1999 Nicolas Potel, Volnay Vieilles-Vignes
Medium-plus colour A little herb and a lot of sweet, plummy fruit. A middle-weight, but one of sweet silkiness, supple delivery of flavour, widening and intensifying a little in the mid-palate. The finish is tasty and medium-plus length, slowly fading on a more floral register. Very drinkable now – one might even say ready! Tasty and enjoyable wine.
Rebuy – Yes

1996 Jean Grivot, Richebourg
I decided that 20 years should be enough to consider ‘approaching’ this wine – I was wrong: Deeper colour. A wide nose that begins with a hint of jarring herb, but slowly fading herb, then a more floral top note and a weighty core of relatively tight fruit. Mouth-encompassing, every space is filled. There’s a faint rasp of tannin and plenty of acidity too – yet the overall impression is neither sharp nor dry. Large-scaled as this is, the finish is really the thing that impresses. This may never be a wine of grace – though its power, and mid-palate punch will never be doubted. I love the bold finishing flavour very much – there’s great fruit in there, it’s nicely sweet too – but if you ignore today’s obscene price for this wine, today at-least, it’s easy to move onto something less challenging to drink – like the Potel – as opposed to staying, only to academically dissect. I think I’ll wait another 5 years for the next one, yet, there’s no doubt that this is impressive stuff…
Rebuy – Yes – at the original price 😉

Vincent Audras, ‘Verigoude’ Viognier (Beaujolais)
The producer thrust this bottle into my hand, after I told him I’d prefer just to taste just his reds – ‘try it over the weekend‘ he said. I’d already mentioned that I wasn’t the best person to review Viognier, as it isn’t to my taste – but you can’t beat persistence 😉 As I expected very, very floral and rich both aromatically and on the palate too. I have no more to add! (I see no vintage reference, but believe this to be the 2015)

2012 Château Bonnet, Moulin à Vent ‘Vin de Garde’
Now this smells lovely – it tastes great too. There’s an opening touch of vanilla on the nose, but not the palate – this is gone after 15 minutes – so then I’m happy. Fine dark-fruited freshness and a very tasty wine – three people polished it off in no time – super!
Rebuy – Yes

2005 d’Ardhuy, Vosne-Romanée 1er Les Chaumes
Dark coloured, an equally dark but seemingly tight, fresh nose. Very lovely, silky flavour with lots of concentration and intensity – yet delicious and balanced – this was drunk even faster than the Château Bonnet – super again!
Rebuy – Yes

A little remiss of me, but here are two week(end)s worth of bottles:
 

The next two needed to be enjoyed together – my two adieu bottles to Charles Rousseau and Philippe Roty:
2000 Armand Rousseau, Chambertin + 2000 Joseph Roty, Griottes-Chambertin – The Rousseau is fresh and direct, lots of energy and complexity here – can it really be a 2000? Move to the Roty and you have more weight, more vestiges of oak, plenty of complexity and weight of texture – it seems more concentrated. Move back to the Rousseau and it’s ‘wow’ fresh and complex – clearly better – move back to the Roty and it’s bigger and more impressive – clearly better! What a fabulous, pairing to compare and contrast – each sip from the other is better than the last – in a different way. Probably the Rousseau is better for the future, but today, this comparison was the quintessence of burgundy brilliance…

The weekend Griottes – the good the bad and the ugly:
2000 Roty – as above (the good)
2002 Chezeaux (Leclerc the bad) Smells and tasted ‘stewed’ – super weight of flavour (but stewed) and a good sweetness, but this really should have been drunk when it was young and tastier – poor…
1993 Ponsot (the ugly) – unbelievably corked…

Bérêche Champagne – a lovely thing, and it got better and better. slowly losing a hint of oxidative flavour – yum!
1995 Dujac, Morey-Saint-Denis – Hmm, lovely complexity of aroma and flavour – yet I’m a hint disappointed – I though this Clos de la Roche should be a little better – then I realised that I ‘only’ opened the villages. Okay – it’s pretty damn good then 😉

After 3 days this week and about 230 wines tasted, I think it’s time to head back to Beaune today!

And for those who’d like to taste some black-coloured Fleurie, 6 months too early, here’s a link 😉

Hmm – a nice selection I thought – but there were a couple of disappointments.

2013 Olivier Leflaive, Puligny-Montrachet 1er Champ Canet
A hint of oak spice and a width of engaging aroma. Ooh! This is nice; layers of beautiful flavour and a fine line of enlivening acidity. Fine finishing too – really super wine – Yum! I’m always ready for a top-up…
Rebuy – Yes

2013 Nathalie & Gilles Fevre, Chablis Preuses
This is wide and deeply fruited, ripely fruited – lots of sweetness and apricot – interesting but not obviously Chablis. In the mouth this is big, layered and sweet – everybody but me seems happy – it’s a long way from classic Chablis with lots of botrytis-fruit. It’s quite long, but I have to revert to the Puligny which, by comparison, is outstanding. I also thought this was outstanding when I tasted it at the domaine in January 2015, but like many, many 2013s it has developed quickly, and in a direction that’s not to my taste…
Rebuy – No

2012 Comte Liger-Belair, Nuits St.Georges 1er Les Cras
The nose has an obvious fire-work style reduction – the bottle lasted about 1.5 hours but the reduction outlasted the wine – if I opened another, I would decant the wine. In the mouth this feels lovely, complex and finely textured – lots of fine flavour here but it remains framed with the same reduction from the nose. Decant!
Rebuy – Maybe

2014 Château des Bachelards, Saint-Amour
The nose starts all mineral and herbs – not what I expected – here is another wine that needs decanting, but bring out the aromas rather than chase away reduction. Time brings a simmering, deep and silkily-dark fruit and even occasional suggestions of flowers. Immediately more concentration, a little more plushness and silk of texture versus the Liger-Belair. An impression of layers of flavour – clearly we are drinking this WAY too early, yet it cushions and caresses the palate with, frankly, super fruit that has a faintly salted accent. Big, long-finishing, wine but brilliant! This will be ever-greater, the longer you wait…
Rebuy – Yes

Normally I’d give you a quick phone-shot of the bottles, but as you can see today, I had the windows phone ‘smiley’ of death. Nothing comes close to the prettiness of the windows 10 phone interface – but a bit flaky doesn’t quite cover the day to day usage experience. It may have been my fault, perhaps pressing something earlier than I should during today’s ‘upgrade’ – but afterwards the phone was bricked. There’s a tool to revert your phone back to an old version of windows, but in my ‘WiFi challenged’ Beaune apartment, the necessary 1.72 Gb download required the best part of 4 hours to achieve! And naturally, now it’s less pretty, plus all the recent photos were lost – so I offer you the aforementioned windows ‘smiley’ instead.

Fortunately, the wines were good!

2011 Au Pied de Mont Chauve, Puligny-Montrachet 1er Les Demoiselles
A rare bird, and a very pretty one too. Really nicely focused, fresh aromas of lemon, blossom and a suggestion of minerality – this was very inviting. In the mouth there’s really only a suggestion of oak padding and flavour, really this is about a lithe and complex wine with a subtle mineral, salt-encrusted, base of flavour. Really excellent – four of us finished the bottle in 20 minutes – such a shame that there was no more…
Rebuy – Yes

2008 Roty, Gevrey-Chambertin Clos de la Brunelle
Clearly a little ‘old-age’ is setting in; I’ve various bottles of this wine from 06, 07 and 08 – and remember the 08 being lovely when young, the others were harder. So I thought time to try another 06 – as it’s now 10 years old! I was in for a surprise – there was still a hint of oak, but this smelled and tasted delicious – bravo, what an improvement. Sinuous, dark flavour, lost of engaging complexity too – yum! Only when I came to taking the picture of the bottle (which you can’t see!) did I realize that it was the 2008, not the 2006 – oh-well, next time I’ll take my glasses off to inspect the label!
Rebuy – Yes

1995 Daniel Rion, Vosne-Romanée 1er Beaux Monts
A lighter colour than the Roty, also with a warmer, rounder fruit on the nose. Pretty and tasty wine – it has a nice balance and a modest but insinuating complexity on the tongue. Lovely wine, yet, not really better than the excellent, slightly more energetic Roty!
Rebuy – Yes

A couple of delicious, very, very different wines this week:

1992 Comtes Lafon, Monthelie 1er Les Duresses
A mature but warm looking colour. Sweet, plum-style fruit on the nose and a clear attractive maturity. In the mouth this was simply a very charming, sweet-fruited wine. Not super energetic, nor super complex but really wonderfully charming. I have to assume that this is at its peak – but 2 or 3 more bottles lie in the cellar, and I’m in no rush…
Rebuy – Yes

2008 Pascal Marchand, Corton
This was very oaky when young, but to my palate attractively so, rather than garishly or unpleasantly so – of-course that was clearly a matter of taste. Today there is still a hint of coconut, but the oak is significantly less full-power today. In tandem the creamy, luxurious texture has thinned, this wine is a little more sleek and slender but still deliciously transparent and intense. Still a real honey!
Rebuy – Yes

Frederic and Chantal Lafarge – Chantal was a Vial – have a new(ish!) small domaine of 4-hectares in the Beaujolais. They have vines in Fleurie and Chiroubles, and quite old vines too. The vines were already, ‘very well cared for, mainly organic’ but, as you would expect, they immediately set out on a biodynamic course.

Frederic describes the vinification as de-stemming, concrete tanks, and older barrels. The first vintage being 2014. I thought I’d give you my first ‘Beaujolais Report’ here 😉

2014 Chiroubles
From 45 year old vines. 1 year elevage, no new oak, some larger barrels, one racking in April, bottling in October.
Perfumed wine, of modest gamay impression. Round, nicely textured, an almost creamy aspect to the flavour. Good length too. Very tasty wine.

2014 Fleurie ‘Bel Air’
45 and 65 year old vines, Bel-Air is the lieu-dit.
A little more aromatic scale, some flowers. Supple, a hint of tannin but a layered delivery of flavour too – fine length too. This is excellent!

2014 Fleurie ‘Clos Vernay’
A Clos of 1.3 hectares, near the border with Moulin-à-Vent – near Bouchard’s Château Poncier. 40-45 year old vines here.
A pyrazine element to the nose. In the mouth this is supple and nicely textured. Also a similar pyrazine component in the flavours – minerality or bugs? – yet still very tasty, and obviously very young, wine.

A weekend in the mountains – plus some clear ‘wine-joy.’

2010 Francois Mikulski, Meursault 1er Charmes
I’ve never yet had a problem, but I see reports of advanced bottles from François – which is a shame because I love both the man and his wines – but this was in fine shape. A fresh wine of line and intensity with a rather classic, faintly gingerbread nose. The finish edged with a little salinity – it just drank beautifully – yum!
Rebuy – Yes

2009 Patrice Rion, Chambolle-Musigny 1er Les Charmes
Deep of colour, deep of nose… The aromas are dark-fruited, faintly oak-spiced but with sumptuous fruit and a suggestion of florality. In the mouth there’s real presence – concentration and very fine texture. Yum-flavoured with some modest spicy, faintly bitter oak artefacts – but really nothing of concern. A lovely bottle.
Rebuy – Yes

2001 Dubreuil-Fontaine, Corton-Charlemagne
Ouf – this is good! A floral note twists through complex aromatics that mix citrus fruit, a hint of secondary development and some salinity. Really plenty of concentration and fat in the mouth – and I normally consider this to be one of the more direct Charlemagnes – with fine balance and just a fabulous mid-palate and finishing complexity. This really is one of the best whites I’ve drunk for a long time – Bravo!
Rebuy – Yes – like a shot!

1993 Louis Jadot, Nuits St.Georges 1er Clos des Corvées
Ouf – again! A clarion of gorgeous, dark fruit – cherry – that slowly melts into a floor of dried leaves – just a beauty. In the mouth it’s a super wine with (today!) only modest tannic structure. It’s lithe, complex and oh-so-tasty – the palate is almost as good as the nose – and that’s saying something! Young, but ‘ready’ – great!
Rebuy – Yes

2011 Au Pied de Mont Chauve, Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Les Vergers
A barbecue in the mountains – this bottle kept cool by burying it in the snow – let’s be honest – almost anything would have been good in this context. Yet this is a beautifully put together wine of fine aromatic, and a balanced palate with concentrated waves of fine flavour. I won’t aggrandise my recollection further as we certainly weren’t using tasting glasses – but a resounding ‘yum’ came from all who partook…
Rebuy – Yes