Hmm – week 47 – there’s not many weeks left this year!

Two similarly priced wines – similarly good too:

2016 Jean-Marc Pillot, Montagny 1er Les Gouresses
Such a vibrant and perfumed nose of sweet citrus and faint minerality. A punch of freshness, complexity and energy. Yes!
Rebuy – Yes

2016 Bourgogne-Devaux, Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Beaune La Dalignère
Plenty of red colour here. Plenty of red fruit aroma too. Silky wine, but one with plenty of volume. There’s some minerality in this deeply fruited wine, but it’s balanced excellent wine.
Rebuy – Yes

It’s a truism in Burgundy that there are great wines, but often you can’t buy them. I seem to have found that also with Beaujolais Nouveau this year. This bottle was the only option in my (Swiss) supermarket this year – for a princely 5.95 Swiss francs. To be honest, most of the wines I tasted here were superior to this particular bottle – but, again, this was my only choice.

It’s unclear who actually made it – the back label is generic and notes only that the wine was imported from Beaujolais by my supermarket. I disliked it not because it was thin and weedy – rather for completely opposite reasons – it was fat, well-textured, obviously concentrated, but it was also cloyingly sweet – no gamay freshness – so no second glass. The rest should be okay for boeuf bourguignone. We drank some 2016 Jean-Marc Pillot 1er Montagny for our second (and) third glasses – that restored us!

Just to show that I haven’t been ignoring my responsibilities these last couple of weeks – here’s the majority of bottles pulled from my own cellar in that time. I hold almost no notes in my head, but the basic impressions remain:

The Armand Volnay was 2017, actually a sinuous and delicious drink already.
Vocoret 2015 Chablis VV – more muscular again but über-mineral and it sang of Chablis.
Longère 2017 Beaujolais Blanc – Nos 2 Elles – rich and ripe yet each glass seemed better and better – a rare delicious BJB!
2007 Lafon, Monthelie 1er Les Duresses. This has really opened since I last looked – blossomed, even. Complex, very Volnay aromatically, just a little structure on the palate but no sharp edges, no rigour – drinking very well!
2015 Nicolas Rouget, Chorey-lès-Beaune – This had a lovely freshness, it drank superbly well for the appellation. Nicolas the (one of the) son(s) of Emmanuel of Flagey. If I understand correctly, this may have been a bit of an experiment, hence, not bottled under Emmanuel’s name, but now I think Emmanuel uses his own label.
2017 David Duband, Côte de Nuits Villages. Fabulous – simply great CVDN Villages. Plenty of colour, life, richness and freshness combined – bravo wine!
Chateau Rougeon Aligoté Arénites 2018. Easy fresh, tasty wine.
2015 Françoise André, Chorey-lès-Beaune Tue-Boeuf – another 2015 Chorey, more the standard fuller profile of the wines from here but completely delicious right now!
2012 Camille Giroud, Volnay 1er Lurets – wow – such clarity, such elegant aroma – great wine!
2007 David Clark, Morey Les Porroux – what a young wine! Concentrated, still tannic, a baby, but a good one with plenty of material. Still young!
2002 Chézeaux, Griotte-Chambertin – well, I was shocked that this was so fabulous – why – it was the Leclerc version and my experience of their older bottles is moderate at best, but this was fabulous – old oak, mushroom but clean and great!
2007 Alex Gambal, Chambolle 1er Charmes. Another hit, round, ripe, but complex and engaging – another hit for sure!
2016 Vézelay – the St.Vincent cuvée produced by Croix Montjoie – my last bottle, the one before was corked. Bright, energetic, citrus, engaging. Simply delicious.
2008 Chézeaux/Ponsot, Chambertin. All my older Chambertins have had a problem of one sort or another – all down to the corks – but this has the plastic ‘cork’ – it was fresh, really fabulously complex on the nose and in the mouth – elegant rather than powerful – but what a beauty to drink. It captured our hearts!