2017 A&P de Villaine, Santenay 1er Passetemps
Hmm – approachable, slightly cushioned, rounded aromas of red fruit – a hint of development but hardly. Large in the mouth – hmm, that’s got really really impressive volume – framed with a subtle tannin, more velvet than velour. Very slowly fading… Drinking beautifully from the very start…
Rebuy – Yes
For a short time, this was a contract wine at CdB – so not a domaine wine.
2009 Chandon de Briailles, Volnay 1er Les Caillerets
My first 2009 at home for a while. 2009 was a vintage that I bought, but more with hope in mind. The wines were a little warm and ripe vs my preferences – 2010 was next level, for example in clarity and energy – but as said, I had hope. How well founded was that?
Ooh – I clearly loved this wine 15 years ago, but today it s perfume is rather round and lacking aromatic precision vs what I expect from Caillerets. In the mouth it’s wine of impressive scale and not bad clarity/purity – but, for sure, this is a very ripe presentation of the fruit. The structure is very discrete and the flavours pack a punch. I’m finding the wine has a little impression of higher alcohol but the label disagrees. Give it 5 hours from opening and the glass is much more appealing – the flavours. The aromas still seem a little heavy-handed and generous. It took me 5 hours to want that second glass. Maybe another 10 years?
Rebuy – today No
Image, courtesy the GJPV…
The Young Wine and Vine Professionals Group has awarded/rewarded its 2025 Young Talents!
On Friday evening, November 14th, during the Young Talents Dinner, the association presented 7 trophies to young winemakers, in this case categorised as ‘Aged under 40 or established for less than 5 years.‘ I wonder if I could sneak into the latter category !!
As each year, there was a pre-tasting by a ‘jury of 60 wine professionals,’ before a final ‘taste-off,’ this year by:
Daniela Paris, Sommelier, Italian importer, writer
Benoit Laly, Cave Laly in Autun, silver medalist for Best Wine Merchant in France
Each candidate submitted three different appellations from their estate from the 2023 vintage.
The seven 2025 winners were:
Founded in 1959, the GJPV is an association bringing together young winemakers, with the aim of ‘Creating professional exchanges and promoting the best talents for today and tomorrow.’
Sale date: 16 November 2025. The following is my summary of the various press releases – as I chose to avoid the crowds !!
On Sunday, 16 November 2025, once again under the hammer of Sotheby’s, the Hospices de Beaune charity wine auction achieved the ‘third highest total in its history.’ No mean feat for a modest volume vintage, the average price per barrel continuing it’s steady rise with a 4.6% increase. The final hammer total was €18.75 million, an aggregate (with commissions) of €20.2 million. For this event, at least, the market for fine Burgundy remains vibrant.
Following the Hospice’s full conversion to organic certification in 2024, this year’s sale was marked by the introduction of a 52nd cuvée. Thanks to a donation from the Faiveley family, the auction offered a Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru, Cuvée François Faiveley. The two barrels of this new addition sold for €165,000 and €170,000, respectively.
The white wines provided further fireworks. Two barrels of Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru, Cuvée Dames de Flandres, sold for €400,000 each, establishing a record price for a barrel of this Grand Cru for the second consecutive year.
Albert Bichot: The Perennial Leading Buyer at the Auction
Continuing a tradition of purchases dating back to 1876, Maison Albert Bichot was once again the auction’s leading buyer. The Beaune-based négociant acquired 85.5 lots for a total of €4,516,500. This represented 16% of the total volume and 25% of the total value of the sale, including 22 Grand Cru barrels. Notably, Bichot secured one of the record-breaking barrels of Bâtard-Montrachet. Albéric Bichot praised the quality of the vintage, noting: “The 2025 vintage wines stand out for their balance and energy. They perfectly reflect the rigour and passion applied in the vineyards and cellar alike.”
Guillaume Koch, Director of the Hospices Civils de Beaune, expressed his satisfaction with the result: “We are delighted to have just achieved the third-largest sale in our history. Once again, the white wines held some wonderful surprises.”
Proceeds from the auction (excluding the Presidents’ Barrel) will fund major investment initiatives, including the construction of a new hospital building in Beaune and the rebuilding of the hospital in Seurre.
2014 JF Mugnier Chambolle-Musigny 1er Les Amoureuses
What an open nose, slightly jammy but with a swathe of floral interest too. Filling the mouth, very fluid, melting; currently in a mineral phase, but how complex it is, just a couple of mm of textural cushioning and a tiny austerity that I could easily overcome already. I’m guessing that this was better 5 years but it will be even better again in 5 more – what an excellent, delicious wine, one with a simply panoramic, floral-infused finish. Yes !!
Rebuy – Yes
2014 Georges Mugneret-Gibourg, Chambolle-Musigny 1er Les Feuselottes
A meaty, fresh and still perfumed nose, in fact a perfume that grows in the glass. Wide, energetic, a density that compares to the 2024s that we are tasting, but with just a small suggestion of extra angles to the shape. A more herbed accent to the finkshing flavours – but delicious flavours. A treat…
Rebuy – Yes
2014 Georges Mugneret-Gibourg, Ruchottes-Chambertin
A finer grain to this complexity of aroma. Much more direct with a wiry, lithe frame and an intensity of fruit in the middle, which is young but completely accessible. Extra broad finishing – such a large finish, with a suggestion of salinity that adds to the herbed complexity. More than a treat – a baby great wine !!
Rebuy – Yes
Thursday the 20th of November 2025 will be Beaujolais Nouveau day – so how about a few stats to get us going?
15.5 million bottles of Nouveaux were produced in 2023 versus 16.5 million in 2022 – but in 2024, we saw another drop to 14.3 million. That said, 2024 was a much lower-volume harvest – and 2025 wasn’t much higher. Unfortunately, for comparison’s sake, the 2025 sales volume won’t be known for quite some time…
The main theme for the 2024 vintage were the losses due to mildew. There was a little of that in 2025 too – but in the end, it was the poor weather at flowering time that reduced volume expectations as it resulted in much coulure and millerandes. Volume expectations were further reduced by spells of hot (heatwave) weather, which shrunk the volume of juice in the berries. Like in the other regions of Burgundy, there was rain to contend with at harvest time, but as one grower explained to me, “Yes, but the rain was sufficiently late that the grapes didn’t take up much of it – so it hardly budged the potential harvest volumes.”
Most of Nouveau comes from the southerly part of Beaujolais – in the Beaujolais and Beaujolais villages areas. More (Nouveau) wine is generally made here than in the crus – but volumes (and trying to compare them) are, of course, a moving target, varying from producer to producer.
In 2024, France took 62% of the bottles, but the classic Nouveau markets of Japan, the US and the UK, together, still bought 3.2 million bottles (versus 4 million bottles in 2022) out of the total of 5.3 million that were exported. Oh, and 4% of that remains white or rosé today!
I’ll make my comments on 2025 Nouveau, aided by some comparison to 2024:
Historically – and I’ve been making this tasting since the 2017 vintage – I’ve seen much more consistent quality in smaller volume vintages than I have in ‘normal’ or ‘generous’ vintages. It seems that many domaines like to play with yield elasticity in the more generous vintages – when it’s quite easy to find lighter, usually less interesting wines.
The quality wasn’t consistent in 2024, and was only rarely great. 2025 is another smaller-volume vintage, but this time the growers have delivered much better consistency – the best that I’ve seen since the 2022 vintage. The 2025 grapes had naturally higher ripeness than in 2024, enabled by earlier harvesting that allowed growers to delay harvesting, should they wish – many domaines recounting that they found it difficult to find the optimum harvest dates. This higher ripeness seems to have worked in our favour with more consistency, and it’s clearly evident in even higher levels in this year’s Beaujolais Villages.
From the 116 wines from 2025 that I tasted, I found many more acceptably delicious, even excellent wines than was the case in 2024 – I even found some great ones!
Very good to excellent wines mean that they are wines where I would be happy to drink at least a glass, or even multiple glasses. This year, it was obvious that there was more consistent quality to be found in the Beaujolais Villages than the Beaujolais, though, like every year, at the expense of drinkability.
Let me explain:
This year, Beaujolais Villages wines show more maturity and their finishing sweetness of fruit is next level – but also the level of tannin in many…. Most of them will start drinking well in the Springtime of 2026 – but on the 20th of November? Les Beaujolais Nouveaux day? – less so.
Did I ever say that I struggle with the concept of Beaujolais Villages Nouveaux? At least in terms of drinking them on the third Thursday of November – of course I did 🙂
All of the wines were tasted and selected blind. It was only after the tasting that I got a copy of the spreadsheet with the names to match to the numbered bottles:
Great wines for their labels
Antoine Viland Nouveau
Julien Aucagne Villages Nouveau
Jérôme Lacondemine, Cœur de Vigneron Villages Nouveau
Excellent Wines – Beaujolais Nouveau
Only one more excellent wine than in 2024 in this section – but fully 61% (36 of 59 samples) of the wines I rated as being of very acceptable quality – that’s way higher than in 2024:
Quentin et Gaëtan Morel, Boder’Wine
Château de L’Eclair
Louis Tête, Le Pot
Les Vins J.M Aujoux, Le Bistrot d’Aujoux
Les Vins J.M Aujoux, Le Cochon Chic
P.Ferraud & Fils, Le Couple
Georges Duboeuf
Excellent Wines – Beaujolais Villages Nouveau
Nineteen from 51 wines tasted in this section I thought excellent – 2 were great. That’s in comparison to just 10 in 2024. Likewise, I classed a much higher percentage of 2025s as having very acceptable quality: 38 from 51 or 74% !!
Famille Mélinon
Domaine de Colette, Natur’elle
Maison Piron
Passot Rémy et Fils
Maison Trénel
Domaine de la Plaigne
Domaine du Sallerin, En attendant le Printemps
Aurélie Dunérin
Domaine de Croifolie
Cave du Château des Loges, Le Monde en Fête
Richard Rottiers
Château de Lavernette, Le Jeune
Château de la Terrière
Domaine de la Milleranche
Château de Poncié
Frédéric Perrier
André Colonge & Fils, Gatsby Gamay
The savoury/beer flavours and/or aromas – which I associate with lower sulfur wines that have been open a few hours – or wines in fridge that have been open more than 24 hours – were very common in the flavours of 2024s, but they are much rarer in 2025. I know that some people like beer.
Click on ‘Read More…’ below to see the full notes for the 116 wines in the order that they were (blind) tasted on Wednesday 05th November 2025:
Read more..
At the end of our tasting of 2024s last week, François served up this beauty. I thought it worthy of a mention.
No wonder François was looking pleased with himself 😉
2019 François Mikulski, Meursault Meix Chavaux
Ooh – what a growth of complex, developed aroma already – such a great nose for a villages. You’d have to wait another 5 or 6 years for this if it was sealed with DIAM – life is about the balance of probabilities, so (personally) I’d rather have 100% confidence in my stored wines and wait an extra few years for the age-related complexity to arrive – your choice may differ. Super scale, and of course, extra generosity to the flavour in this vintage, but what flavour… That’s a great villages…
Only one weekend wine at home, but still an interesting one:
1998 Chanson, Corton-Charlemagne
A deep golden colour – and from the first sniff, there are clearly no oxidation issues here. The nose is of a rich golden citrus with an undertow of cream and honey – plenty of maturity to these aromas but still not ‘fully mature.’ Wide, lovely texture, the starting flavours majoring on mobility and ripe citrus, and they hold decently well. Wide finishing too, also with the citrus richness here. This is in super shape for the vintage, and I think I’d enjoy it even more with a few more years in a decent cellar. Despite a very Charlemagne structure, my descriptors keep involving the words ‘rich or richness’ but for the vintage, this is very, very good!!
Rebuy – Maybe
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