Laundry list

A short post to talk about a few wines, tasted double blind, just before our white Burgundy tasting.




2004 Domaine de Montbourgeau L'Etoile (Jura): Very well made and balanced Etoile. Mostly Chardonnay with a little dash of Savagnin.
Unmistakably Jura, elegant oxidation, some light curry and spicy notes with yellow apple. Nice even though this is a little simple.

2009 Michel Delhommeau Muscadet, Cuvée St. Vincent
Spicy mineral pear with citrus. Hint of orange and some exotic fruit. A touch of yeast. With air, the minerality fades and the exotic fruits become more apparent. Floral as well.
It's enjoyable but definitely ripe, especially for Muscadet.
None of the blind tasters recognised muscadet and some even went to Languedoc or CdP.....



2005 Domaine Anne Gros Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Nuits Cuvée Marine: Upon opening, nose was all lemon butter milk. More energy on the palate with again lots of lemon. Round, showing a little bit of heat (although only 12.5%) and nutmeg.
The finish is a little flat.

1999 Fred Magnien, Chassagne Montrachet Les Morgeots (Rouge): well this is definitely ripe. The oak is still lingering, not totally integrated yet. It is definitely Burgundy but quite modern and I'm not a big fan of this ripeness and texture.

2008 Vincent Prunier Bourgogne rouge: Light cherry core. There's a caramel, nutty tone on the nose. Nice floral notes and red currant. Round with med- acidity. It's a little sweet on the palate with ripe strawberry. My guess was Oregon pinot. It's ok but a little overdone for my taste. People liked it much better than I did. Surely well made.


2000 Edmond Duclaux Côte-Rôtie: Very tight on the 1st night showing absolutely no Northern Rhone character. Then on the 2nd day, the nose was great: plenty of olives and floral notes with bell pepper and ham. The palate is slightly stewed though and the wine lacks finesse. With a little more freshness, this would have been much more enjoyable.
2005 Damien Laureau Anjou Clos Frémur: Almost opaque and viscous in the glass. A lot of violets and cassis with a touch of bell pepper. There's also a beam of raspberry fruit in this dark mix. Firm tannins. This is a massive wine. Almost like a raspberry liquor on the palate wrapping licorice an charcoal. Ripe. I liked it much more the 1st time I tried it. This time, it was too powerful. A big steak would help here for sure. But I think I like his Savennieres (which are awesome) much more.

A battle in the heart of Burgundy: Puligny vs Meursault vs Chassagne

Cool temperatures and the very beginning of fall was perfect for our blind tasting of the night: the 3 most prestigious communes for whites in the Cote de Beaune: Puligny-Montrachet / Meursault / Chassagne Montrachet.

Driving from Beaune, you are going to hit Meursault first then Puligny to finish with Chassagne, the southernmost communes of the 3.

With the fear of having many oxidized bottles, we started the tasting (all blind).

1st Flight


2008 Chartron et Trébuchet Puligny-Montrachet
Very lemony with a hint of oak and minerality. Austere. It lacks energy on the palate.
Simple. Not bad but at $50, ouch !

2001 Coche-Dury Meursault 1er Cru Caillerets
More powerful than the previous wine. Nutty and smoky with a hint of mango. Round, spicy and apple. While well made and with decent complexity, it lacks depth.
Disappointing. And I thought it was a Chassagne...

2001 Domaine Ramonet Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Les
Premox. What should have been a gem was showing signs of premox....and was pretty much undrinkable.

2nd Flight

2000 Domaine Rémi Jobard Meursault 1er Cru Le Poruzot
Some exotic fruit on the nose (pineapple), pear and citrus. Nice grillé. Palate is a little soft and almost lactic.
Not bad but quite straight forward. This specific bottle will not last very long.


2006 Domaine Fontaine-Gagnard Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru La Boudriotte
Grillé noble with a hint of minerality. Well balanced. This is quite Meursault like in character.
Round and orchard fruits. Powerful. The finish is not totally focused but this wine was my favorite of the tasting.
Nice.

1998 Henri Boillot Meursault 1er Cru Les Perrières
Corked. 2nd flawed bottle of the night.




This rather small sample was interesting to taste even though there were, in my opinion, no really outstanding wines. The fact that the Ramonet and Boillot were flawed surely did not help.

Funny to see that the Fontaine-Gagnard wine was among the favorite of the night even though the Boudriotte terroir is more famous for the red Chassagne. Nevertheless this was a nice wine. I would love to do another round with more wines, especially Puligny which is my favorite of the 3.

Nice to see that all the wines were showing a sense of place and were definitely Burgundian.

Delicious times

The 2009 vintage in Beaujolais is hailed as the very best vintage in recent memories. It will be interesting to see if like in the Loire Valley, wines have maintained a decent acidity level to balance the high sugar content.

This 2009 Damien Coquelet Chiroubles is only my second 2009 Beaujolais (after a Clos de la Roilette) and this was a beautiful and delicious one. Damien's father in law in the great Georges Descombes. No chemical and indigenous yeasts are used by Damien.
The nose is pure and inviting. Nice minerality with bright fruit (cherry, cranberry and plum) with a hint of licorice. Earthy and floral, this is quite complex. Balanced, delicious with good acidity. There's also a slight green touch ( reminded me of green peas). Definitely Beaujolais, the bottle was gone really fast....














Also, after drinking his Patrimonio recently, the 2008 Antoine Arena Muscat du Cap Corse was another delicious wine. Very floral and with some lytchee on the nose, sweet but with enough acidity, this is another wine quite easy to drink. It was, in my opinion, a marvelous pairing with my wife Tres Leche (thanks Mary for the recipe!).



Two nice examples of winemakers working consciously and the result is showing in their wines.

Don't post if you're drunk

I guess his mom forgot to tell Uncle Bob that he should not post on the web when he's drunk...
Another precious, priceless one liner from his Majesty. This is what he posted after having diner at a Philly restaurant last week:

Parker quote

Wine expert Robert Parker showed up at Bibou, the well-regarded French BYOB in South Philly, last night.

Parker posted this:

•Marcassin Estate chardonnay 2000
•Leuwin Estate 2004 chardonnay
•Guigal 1990 white Hermitage
•Dagueneau 2006 Silex
•Beaux Freres 1994
•Haut Brion 1982
•Vina Tondonia 1976
•Catena Alta 1997 Malbec
•Rostaing 1991 Cote Rotie La Landonne
•Guigal 1991 La Landonne
•Guigal 1985 and 1988 La Mouline
•Guigal 1989 La Landonne
•and a few others
"I loved everything about this place...the quality of the food alone merits a must visit," he wrote. "Add the BYO and no corkage....and better yet...no precious sommelier trying to sell us some teeth enamel removing wine with acid levels close to toxic, made by some sheep farmer on the north side of his 4,000-foot foot elevation vineyard picked two months before ripeness, and made from a grape better fed to wild boar than the human species....we all know the type-saving the world from drinking good wine in the name of vinofreakism.

Ha ! Isn't beautiful? here's uncle Bob giving us lessons on what we should drink.
What do we learn here?
- if you love acidity in your wines, you suck
- if you dare drinking wines that Bobby do not like, you suck
- if you think differently than Bobby, well you still suck
- if you are a sommelier, well you're precious and yes you also suck (you have to love the description of sommelier when you see the kind of wines he drinks...anyway...)
- if you're not Bob, you suck. Period.

When you're a "public" figure, I believe there are things you must not say. We have here a perfect example of someone who feels threaten by all the changes in the wine world and who is losing his authority.
I just can't accept being insulted because I don't have the same tastes. How old is he? 5 ? Coming from someone who has been preaching for diversity in wine that's laughable.

A funny coincidence is that yesterday I was reading an interview of Pascal Delbeck, who knows a thing or two about wines, after being in charge of Ausone for more than 20 years. In this interview, Mr Delbeck makes a very pertinent note:" Mr Parker has a simple taste, very simple taste. So easy that all the oenologues who have money and common sense can make a wine to please him and exploit his taste".

Vive la difference.
I don't have anything to add.

Ladybug, ladybug...what ladybug?!

Ok, I guess you know what's coming....2004 Burgundy. Whenever there's something wrong in a 2004 Burgundy, it has to be the ladybug. It's vegetal? well it's because of the ladybug. It sucks? well it's again because of the ladybug..

There has been much discussions about the vegetal, green aspects a lot of 2004 Burgundies showed. I think this has influenced, maybe unconsciously, many people and whenever they were drinking, they were actually looking for a greenness in the wine. And if there was one, well it could not be because of a lack of ripeness or anything else. I have to admit that 99% of the 04 Burgs I had were all pretty good. Only average was a Voillot Volnay VV which decided to never open. So much for that ladybug.

Even talking to Clive about it, it seems like it was not really a big issue. Maybe it was US-centric as I also never really read anything about it in the French magazines.

Anyway, everybody is free to its own opinion of this topic and as long I can keep finding crazy deals of closed out Burgs, I could not care less.


So this week, I had a lovely 2004 Roumier Chambolle Musigny. This wine kept getting better over 4 days and showed a beautiful Chambolle character. Balanced, very floral with nice red fruits with a dash of darker fruit as well. Good acidity with the oak being more and more integrated every day. This will be really cool for the mid term drinking.

Maybe the ladybugs never found their way to Christophe's vineyards.... :-)

A few biodynamic wines

While we're enjoying some time off in Southern California, we spent 4 days in San Francisco. I love this city and during our stay I bought a few wines to drink while in Newport Beach. For the 1st time, we went to San Francisco Wine Trading Company. I would really recommend anyone to stop there. Friendly staff and great selection for Provence and Languedoc especially.


Anyway, somehow, the 1st 3 wines we drunk were all issued from biodynamic wineries and were all great wines.

The 1st wine was a wonderful 2001 Marcel Deiss Burlenberg Pinot noir. Grown on limestone soil, this pinot would trick any blind taster and will lead you to Burgundy. I'm usually not a fan of Alsatian pinot noir except for the René Muré Clos St Landelin and this Deiss. There's a great spiciness with an impressive volume on the palate. Bright sherry with some blood orange. Mineral and long, this is drinking really well.
Then, we moved to the 2007 Clos Marie, Coteaux du Languedoc Pic St Loup, Cuvée Manon. Located just north of Montpellier, Christophe Peyrus farms in vineyards biodynamically. Made with typical southern grapes with a majority of grenache blanc (40%) and roussanne (30%) completed with clairette, maccabeu and carignan blanc. Raised in barrels, this shows a perfect balance and the wood is now completely integrated. Lovely nose with lemon, pear and mandarin. Hint of anise mixed with floral notes. Slightly nutty as well. Touch of fresh butter. Fat on the palate but with a surprising acidity and freshness. Only 12.5%. The most surprising thing in this wine is the incredible freshness. I was impressed. Bravo !
To finish our biodynamic journey, a superb 2008 Bott-Geyl Riesling Les Elements was sacrificed. Started very steely and mineral on the nose. Very lemony with grapefruit and floral notes with a touch of petrol. Very enjoyable nose. Almost dry, soft with very good acidity. Green apple. It's a little simple on the palate right now. Really easy to drink. Very nice wine.

While biodynamic practices do not assure great wines, this was the case here. Careful and thoughtful winemaking leading to balanced and low alcohol wines.

Selosse and Huet: masters of their domain

To start my Bday dinner, my wife prepare some pasta dough and created some Lemon ravioli. This is a great dish and we needed 2 whites to go along. A friend brought the 1996 Huet Le Mont Sec and I opened a Selosse Initiale (disgorged nov 2007).


I was super excited to try an aged Huet as all the ones I had were only 2 to 4 years old. This turned out to be a great experience. The Huet showed a rich nose with honey, pumpkin, quince with hint of flint. Dry, borderline of having a touch of RS, the high acidity gives the wine plenty of energy in spite of its fatness. Lemony honey with the slightest hint of oxidation. What I loved was the Chenin character.

The Selosse, as always was a unique experience. This bottle was more oxidative than the last one I had. The nose was stunning and complex. The oak is so well used. You feel like drinking a white Burgundy (with a hint of Jura in this bottle !). There's a strong minerality associated with ripe fruits.

Both wines were perfect with the lemon raviolis. But even more interesting maybe was that the 2 wines showed similar characteristics: oxidative notes, richness, high acidity and minerality. I would not have thought about it before but the luck of drinking those 2 wines side by side opened my eyes.

I will always keep learning....