Wide, deep and forward aromas of cream-edged fruit and brioche. Light in the mouth, fresh yet flavour-packed. An additional dimension of flavour in the mid-palate and a good finish. Very lovely.
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Bouchard Père et Fils
2001 Bouchard Père et Fils Beaune du Château
2005 Bouchard Père et Fils Nuits St.Georges Clos St.Marc
Medium-plus cherry-red colour. The nose starts with a forward blast of oaky and mineral tones. Time in the glass gives red fruit and a coffee, mocha-tinged almost texturally furry nose – it just shades more blue with time, and it never stops improving. The palate is muscular though the tannin is buried by the concentration, but what is discernible is finely textured. Excellent acidity with good dimension in the mid-palate. The finish has decent length but is currently one-dimensional. It’s an excellent Nuits – no question, approaching grand cru
2005 Bouchard Père et Fils Savigny-lès-Beaune Les Lavières
Medium, medium-plus cherry-red colour. The nose shows red and black fruit, but more to the ‘black side’, there is also an underlying note of (medium) oak toast – not overpowering (even to this palate) but consistent for the time the bottle is consumed. The palate is lithe and interesting with good length, without ever generating getting into gear. Good wine for sure, but disappointing vs my initial note.
1997 Bouchard Père et Fils Beaune Grèves Vigne de l'Enfant Jésus
The nose is reasonably fresh and quite wide. In this company the palate is very fresh yet still appears balanced. The fruit is tight yet ripe, but is wrapped in fine tannin that adheres to your teeth – they seem ripe enough. This is the youngest wine I’ve yet come across in this series of ’97’s, I would not hesitate in saying leave these for another 5 years. Seems to have real potential.
2002 Bouchard Père et Fils Beaune du Château
Medium-plus cherry-red colour, no evolution of the colour yet. The nose started powdery and a little mildewy, it took over an hour in the glass to clean up and show high toned red fruits at the top and just a little blacker material below. Sweet, quite well textured and with lovely mid-palate intensity. The tannins are less grainy than many 2002’s and still reasonably well-covered. There’s plenty of good acidity to ride you through into an equally good finish – though there’s just a little finishing bitterness – this will resolve over the next 2 years. Still a relative bargain for the quality, I expect this wine will have a good long life.
2004 Bouchard Père et Fils Volnay Caillerets Ancienne Cuvée Carnot
Medium, medium-plus cherry-red colour. From cellar temp (15°C) the nose shows several layers; high-toned jellied black fruit at the top, earthier, leathery notes in the middle and lower-down. Leave the glass for a while and it fills with cream and a faint smoke edge – mmm. The palate is quite a departure from the norm in 2004 – lots of faintly grained tannin – but there’s quite enough intensity of black-shaded fruit to match. The acidity takes a little-bit of backseat to the fruit and tannin, just slowly making your mouth water. I might wish for a little more expansion in the mid-palate, but the finish is long with hints of mocha and a bitter young-oak edge. Not the easiest of wines to drink, but no green notes here. This very young wine needs at least three 3 years before revisiting – but it will be worth it – it has the potential to be excellent.
2005 Bouchard Père et Fils Savigny-lès-Beaune Les Lavières
With almost 4 hectares of vines, Bouchard P&F own close to one quarter of this vineyard. Bottled at the beginning of February (only 3 weeks before this note), this wine initially shows an understated and nicely floral aspect, slowly it builds on flashes of dark fruit and eventually some caramel barrel notes. Sweeter fruit than the previous wines, again with some grain to the tannin, but the purity of the fruit presentation is excellent as it expands over the mid-palate. I will check a few prices as this could be quite a buy.
2005 Bouchard Père et Fils Beaune du Château
For such a massive production – over 100,000 bottles from 21 hectares of 17 different 1er crus – this wine delivers impressively high quality in almost every vintage, 2005 is no exception. This has a lovely full nose with a creamy depth to the fruit and eventually that faintly vanilla/caramel barrel note that most of these reds are wearing. Concentrated, but vs the previous wines this is more supple and has much finer tannin. Really exemplary balance coupled with good length. I think this is a wine to buy by the case in this vintage.