2005 Tollot-Beaut, Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Champ-Chevrey
Medium, medium-plus cherry-red. Wide, sweet and interesting on the rather yummy nose. There’s plenty of grainy tannin, but it doesn’t overwhelm the lovely fruit background that slides slowly into a good, less obviously creamy and oak inflected finish than the 1er Lavières. I almost always like this cuvée and here’s another to add to the list!
Rebuy – Yes
This very adequately followed a half-bottle of Billecart-Salmon…
2005 Tollot-Beaut, Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Les Lavières
Medium, medium-plus cherry-red. A deep and impressive nose that’s edged with dark cherry and darker oak. The palate is very well concentrated, soft tannin and excellent acidity. The fruit is dark shaded, buttressed by oak flavour and has a nice creamy medium length. Very, very good.
Rebuy – Yes
Thursday was just your average evening: me gatecrashing a dinner in Beaune with 3 former ‘harvest (07) mates’, plus two winemakers and someone ‘ITB’ (in the business) from Australia…
Prompted by an earlier Henri Boillot bottle that was more than a little tired I had decided that I had to open a 2001 Corton-Charlemagne. I hadn’t tasted this in the last couple of years, but the first three bottles of a six-pack were seriously (and serially) stunning – I never had a better Charlemagne. I took the same occasion to try another (as yet, recently untasted) 2001 Charlemagne from Dubreuil-Fontaine and added a little Mischief & Mayhem 2005 Puligny Caillerets to oil the wheels:
Light colour. With the first sniff, everyone said ‘typical 2005’ – ripe, forward, rich etc. Was a great start before we moved to… Light colour. Tight, mineral, less obviously ripe. Austere and concentrated – probably what most 5/6 year-old Charlemagnes would aspire to! Not light colour – at least not when using the previous two as reference. Very ripe, honey on the nose. In the mouth it’s fat and concentrated – no obvious oxidation aromas or flavours – but not the zing, not the painful intensity and not the haunting finish of those first bottles – comment from winemaker friend #2: “you called me round just to taste this?” – ouch.This Boillot is now ‘only’ a good wine, no-longer a great one. It’s a significant fall from its peak and my last two bottles will be drunk in the next 6 months – at €60 I won’t leave one for academic interest – N.B. the 2005 is more like €100…
After that, we all went back to the Dubreuil to confirm how austere it was before finishing every last drop of the evening’s ‘honey’ the M&M – just a very, very classy wine.
For the record, we also had a lovely 2001 l’Arlot NSG Fôrets de l’Arlot, a sadly ‘flat-ish’ 1990 Dom Ruinart Rosé and a 2001 Amiot-Servelle Clos de Vougeot that showed poor aromatics but was ‘okay’ in the mouth… Oh, and the company was great 😉
This Barthod has a small problem – it is from a domaine with ever-more renown, hence, prices are on the up – this is a great wine but in a vintage like 2005 the value certainly lies elsewhere; the previous Volnay 1er Brouillards from Voillot costs the same and frankly is such a massive step up in complexity and elegance that the Barthod has no chance to make up the gap! NB this is still a top-class villages, but it’s an expensive one – that said, if you haven’t already bought some, you may already be too late – so it doesn’t really matter!
2005 Ghislaine Barthod, Chambolle-Musigny
Medium, medium-plus cherry-red. The nose shows a transient deep and toasty oak nose – then it’s gone. At 20° the nose is diffuse and flabby but at 17° there is some tightening, black cherry and just an edge of reduction. The palate starts just a little rough, but I think this is just a little dissolved carbon dioxide as there is quite some improvement, eventually it’s lovely. Following the Voillot, this is more masculine with darker shaded fruit and perhaps more density, but certainly missing a little of the magic complexity of that wine. Lots of dimension and a very impressive finish. It needs a little time in the glass, but this is a top-class villages.
Rebuy – Yes
Hooray – today is Beaujolais Nouveau day! — But is anyone interested?
Although it looks like a nice party, non-one is smiling: the 2003 Beaujolais Nouveau art of Terry Rogers hints at the tacky descent of an award winning marketing campaign which was the saviour of a winemaking region – a campaign that is now baring its teeth to all.
Beaujolais Nouveau brought (French) winemaking regions to a whole new clientele, it was marketing mixed with hype and mixed with fun. Over time the hype died. Add to the mix a few dire vintages and the fun was gone too. But can any class of wine truly be on the wane when Riedel are prepared to make an expensive ‘Sommelier Beaujolais Nouveau’ glass? Maybe those wacky Austrians are just having a joke at our (and the region’s) expense. The injection of great volumes of (admittedly cheap) sales helped a region prosper but the belt tightening is once more necessary.
Twenty years ago the region was less troubled in the homes and domaines of those who majored on quality ‘Cru Beaujolais’ – they had always had a steady clientele, but today the sins of the ‘sons’ are now reflected also onto the fathers; never mind Beajolais Nouveau, Cru Beaujolais is becoming hard to sell, tainted as it is by a whole new generation of wine-buyers with a perception of Beaujolais based on dodgy bottles of nouveau.
There has been some online visibility this year – Eric Asimov in vanguard here and here – but despite tons of worthy, interesting, ageable and complex bottles, and let’s be clear, fun bottles too, something needs to change in the region’s marketing department.
For what it’s worth, this year I bought my first real quantities of Beaujolais since I don’t know when – mainly 2005’s but some charming 2004’s too.
Burghound went overboard (perhaps) on the 05 Voillots so I was happy to find a few bottles – if this, the ‘smallest’ bottling is any benchmark then Burghound was ‘on the money’ and I can’t wait to try the higher scoring wines. Seems I did very well to pick up a few magnums!
2005 Joseph Voillot, Volnay 1er Les Brouillards
Medium cherry-red colour – relative to its age and other wines of the vintage it’s quite light in colour. The nose is forward and shows a lovely perfume; floral top notes and bright red berries with red cherry at the base. Fine silken texture, perfect acidity and a slowly fading, cream-edged finish. Not powerful, but it has real dimension, class and elegance – excellent.
Rebuy – Yes
2005 Dureuil-Janthial, Nuits St.Georges 1er Clos des Argillières
Medium, medium-plus colour. The nose is wide and fresh, faintly creamy but far from effusive and goes through quite a sulfurous phase before smelling more of violets. In the mouth there is a plush background to soft and creamy red fruit that lasts well into the finish – just a little coconut edged. There is good mid-palate dimension and an oak-driven richness. A very good bottle, but today I’d like a little more personality.
Rebuy – Yes
An interesting new site and initiative worthy of your attention:
In 1983 and in their early 20’s, Dennis Sherman and his wife Eleanor went to burgundy for a holiday and never really made it back home. Employment came by setting up their own small-estate Burgundy importation company.
Dennis has just launched the ‘Burgundy Wine Institute‘. Collaborating with the BIVB’s Ecoles des Vins de Bourgogne he has put together a selection of programs combining formal classroom work with field study (e.g. making the rounds with a courtier to learn barrel tasting techniques, or a morning with a sommelier). All are small group classes (15 max) mixing weekend, 4 day and 6 day courses.
It’s a commercial operation, though apart from swapping a couple of emails I have no affiliation with Dennis, however, particularly given the collaboration with the BIVB I expect this should provide rigour to an interesting program.
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