TNs: 2004 red Burgundy greenie check

I was a huge fan of the '04 vintage when it came out and probably the last on the block to notice the “green” problem that turned a number of them ugly over the last year or two. (“Green” is probably a misnomer - sometimes the result is stemmy or vegetal but more often it seems like a very sharp chemical bitterness, not something actually green.) As ugly as some of them have gotten, I don’t want to give up on the vintage altogether, so I’ve been sampling some '04s over the last few weeks to justify my decision to keep 'em around. Thankfully, at least two of these I’m still thrilled to own more of.

Vosne-Romanée Les Chaumes 2004, Robert Arnoux
The spicy cinnamon/clove aroma is overwhelmed almost immediately with a stalky scent, like the stem of a flower you’d just snapped in two, and the first few sips are so discordant and astringent I worry it’s going to be undrinkable. But it has the fruit concentration to pull itself together. It never quashes the stemmy scent, but the fruit fleshes out the palate significantly, enough that you can almost call it smooth. This definitely has the bug, but it might actually turn out OK.

Vosne-Romanée Les Chaumes 2004, Méo-Camuzet
No problems here, a bona fide Grand Cru-quality Chaumes. I don’t think I’ve ever had one so finessed. It’s a little oaky and tight for the first glass or so but doesn’t take too long to blossom, at which point the fruit is deep and the texture silkier than I would ever have thought possible from this cru – not just in the fine grain of the tannins, but the physical presence of the wine seems as thin and pliant as silk despite the admirable concentration and depth of the fruit. It’s not intensely aromatic, but the scents it has are characteristic Vosne cinnamon and clove. No real sign of the greenies. The acidity might have started out a little spiky but it integrates quickly, and by the time I notice the mildest stalky note on the finish the bottle is almost gone.

Vosne-Romanée Les Petits Monts 2004, Joseph Drouhin
On the first sip seems to have escaped the vintage plague, with the fruit really intense, much more concentrated and sweet than anything I’ve tasted from the vintage for a long while, and further sweetened by the oak. Overall more primary than expected and doesn’t taste at all like it’s been over two years past release. But with time that shrill bitterness starts to emerge and is so unintegrated with the rest of the material that it creates the illusion of tasting faintly carbonic. So prickly and searing it’s hard to enjoy. The good news is that the leftovers three days later are smoother and milder and much more drinkable. What will become of it? Here, I can’t tell.

Nuits-St.-Georges Les Roncières 2004, Robert Chevillon
Starts out pretty, then turns a little bitter, and then turns vegetal. An annoying transformation that had it going from impressive to undrinkable in less than an hour.

Chambolle-Musigny Les Borniques 2004, Frédéric Magnien
Stunning surprise. Not only did this escape the vintage plague, it also escaped the producer plague. Magnien can be heavy-handed and overextracted, but not this one. It’s a total beauty and exhibits the “right next door to Musigny” characteristics of the cru much better even than the 2005 vintage of the wine did. Suave and lacey. The ripeness level is in the Goldilocks zone, juuuust right. Just a small bit of wood seasoning the first few minutes after opening quickly dissipates.

Thanks for the look see Keith.

I agree on the “greenies” being more a combo of mirepoix/celery salt/chemical than anything under-ripe or extremely vegetal, like a Chinon say.

I was disappointed to recently revisit the 04 Courcel Grands Epenots which, while impenetrable and nowhere near ready to drink even sans greenies, had taken on the character in spades.

I’m praying it goes away/integrates/whatever, b/c I think it will be amazing in like 20 some years.

Had an 04 F Magnien Echezeaux as a producer / vintage checkin recently… pretty undrinkably flawed by the 04 malaise…

Hi Keith,

Was wondering if you decanted these 2004s, or popped and poured. IME the greenies tend to get subsumed in other elements with some extended aearation at this point in time, and so I tend to give the wines a good hour in decanter before trying them at this early stage.

Best,

John

recently had 2004 maume charmes and lavaux and both got significantly better with an hour+ in a medium-wide decanter. so good advice.

keith - thanks for the data points. have you had any mugneret-gibourg lately? i’ve found them to be extremely successful in 2004 without qualification.

have had good luck with jadot beze and csj, drouhin amoureuses and musigny, barthod cras, fuees and veroiles and rousseau csj (own the beze and chambertin, but haven’t tried yet).

i’d bet that drouhin petits-monts is excellent with time.

These were all bottles I had with dinner. So each one was opened, decanted, tasted, and then drank over 3-5 hours.

From Mugneret-Gibourg I’ve only had the Feuselottes, Chaignots, and Gevrey within the last year… the Gevrey had the greenies but the others were lovely. Drouhin Musigny unfortunately caught the bug in a bad way. Contra John’s rule, the bottle we had started out great but got greener and greener with air. (Like the Chevillon above.)

thanks for notes. I’m heartened by the Meo Chaumes, and disheartened re the Chevillon Roncieres, the only 2 you tasted I own. I don’t tend to love 1ers at 5, so plan on letting mine rest for a while in any case.

Thanks for the notes Keith. I have pretty much lost hope on '04s. I am sure a few will be ok, but the weird chemical thing bothered me from the beginning.
I haven’t tried to sell any. Do they have any resale value?

sipping a bottle of the absolutely gorgeous 2004 mugneret-gibourg gevrey villages (which is young-vines ruchottes and it shows). great aromatics, not a hint of green. i’m actually surprised how sappy it is. the past few times, it was equally excellent, but more lean. it’s really filling out.

if anyone has any to sell, i’ll take. really like it.

A couple of peripheraly related data points:

—I had a stunning bottle of the 04 Chevillon Bousselots in June, with no “greenness” at all.

—I don’t regularly buy and follow Meo’s wines, but I do remember that at the Paulee a few years back when all the 04s were being released, the Meo wines were standouts across the board, (particularly the NSG Les Meurgers).

Y and Marty - are you guys generally sensitive to that unique 04 characteristic?

I think the wines are polarizing, b/c like sensitivity to TCA, some folks dont pick up the oddity as much as others.

That’s true, Peter, and I’m about half way along that line. It does seem to me that the characteristic is now more perceptible in a bitter edge to the finish rather than strongly on the midpalate as it was previously. Still, five years old is a terrible age for burgundy and I’m really fascinated by what will show in another five. Anyone who bought for investment in this vintage will not have done well though!

My worst experiences so far have been with Volnays from Lafarge and D’Angerville. It’s on the palate and at the finish.
I’m usually pretty tolerant of challenging taste components but with these bottles it was really hard to accept.
A while back I had a Rousseau Cazetiers that was lovely and a Bruno Clavelier that I remember liking, so maybe it was worse in the Cote de Beaune.
If that flavor is going to age out of those Volnays, it’s going to take YEARS. The longer the bottles were open the worse it got.

i don’t know how sensitive i am to the ‘2004 syndrome’ but i’ve had more wines that i dislike than i like from that vintage, so i’ve experienced it plenty. what’s interesting is how some producers are not affected by it at all. i’ve also found that some wines that exhibited it early on have changed. not sure what any of this means, but there are wines worth owning for sure, but i agree that it’s not a vintage to go heavy on. i think.

There are a few I’ve tasted multiple bottles of that are taint free, Jadot Estournelles St Jacques being the best.

Granted, I havent tasted any “top” domaines like DRC, Leroy, etc - but I thought the 04 Gibourg Chaignots was really affected when I tried it last, as was Fourriers GC.

as much as i love fourrier, i found those pretty bad. Leroy is its own story and we’ll never know the truth. i have some la-tache, but haven’t tried.

interesting on the chaignots as it’s the only one from the range i haven’t tried (other than the bourgogne).

Keith and others,
Thanks for the updates on these, very useful data points. With I had something to add but haven’t had many '04 reds in the past year or so.

Cheers,
-Robert

I think the most important thing to remember here is that like TCA and Brett, the greenie meanies are palate-dependent. Some folks are very sensitive to it, others not so. I happen to be very sensitive to them, and have found them in many if not most of the 2004s I have tried since they started hitting the market. In fact, I think they’ve gotten more pronounced as the years have gone by, at least to my palate.

For the record, I am annoyingly sensitive to TCA but need an actual dirty diaper in my wineglass before Brett bothers me. Weird.

Some more. Can it be that the vintage is already starting to emerge from its ugly phase?

Jean Tardy 2004 Vosne-Romanee 1er Cru Les Chaumes
Surprisingly good, considering 1) when I had the Echezeaux on release, it was downright awful, and 2) this had a worrisome stalky aroma right from the pop of the cork that had me fearing something similarly lean and vegetal. But the first sip has surprisingly good fruit, and whatever’s making it smell that way isn’t really manifesting itself in the taste. It might have a brisk acidity but there is enough fruit density here that it doesn’t feel shrill. This might turn out OK.

Gros Frere et Soeur 2004 Vosne-Romanee 1er Cru Les Chaumes
Another nice surprise – not only a very successful 2004, but an extremely successful example of Les Chaumes as well. A particular treat since the Richebourg last year was only so-so; this wine is showing way better. It starts out offering richly concentrated blue fruit with a stalky character, but not the ugly kind of stemminess in the problematic '04s; here it just seems indistinguishable from the flavor you get from whole-cluster fermentation (although I never understood Gros F&S to use that technique). In any event, the stalkiness completely dissipates over the course of the bottle as the wine builds in torque and acquires the classic Vosne cinnamon/clove scents and flavors. It does have a razor-sharp acidic spine which might never integrate, but the effect is mostly to make this feel kind of the way you might imagine Richebourg to taste if it were made from gamay. Interesting stuff indeed. Even the leftovers two days later are really good – very supple in texture and while the greenie police might note a slightly grassy/lima bean scent, it’s subtle and fresh and doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that ought to deteriorate this wine from the inside-out. I would buy more of this.

Domaine des Lambrays 2004 Clos des Lambrays
Delicious 2004. Delicious for any vintage, really. This has full, deep fruit while simultaneously pulling off an ethereally weightless palate presence. The mouthfeel is almost Musignyesque (not the first time I’ve described Clos des Lambrays that way) but even more slender and feminine. I’m not sure what cooperage they use here, but I’d be curious to find out, because the oak treatment here is among the most enticing I’ve ever experienced. There’s no question that the flavors of the fruit are tinged by the oak, but the effect is to enrich the taste of the wine without smothering it. Not even a hint of anything green or underripe here.

Armand Rousseau 2004 Charmes-Chambertin
This started out with a questionable scent and tasted surprisingly good, and quickly composed itself into something very, very good and then something intensely, astoundingly good. There is a sort of sharpness and woodsy briariness to the aromatics, but the fruit is so deep-toned and rich (if it weren’t so slender, it might almost seem syrupy) that it smothers whatever underlying edginess might be here. There’s no doubt about the grand cru breed; this has the breadth, tenderness, and roundness, everything you want. Yeah, I know Charmes-Chambertin isn’t the most exciting grand cru, primarily because there’s just so damn much of it out there so where’s the thrill in that, but it’s a mystery why this doesn’t get more respect in the Rousseau portfolio. They could re-do the label with one of their pretty pictures and make a trophy wine out of this.