-Romanée 1er Au-dessus des Malconsorts
Medium-plus colour. The nose is an absolute joy of pure red fruit and some padded, faintly spicy support – easily the most attractive of these three wines. Here is both the joy of consuming and the sadness that only 7 more bottles lie in my case! As a package, this is still a little behind the Clos de Vougeot – though it does smell even nicer. The structure is a little firmer and younger – indeed clearly adolescent – but it remains a wine of velvet tannin and remarkable mid-palate width of flavour. A beauty.
Rebuy – Yes
Not surprisingly, there’s a lot of beaurocracy when it comes to wine ‘place-names’ especially when it’s a very important place-name. The place-name in question is Montrachet, but surprisingly the Côte de Beaune was the second place to start using this name – it is thought – because back in the 13th century the Cluniac monks already had a different place called Montrachet…
The Cluniac Montrachet is near St.Gengoux le National just over the border from the Côte Chalonnaise in the Mâconnais. This single hillside vineyard, and the monks’ vaulted cuverie above it, are pretty much ancient history and ruins now. The hillside covered by this lieu-dit extends 100 hectares, but such is the problem with frost here – every second vintage loses at least half the crop – that 80 of them produce only cereal today. But a dozen hectares still have vines, and are commercialised by the Cave Cooperative de Buxy!
As you can see from the label, everything is done to distance this Montrachet from the other Montrachet. The emphasis is that it is ‘only’ a lieu-dit, indeed a Clos – a 100 hectare Clos? But now we all know where the real, original Montrachet lies, and this one probably costs less than 10 Euros in the Cooperative shop 😉
2013 Vignerons de Buxy, Mâcon-Villages Lieu-dit Clos de Mont-Rachet
A very pretty and high-toned nose with focused lemon notes and a faint salt. Fine, wide, mouth-watering flavour and with lovely intensity too – mouth-watering with sweetness of flavour. A wine that really begs you to take another sip. I tasted 25 wines at the coop, and this was about the best one!
Rebuy – Yes
And a few pics from today – a mix of Givry, Montagny and, of-course, Buxy…
Such a shame – living in Switzerland but this is the first day I’ve managed to ‘properly’ ski all year – in the second week of a virus too, so each long run was followed by much panting for breath. But it was worth it.
My leg now seems healed so I can look forward to next year’s season – I really don’t think I’ve time for more this year- tsk!
A fine selection from the cellar this weekend.
One of my favourite 2011s from Nicolas Rossignol – no-wonder his twitter ‘handle’ is ronceret! The Grands-Echézeaux is the 2005 – the purchased fruit of domaine René Engel – the last grapes that he tended – a very primary baby but with tons of potential.
The Savigny from Le Grappin is just a very easy drink, the Fixin has been at peak for at least 3 years now – I wonder how long it will go…(?)
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