I don't like 2004 red Burgundy

Yesterday , our wine club organized a blind tasting of 9 red Burgundies from 2004 . The green meanies or mean greenies vintage… I was interested in finding out if this would be the case. While we had 2 great wines and a couple of very good ones , others were between undrinkable to average at best .It reminded me of all these bad Burgundies they made in the seventies and eigthies : unripe fruit if any fruit al all. Wine critics should have been more severe with this vintage .

This was a blind tasting !

Wine 1 : NSG Clos de la Marechale from Mugnier : 84/100 is a generous note : unripe and green
Wine 2 : Vosne Romanee Suchots from Arnoux : 85/100 and in a similar style ; green , unripe , no pleasure ,
Wine 3 : Clos de la Roche Dujac : this was actually the first wine that we found drinkable : unripe Pinot but some people with English genes may actually like this . 88/100
Wine 4 : Clos de la Roche from Ponsot : this must have been the worst wine I have tasted in many years : stinking and rotten , this could poison an elephant . I was very disappointed that this turned out to be one of my favorite wines … I’ll open another bottle shortly to check this out . I hope this was a bad bottle.
Wine 5 : a dark color , with good ripe fruit , still the green touches in the background but that did not bother : Richebourg from Thibault Ligier-Belair : 91/100 ( too young today , a good showing )
Wine 6 : very pure fruit , still monolythic , dark and chewy : Richebourg from Le Moine , difficult to see where this will go
Wine 7 : by far the best wine of the evening : very pinot , charming wine of great finesse : St. Vivant from DRC : noblesse oblige 95/100
Wine 8 and 9 : the Chambertin and Clos de Beze from Rousseau : I liked one a lot and the other was still very prime but I cannot remember which one it was… ( I think I liked the Chambertin a lot : 93/100 for the good one ) .

Wines 5 to 9 are obviously very expensive wines and should be great . They are very good but not great .

Some people may like this more than I do but I find this greenness bothering . I also believe many 2004 wines will dry out before reaching maturity .

“some people with English genes may actually like this”

Limey!

Can I add some?

Let’s see: Faiveley Clos des Myglands, green, green, green
Chevillon NSG VV, green

Er…Faiveley Myglands is always green. I rather like it, with my English genes.

Herwig,
Thanks for the notes. I haven’t tried any of these same wines but have two of them.
While I have generally liked most of the '04s I’ve tasted since release (i.e. I don’t notice/mind some of the GM component), my biggest concern now is what you mentioned in your last sentence. Some of the examples I’ve had over the past year seem to be drying out. Perhaps they are just shutting down, however given that I’ve generally enjoyed the young '04s I’ve had, and with so much uncertainty what will happen with maturity, I plan to drink most of them in the near term.
Cheers,
Steve

Paging Mr. Niemtzow, paging Mr. Stuart Niemtzow.

I´m no “wine-critic” but was very critical from the start, after my barrel tastings in Sept 2005. Can be re-read on the “other board”.

The Rousseau Ch. was also good (tasted from bottle early 2007), Arnoux was not so intensely affected from cask as your TN sounds, but Mugnier CdlM was …

You rang?

Yes…Stuart : the church bell in Gervey is ringing .

Why don’t you try your Rousseau Chambertin or CdB ? Or they are too young for your taste ?

Not that interested, Peter.

Hope to sell them, as I’ve sold most of my 2004s.

Agree, the Chambertin is actually not too bad, a touch of green but still a good wine…one of the few '04’s now I’ll hang on to.

At the current prices the wines are bringing on the secondary market, I think I’d rather keep/drink what I have left…

Must try the CdB though, as I haven’t seen that for a few years…

Is that typical for Mercury or just Myglands? The green on the 2004 is turned up to 11. Even for my English genes.

Herwig,

Drank the '04 Ponsot CdlR today and can confirm that the wine is disjointed and very green. Not sure there is much hope for this wine. A shame as usually one of my favorites as well. Such is the way of many an '04. As a side note the '05 Lambrays while painfully young is a stunning long term wine.

The Myglands is one of the least green cuvees. Mercurey makes green wines in general, particularly in Faiveley’s hands though I guess the new yeast regime may have altered this. Which is not to criticise them, I don’t consider fresh greeness a fault at all though they certainly need plenty of age. As I’ve said before I don’t think the difficulties with 04 are anything to do with greenness.

So in the St. Vivant did you find any green notes or did you think that it was drying out? I have two of those and an Echezeaux or Grands Echezeaux hiding away as anniversary wines.

I liked this wine also early on…it was beautifully pure with lovely fine, perfumed fruit…seemed to have turned much more “green” with time as the primary fruit has faded…the Fuees and Amourouses were another step up though, albeit in a similar vein…

Last bottle I had I thought the green had faded if anything, must try another.

Mike,

I drank most of mine early (when they seemed quite lovely), the last one recently (my final bottle) was very green…but perhaps it is part me, I seem to notice it much more now…

Nice one Serge,

Love the low expectations bit…


Yeah, the perfume nose was what initially did it for me in the best '04’s…

What is this about a new yeast regime at Faiveley? Mercurey only, or Cote d’Or as well?

Travis , the DRC St. Vivant had a very pure Vosne nose of roses and spice . Nothing green here .