This wine had the gpood fortune of following the Potel 09 Chardonnay – it was always going to taste nice by comparison…

2009 Olivier Père et Fils, Santenay Les Coteaux Sous La Roche (blanc)
Medium-pale. The nose is quite buscuity/toasty bread with an underlying sweetness. In the mouth there’s lovely acidity and sweetness though to start it seems there’s a bit of a hole in the middle – give it a few minutes and the intensity increases and it comes into a good place. Everybody wanted a top-up from this one!
Rebuy – Yes

Just a quick test, and this wine failed. No polemic about changes of ownership, but this is a poor bottle of Burgundy. I know it’s cheap, but everyone chose a Bonterra Chardonnay ahead of this flabby, tasteless mix…

2009 Maison Nicolas Potel, Bourgogne Chardonnay Vieilles-Vignes
Pale colour. Very little to say aromatically – tight as a drum. In the mouth flat, close to flabby – clearly low acidity. The flavours are non-descript and bland. Nobody wanted their glasses to be topped up.
Rebuy – No

2008 L et A Lignier, Chambolle-Musigny Les Bussières
Medium-plus colour. The nose (doubtless with a little auto-suggestion) does make me think of Chambolle, a slightly earthy, powerful Chambolle aromatic – but Chambolle all the same. Not a wine of complexity, but there is balance, intensity and forwardly frank flavours that are very tasty indeed. The structure is there but it is more than countered by the fruit extract and flavour right now. A tad simple, but drained to the last drop – lovely.
Rebuy – Yes

2008 JC Boisset, St.Aubin 1er En Remilly
Medium, medium plus yellow. The nose has wafts of grapefruit and pineapple. Day one this is close to tart but with a fabulous acid intensity, the agrume fruit seems just borderline ripe – me? Day two this is classic 2008 with a slightly tropical edge to the fruit but just wonderful acid balance – it seems a little sweeter. I assume my palate wasn’t playing on day one because this is superb on day 2!
Rebuy – Yes

A friend invited me for a tartare evening – it seems there are hundreds of variations, but his was a fifty year-old recipe. Chopped onion, chopped anchovies(!), an egg, paprika, chilli powder, mustard, fresh-ground white pepper, cognac and kirsch. Mix, then add the freshly bought minced beef, mix a little more and finally add a hint more pepper, mustard and kirsch to taste…

I much prefer my egg mixed-in rather than dollopped on top – 15 minutes later we tucked in, served with buttered toast – a good recipe, no obvious taste of fish or mustard! I thought a robust passetoutgrains might be the perfect accompanyment, the David Clark’s 2009 turned out to be rather more elegant than I’d planned – everything seemed to work though, the chilli burn being rather understated so taking little away from the wine…

2009 David Clark, Bourgogne Passetoutgrains
Medium colour. The nose has warm but not overtly ripe fruit, is slightly floral and seems far from a poster-child for gamay. Understated flavours slowly grow rather than deliver impact and interestingly this is completely smooth and supple – again hard to find the gamay! Good texture and pleasingly elegant.
Rebuy – Yes