Medium, medium-plus colour. Tight, fine, furry high tones, ginger. This really expands in the mouth; complex, wiry and with velvet tannin – then expands again. Very long and savoury finish.
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Bouchard Père et Fils
2007 Bouchard Père et Fils Chambertin Clos-de-Bèze
Medium, medium-plus colour. A hint of smoke (yes stems – about 20%, same as the Nuits wines above), silky width, but very primary. Intensity and width across the palate, balance and flavours that continue to seep from your teeth and cheeks after the wine has gone. Plenty of structure, but no hard edges.
2007 Bouchard Père et Fils Chevalier-Montrachet
The nose delicate and floral, very complex but also very understated, slowly hints of cream and wool are added. It’s a narrow entry that gets wider and wider as the intensity and acidity build across your tongue. This wine is mineral but today it is very tightly wound, and delivering none of the energy of the 1ers.
2007 Bouchard Père et Fils Montrachet
A little deaper colour. The aromas start a little heavy and more forward, at the core there is fine complexity but this builds additional dimensions and balance as it aerates – a few minutes in the glass, and the heavyness is gone replaced by a ’roundness’. Really beautiful texture, complex, and with mind-changing mid-palate complexity. As it builds in power it develops an almost buttery texture, but at its core rather than over your teeth and cheeks. Only eventually does the acidity leach from the side of your mouth to prolong the finish. Really special and very approachable today!
2007 Bouchard Père et Fils Corton-Charlemagne
The aromas are instantly panoramic, a little mineral and of fresh flowers, not as ’round’ as the Montrachet. In the mouth this is totally different; narrower (relatively!), more mineral and perhaps more muscular – just the same character as the red Le Corton – long and wiry. Supple and perfectly balanced, showing fresh flavours all the way into the finish. Really high-level Charlemagne.
2005 Bouchard Père et Fils Chambertin Clos-de-Bèze
A precociously forward nose – it hits you before your nose even reaches into the glass. Ignoring the complex, spicy oak character – and there is a lot of it – the core of the nose is a trip through red, down to black fruit, lower down it is a mineral, coal-like effect. Very high quality indeed. Eventually it takes on coffee, chocolate and a subtle creamyness. This is just a little tighter and with less fireworks than last time, it’s lost a little of the buttery texture (a good thing!), but the frame and proportions of the wine are awesome. Perfect balance, mineral, multi-dimensional and long. It’s drinking fine now, but this will be more and more stunning as it develops – what price one of these when it nears its 40th birthday!
2005 Bouchard Père et Fils Chablis Bougros
Pale yellow. A round nose that’s just fresh enough, has a little brioche and subdued but smooth and seemingly ripe fruit below. Maybe it’s just a little fatter, richer that I consider perfect for GC Chablis, but it has the requisite mineral core and a late-arriving mouth-watering finish. Sweetly intense and quite pretty. The purchase price was a bargain and I’d buy more at the price – about half the current Fevre Bougros price!
1997 Bouchard Père et Fils Le Corton
Medium colour. The nose starts with a herby top-note and a little meat below, it slowly develops a sweeter core of spiced plums. In the mouth this is full of dimension and some reasonable tannin too – the flavour is slightly savoury and inflected with coffee. Good sweetness and no lack of balance helps produce a decent finish. Unlike many from the vintage, there’s a real smoothness here – impresses. Half a bottle was left in the refrigerator overnight and next day it was acid-forward and not so nice, though my single glass was always rather cold. So on the third day, at room temperature (~19°C – the weather was cold!) the impression was somewhere between the last two days. So initially a very tasty if not stunning grand cru. Drink it straight away, watch your serving temperature and you will be rewarded!
1988 Bouchard Père et Fils Le Corton
Deeply coloured at the core. Wide and savoury aromatics that give the impression that you are about to meet a tannic beast. Actually the tannin only comes through quite late as you get to the finish – before that it’s silky-smooth. Eventually red berries start to appear on the nose. Black-edged fruit is the main palate component. Long but faintly so. Certainly more youthful than you would expect at 20 years, I would say that it needs about 5 more years in a standard cellar to start to enter its maturity phase.