TN: DC Burgundy Tasting & Dinner 7/15/2017

The 10 of us got together with alot of burgundy on Saturday. Great time. I want to thank those fellow Berserkers (Marcus, Noah, Corey) as well as everyone else for trooping over to my house again. I hope everyone enjoyed the food. I didnt really start to jot down my thoughts on the wines until everyone left at like 1am, so hopefully they aren’t too muddled. [cheers.gif]

My favorites were the 1978 Chambertin and the 2005 Corton for the reds; and the 1990 Puligny Montrachet 1er and the 2010 Corton Charlemagne for the whites. I was really, really impressed with the Bouchard Corton. It will be amazing in 10 yrs.

Notes below.

WHITES
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1990 Jean Boillot et fils, Puligny-Montracet 1er, Les Pucelles
Best drinking white. Solidly mature, great acidity, a touch lacking in the middle. Drink now if you have it.

2009 Fontaine-Gageard Chassagne-Montrachet 1er La Boudriotte
Drinking ok, but a touch young, and someonewhat “dumb” at this point. Never really sang for me

2010 Charlopin Corton Charlemagne
2nd favorite of the whites, Still very young. Nicely complex and rich with great acidity. This will be really fantastic once it starts to get mature notes. It will certainly eclipse all the other whites eventually.

2013 Tribut Chablis Lechets 1er.
A touch smokey, and very intense. I think a bit too much toasty ok. Heavier than typical to me.

2012 Denis Pere et Fils Corton-Charlemagne
Good, but had a chemically note which detracted from it. It never really went away. Did

2015 Michel Bouzereau Puligny-Montrachet 1er "Le Cailleret"
Quite nice, obviously very young and sulfury, but once that went away this was a solid, well drinking young white burg.

REDS
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1978 Domaine Jaboulet-Vercherre Chambertin
Best red of the night and WOTN for me. Fully mature, resolved tannins. This was probably the best of 6 bottles I’ve had of this wine. Fruit was still there, with all the mushroom, earth that you want. A touch of mint to add complexity and a long finish. WOTN for me.
1988 Esmonin Griottes-Chambertin
Still pretty primary. This seemed very young to me. Very smooth, some light earthy elements, good red/black fruits and acidity, still solid tannic structure, medium bodied.

1990 Hospices de Nuits Les St Georges
This got better as the night went on. A touch tannic and had a rough acidity. Strong fruit, and had good mature earthy, mushroomy flavors, although the fruit and tannins dominated. Had a thin body for such a wine.

1995 D. Laurent Echezeaux
Badly corked.
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1999 Domaine Leroy Les Guettes, Savigny-les-Beaune 1er
Seemed a bit young and closed. After about 6 hrs (after everyone left), this finally opened up. Quite a nice wine, but without that Savigny earth and rusticity. Nice black fruits, solid structural but smooth tannins, and good acidity. I actually think this was a touch too polished for savigny. Needs time.

1999 Champy Grands Echezeaux
Nice wine. Young, but starting to soften. Still a bit primary, and didnt really ever show a great deal. Wait another 5+ yrs.

2005 Bouchard Corton
This was my 2nd favorite red. I think it will eventually be a great wine, greater than the Chambertin. It was still very primary and had monolithic dense fruit, but it had all the components (fruit, the tannins, acid, nice green notes) that will make for fantastic drinking in like 10-30 years.

2007 Domaine de Courcel Pommard 1er Cru Les Fremiers

A touch light for pommard. Light pretty red fruits, moderate tannins, and more than a touch of greenness. Still mostly primary. Good wine, just didnt have a ton of stuffing for a pommard.
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2002 Louis Jadot Corton-Pougets Domaine des Héritiers
2003 Louis Jadot Corton-Pougets Domaine des Héritiers
2010 Louis Jadot Corton-Pougets Domaine des Héritiers

These all blended a bit together for me. Stylistically found them all similar ad very true to their vintages. The 2002 was young, lower tanins, lighter bodied. Good fruit, but a little lacking in the middle. The 2003 had stronger fruit, bordering on lighter cali pinots, but was starting to show some mature notes. Medium bodied, and frankly quite enjoyable. The 2010 was very, very young, monolithic, and showing great promise, but thats all I got. I would say the 2003 was my favorite right now, but the 2010 will eventually be a great wine.

DESSERT

2010 Chapoutier Banyuls Rimage

Obviously very primary. All fruit, soft tannins and earth. Great with the chocolate cake.

A very nice report–thanks for posting it!

Great report. Domaine Michel Bouzereau is a producer to watch. Jean-Baptiste Bouzereau is a young talented winemaker. They have a rather new beautiful winery right in the center village of Meursault. They also produce a Perrieres and Genervieres Meursault that is topnotch. The real value is their village Meursault that oft drinks at PC level. Problem as always is finding them.

Nice tasting

Thanks for posting Eric, my notes were so far from comprehensive (didn’t focus on notes and didn’t even taste all the wines) that I didn’t want to take the lead. But a few quick impressions –

First, Eric is not the type to blow his own horn, but he deserves major kudos for taking it on himself to be a convener for the wine crowd here in DC. This is the second one of these blowout dinners he has put on (two months ago we had a Bordeaux/California cabernet dinner and there was a previous thread on that). He has been offering his home for a location and he and Janet have been doing complete sit down menus for 10-12 people – this one featured apps, carrot-coriander soup, coq au vin, roasted duck breast, herbed potatoes, creamed corn, and dessert – plus supplying all the glassware, etc. for the event. That is way above and beyond, even more so when you consider how excellent the food has been, so THANK YOU ERIC AND JANET!

Below are some fragmentary impressions from me. I did not get to all the wines, did not take any written notes, so this is highly incomplete.

WINE OF THE NIGHT (for me) – 1990 Boillot Puligny-Montrachet 1er Les Pucelles

I am not very experienced with white Burgundies, especially older ones, and honestly they have been a hit or miss experience for me. Not this one. In fact, I’d say this might the best non-dessert white wine I have ever had. It started out tight but still expressive, with very pretty hazelnut combined with lemon/lime citrus fruit and minerality in the midpalate. Then it gradually softened to reveal a subtle buttery sweetness and layered depth. Apricots and peaches as well as the butter overtones. This is one of the very few white wines I have ever had that replicated the intellectual interest of a red, where I just wanted to keep my nose buried in it and keep tasting to see what new layers and complexities it was going to reveal. Again, I have never collected or focused on aged whites, beyond some grand cru Chablis that I have probably not aged long enough, so a lot of this is about my own experience. But this wine was a bit of a revelation to me.

RED WINE OF THE NIGHT (AND A THOUGHT ON BURGUNDY AGING) – 2005 Bouchard Le Corton

Eric gave this wine high praise above, which I agree with. But I would disagree with the implication that one necessarily has to wait on this. This is an area where I seem to be at odds with most Burgundy afficianados, in that I think Burgundy that is still in its primary/secondary fruit-intensive phase is very much worth drinking when it is open. This wine felt open to me, definitely not shut down, however it is still expressive of primary fruit. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t complex. It was multi-layered, with really intense black cherry, a bottomless midpalate with the fruit intensity verging on molasses notes at times, but without excessive sweetness and some slightly vegetal stalky overtones to keep things in check. Beautifully poised and balanced with a great through-line to the flavors and a sense of weight and density without being ponderous or heavy. I don’t think there is any way you would get this kind of fruit in a California wine without tipping over into sweet cherry cola type of flavors and possibly a cloying quality that creates palate fatigue. To me, when you hit it right young Burgundy can offer fruit intensity and complexity more gracefully than maybe any other region. So why not enjoy that?

I was sitting next to Noah, who thought like Eric that this wine was possibly too young to be drinking right now (this seems to be the standard take of Burgundy experts), and disagreed with him based on the above. He agreed that this wine was delicious right now but you could get the same type of primary fruit experience with young Burgundy without going to the grand cru level – that the point of higher-level Burgundy was to wait on aged complexity. Noah is more experienced than me so I defer to him, but I have not been able to find anything like the fruit density/weight or layered/textured quality available in young grand crus/top premier crus in village wines or lower level 1ers.

1978 JABOULET-VECHERRE CHAMBERTIN

Related to the note above – yes, this wine expressed a lot of aged complexity. But the fruit was totally gone, it was all mushroom, celery essence, and earth. So I just plain didn’t enjoy it as much as the 2005 Bouchard. I think this makes me a Burgundy philistine. I’ll cop to it I guess.

2002, 2003, 2010 JADOT CORTON POUGETS

Now these wines were more on the shut down end of things, no dancing youthful fruit here. The exception was the 2003 which was more expressive and had a nice mushroom/earth/plummy fruit component to the midpalate. But still clearly not giving all it had. The 2010 was almost impenetrable at this point but did leave an impression of purity and depth that I guess bodes well for the future.

I have the 09 and 10 Pougets myself (thought I wasn’t the one who brought the 10 myself) so a little disappointed at how shut down they were, but I guess you have to expect it.

1999 CHAMPY GRANDS ECHEZEAUX

Great nose on this one, that developed over the course of the evening. The palate was way behind, not offensively shut down but not that expressive. But one of those wines you don’t regret opening because it’s worth it to keep your nose buried in it for an hour.

2013 MAISON DAMPT LES CLOS

Eric didn’t notate this one, but it was an intense and pleasurable young Chablis with lots of oyster shell minerality and citrus fruit. A long way from opening up fully but this is very classically Chablis and has excellent acidity and cut. Maison Dampt is often a good deal I think.

I just bought some JB Ponsot Rully at my wine shop (again), but I was tempted by the Bouzereau Meursault 2015 at around 33€. Have you tried this vintage? Think it’s worth it? Thanks!

Alain

Do love seeing the counterpoint notes here, and kudos Marcus for “holding your ground” on what you’re looking for in your wine experience with the burgundies, that’s as it should be IMHO. Hopefully the ultimate outcome of a night like this is that it catalyzes plenty of animated conversation.

Good to hear the positive comments on Bouzereau, I will try to seek out some bottles from this producer.

Kwa Heri,

Mike

I will fully admit my bias. I prefer most wines with little to no fruit left. I generally dont like young red wine, and young tannic red wine in particular. The young red wines I do like young, tend to the light, simpler types.

Alain,

I have the 2014s and they are fantastic. Have not tried the 2015s though, as as general proposition, I find the 2015 CdB whites a bit fat and rich for my taste.

I think the idea here is very interesting, and I know it’s a bit contentious. Personally, I don’t have a ton of experience with young Grand Crus (or Grand Crus in general), but I have tasted more than a few, and I agree with you. I’ve heard Burgundy fanatics say things like the GCs aren’t any better than the village wines on release, but in many cases I completely disagree. There is nothing else like a young, really high quality Burgundy, so why not experience that once in a while, even though I do recognize that there is the potential for improvement? That improvement comes only with a drastic change in style as well, so it isn’t as if you’re sacrificing a greater experience for a very similar, lesser one.