They’ve switched to amphora since 2015, so no new oak!
Nice wines. I hope people continue to not buy them 
I’m not so sure we should be discussing oak when assessing the first qualitative factor for Freddy’s wine.
The old Sam’s in Chicago brought in cases and cases of pretty much his entire range of the 99s, 00s, 01s and 02s. The prices are what we would now consider outright bargains for premier crus. $25 for Morey and Chambolle, $30 or so for Vosne Romanee. I was able to drink through the range by bottle, and came to the conclusion the the source material for the Chambolle Musigny was nowhere near the quality of grapes Magnien sourced from Morey-St. Denis. Some of the Chambolle seemed over-cropped, some (the Chabiots) should have not been as extracted. Rarely did the Chambolle have the purity and sappiness of the Morey.
I think from this we can see that, yes, in some cases, there was probably too much oak. But certainly this was not the case for the Blanchards, Clos Sorbes and Clos Baulet. All of these, from the vintages mentioned plus the 2005 for Blanchards, had plenty of stuffing to deal with the oak. The Blanchards, a vineyard that seems to have very little domaine bottled wine that makes it to the U.S., was particularly good and has become a favorite of mine. Distinctly Morey. Not over-extracted and easily handling its oak.
I’ve tried far less of the Magnien’s Vosne Romanee, but fully agree with the Suchot assessment here. I have two bottles of a very rare bird, 2002 Magnien RStV, but they are still waiting. I don’t think Magnien has made it in any other vintage.
Thanks Matt for your thoughtful and well informed reply! I will have to crack a bottle of the Chambolle offerings since I have not been a buyer in quantity until '09 vintage. Will report back with a more recent update. They seem to be still relatively reasonably priced for the range of Burgs out there. It is Valentine’s Day, what else is more elegant to drink?
I avoid this producer due to high-yield - despite the price is more than reasonable in Quebec, Canada. ![[bow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/3/34fe6dfbb5b9ca18529c11cea0b49f72cb1f17d5.gif "bow"){kind=small}
If you go by Tanzer, Magnien wines are great bargains, especially at the high end. Tanzer is sometimes quite oak tolerant though. My issue with Magnien is that some bottlings are too user friendly, easy to drink and rich and tasty but not much upside. But I had a killer Beze from them recently, structured, complex, deep, and a little tight.
Bourgogne rouge 2008 is hardly budging, so I wouldn’t worry too much about rapid ageing if this wine is any indication.
Agreed that Croix Violettes is a good low-cost wine.
Also agreed about Groffier, although honestly I have only tasted young Groffier so don’t know how they are older.
I think George too makes a good point about the wines a bit easy, as a generalization.
Faiveley has a new winemaker and the wines did improve recently.
When tasting from barrels at DRC one will hardly notice a lot of new oak - even if there is almost always 100% …
the wines are usually so strong and well balanced that they “eat” the oak and still taste open and fruity with underlying structure and minerality …
(granted, I´ve only tasted there in late summer when the wines were some 10-11 months in barrel.)
DRC wines do show a certain (more or less) degree of new oak right after release, but I´ve never had a DRC-wine that I called “mature” - and there was still any oak discernable …
Howard,
I have a lot of Rossignol-Trapet wines in my cellar because their QPR is good. Something rare in Burgundy these days.