2002 Fourrier, Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Clos St.Jacques
Medium ruby-red colour that’s just turning to offer a hint of mahogany at the rim. The nose starts with red fruit but also a dark, reductive undertow that initially makes one (wrongly) think to oak – it takes a little over 90 minutes (without decanting) to disappear. Over time the nose becomes lovely and transparent, just a little powdery and young though. From the start there is sweetness coupled to perfect acidity – it’s relatively narrow at the entry but there’s a tight core of concentration in the mid-palate – this also shows a dark, reductive flavour for as long as the same lasts on the nose. This is about transparency rather than impact and is exactly to the Fourrier ‘template’, if arguably not to the terrior. The finish a good one, if not really remarkable. Very tasty, indeed I would say its balancing of sweetness and acidity make it delicious. Rebuy – Yes
While in Burgundy earlier this year we met a lot of new friends and contacts. While in Puligny Montrachet we met Olivier Leflaive. I had read about his hotel and wine bar on wineterroirs.com, a link that Bill links to from this blog.
Upon stepping into the hotel looking for food, Olivier showed up and we started to talk about wine. After about an hour we wanted to be shown around the hotel. Olivier took it upon himself to show us around. After a generous offer we were anxiously moving our things in to the hotel. While there, Olivier befriended us. We met for lunches, and toured the vineyards around Puligny. He was really generous with his time and genuinely interested in my humble project. After helping me with setting up my connection for the shared facility in Beaune we kept in touch.
A few short weeks ago I was speaking with Olivier and he offered me a position during harvest with him at his domaine in Puligny-Montrachet. Needless to say, I accepted. I will be leaving back to France in August, ready to get my hands dirty and back tired.
This, and the previous wine illustrate the context of being a négoce – don’t expect the style of one bottle to be reflected in the next bottle. F.Esmonin is a domaine for sure, but they also buy in grand crus, e.g. Clos de Vougeot, the Bèze from last week (just lower down the page) and this Chambertin. This is certainly a very good wine, and not badly priced for what is in the glass, yet this is merely ‘good’ in the context of the appellation – or maybe my expectation – and behind the Bèze in terms of absolute quality – and, I think, potential.
2001 Frédéric Esminin, Chambertin
Medium, medium-plus colour – certainly paler than the Bèze. The nose starts with coffee/caramel oak and sweetly browning sugar – slowly it develops a very pretty red berry note. In the mouth there’s good intensity that is driven by great acidity – the acidity also helps push a very good length. Quite linear and not overtly powerful. The nose gets better and better – it becomes a gorgeous and complex melange of candied and jellied red fruits. It doesn’t appear to be a ‘great’ Chambertin as today I miss a punch and complexity in the mid-palate, but it’s a very lovely wine and certainly has the balance to age very well. Rebuy – Yes
Perhaps worthy of your attention, I find the following:
Berry Bros & Rudd have shown a real drive to ‘engage’ their customers and potential customers, not just by being the first with a new ‘offer’, but by blogging, twittering, U-tube-ing and who-knows what else. Their ‘blog’ was refreshing in that it was more ‘a day in the life of…’ than a selling tool, per se. Not ones to do things by half, this week (I think it was this week) they have re-vamped their already young site. Take a look, it’s not bad – even Jasper discussing trying to avoid ‘lunar knots’!
‘By using the most recent advances in ultra high resolution mass spectrometry, we have shown that it is now possible to provide an instantaneous picture of how diverse the chemical composition of a wine can be.’
Comparisons are seldom perfect; this wine followed the ’98 Jadot Bèze which, as an adolescent, was quite savoury and certainly very ‘correct’ – I very-much enjoyed it – yet here is a wine that wears it’s youth on its shirt-collar, but still offers a controlled but compelling package that avoids the seamless, perfect interpretations of some modern high-fliers – that is to say, it shows character!
A slightly unfair choice I suppose, but if I could have only one of these bottles in the cellar, today I would take this over the Jadot, though I bet I can’t get any more for the £38 each that they cost!
2001 Frédéric Esmonin, Chambertin Clos de Bèze
A medium-plus, young, ruby-red colour. The nose is a beauty; superb depth, remnants of dark oak, wide notes of turned soil, baked bread and a slightly peppery dark fruit. Slowly but surely a soft red fruit note builds in the glass, the last drops showing a super-precise and penetrating redcurrant perfume. In the mouth this is full, velvety and still shows quite some oak flavour. There’s a little high-toned ‘mouth perfume’ and a very long bitter chocolate and oak finish. To dwell on the oak would be to ignore waves of fruit flavour that wash across the mid-palate, not to mention another burst of flavour before moving into the finish. Clearly a very young wine, but it just oozes class; that it was bought en-primeur for less than most premier crus of 2005-2007 makes me love it all the more. Really, really super. Rebuy – Yes
Opened in the cellar about 3 hours before pouring and brought it up to the kitchen about 1 hour before pouring – looks like that was too soon!
1998 Louis Jadot, Chambertin Clos de Bèze
Medium, medium-plus ruby-red – no obvious age. The nose on first pour is reticent; a little bramble fruit but not much else. Without ever becoming effusive, the nose builds a core of dark fruit, slowly releasing finer red-fruit notes and even gives a hint of gingerbread. In the mouth it has excellent freshness, tempered by concentration and width without apparent weight. Just a faint fatness covers tannin that still offers a slight astringency. The length is impressive though hardly ‘impactful’. I left the wine for another hour. On return the wine is more open, mineral and showing much more depth of dark fruit on the nose. In the mouth there seems to be more concentration and intensity – I actually left the bottle in the refrigerator as the room was very warm – I think it made all the difference. It’s more together, more intense and the dark flavours infuse the tongue. I was wavering at first, but keep this wine below 18°C and you well get the return for your outlay. Impressive, yet it will be better in 5-10! Rebuy – Yes
Clos des Langres - reaching for the sky...
Back from a sticky 35°C in the Côtes.
In the Vines
Vine-growth is very speedy at the moment; all the vineyards are looking like they need their first ‘hair-cut’ as the vines start reaching for the sky. The earliest flowering started on Wednesday last week, but more than 95% of the vines have yet to start.
The heat of the last couple of days will start flowering in earnest over the next; this relatively early flowering sees producers already beginning to ‘pencil-in’ 10th September as a potential starting date for the harvest – that’s another early one – but let’s see how warm the summer is first!
The heat coupled to flowering will have growers up and down the Côtes scanning the skies and their trusty(?) weather forecasts. There are almost daily storms at the moment, though fortunately not all as bad as the one that hit a piece of Morey last week; not only was the 1er cru Caffots badly hit, but parts of next-door Monts Luisants too. It would have been much worse if the flowers were already open – yesterday a Morey producer wore a semi-resigned look as he quipped “ah – that just means that the hail has already done the green harvest for me…” The growers clearly hope for a dry 10-14 days during flowering as heavy rain without hail can still make for very uneven setting of the fruit, so far, the weather doesn’t look like it will be all that ‘supportive’.
In the Market – Maison Nicolas Potel & Terres d’Aromes
Berry Bros and Rudd first announced ‘the story‘, though I waited until I’d visited before typing anything; yesterday I visited Maison Nicolas Potel.
I won’t add any gossip – and there is plenty – but the salient facts are that the management of Cottin Freres and Nicolas Potel decided to go their separate ways in March, effective the end of April. I plan to cover the remaining team’s (current) plans go for continuing the business in the summer issue of the Burgundy Report. Additionally, on Wednesday last week, both Xavier Meney (Nicky’s business manager) and most shockingly, Claire Forestier were (I believe) asked to leave. That Claire had only just launched the inaugural Terres d’Aromes vintage makes the timing surprising. Only conjecture on my part, but perhaps the Cottins came to the conclusion that, with wine sales down about 20%, did they really need two competing labels with a similar business model? That’s not exactly rocket science, as it’s a business approach that could only be supported in a growing market. I hope to catch up with Claire very soon…
