Hmm, I realise that I haven’t opened a bottle for a bit. Mid-week crisis! Oh-well, there’s one way to dispose of that notion – how about something from Thomas Bouley?

2010 Jean-Marc Bouley, Volnay Clos de la Cave
Maybe a hint more than medium colour – maybe. On first pouring there’s a faint trace of reduction that makes you think of oak but it quickly fades with a stemmy anecdote. Five minutes and the aromas are completely changed, offering a soft strawberry impression. Round with depth, detail and just a little plushness to the texture – but with fine acidity. The tannin is sticky rather than grainy and once you find that tannin, you will also have found another layer of flavour, also with a sweet hint of stems. This is a wine that offers more and more if you have the patience to let it evolve in your glass. VV Good!
Rebuy – Yes

Long gone is the 60 Euro bottle of Romanée St.Vivant, but I retain a decent back catalogue of the Thomas-Moillard / Charles Thomas bottle (actually just 1998-2003, but hey…). TM were a hard organisation to work out – clearly their wines were made with a minimum 10 years of aging in mind, 20 would be all the better, but in less heralded vintages such as 98 and 2000 they excelled, in 1999 they made something as hard as nails – still, I’ve plenty of time, I think…!

Having tried the largely charmless 2000 Hudelot-Noellat a couple of weeks back, and contributor Rick saying that the 2000 Follin-Arbellet was pretty much the same, I thought I’d give this an outing. To start with it seemed to offer much more charm than those RSV 2000s and certainly a much better drink right now, but as time passed maybe it did resemble those wines a little…

2000 Thomas-Moillard, Romanée St.Vivant
Medium, medium-plus colour. The nose shows a gorgeous floral top-note, but is underpinned with just a hint of vanilla and a deeper core that is beginning to show some savoury aspects. Lithe, growing in concentration, the flavours peaking in the mid-palate before a mineral, salt-tinged finish that eventually shows a bitter-chocolate tannin flavour that has more than a little in common with the aforementioned Hudelot-Noellat. The acidity in 2000 terms is quite fine, the tannin still holding some grain but there’s flavour therein too, though far less fine than the nose. This is a wine that teases you, adding a little rhubarb and meat (in a few years brett?) so the nose becomes less fun, but the palate becomes more and more involving. Worth the ride. I’ll update this with the other half from the bottle on day 2!
Rebuy – Yes