As my cellar has grown and matured I find myself automatically putting new vintages away upon purchase and drinking the older wines I’ve been sitting on for several years. This is especially true if it’s a wine I buy almost every vintage.
Last night I opened a 2016 Domaine du Pavillon de Chavannes Côte de Brouilly Cuvée des Ambassades on an impulse, despite having several older vintages of the wine. Did I regret this? Hell no. It was delicious. It was also a reminder that older is not always better and sometimes it’s great to just enjoy a wine when it’s young and exuberant. Obviously this isn’t a good option for some of the big, chewy wines but for a Bojo it can be a nice treat.
I’ve always said that as long as a wine is delicious when you opened it, you cannot have opened it at the wrong time. Of course, I’m also the one who extols the virtues of buying in case quantities as often as possible, so that you have the ability and freedom to follow the wine over time, including youth. If you only open wines at their “best” moment, you won’t learn very much about how wines develop.
I really don’t think of this as being particularly young for Beaujolais. I had this in January and enjoyed it. In fact, I really enjoy Beaujolais in its youthful, fresh-fruited phase, at least from most vintages. We had a 2017 Sylvain Trichard Selene Beaujolais-Villages last night that was really fresh and fun. With Beaujolais more than any other wine, I find that they can show very pure when they’re quite young because there isn’t much in the way of obstructive tannin. Vintages like 2015 are something of an exception, but even 2009 showed well very young.
The past 4 or so vintages of this wine have all been terrific within the first year of release with the '15s and '16s being very different from the '12-14s.
Unfortunately, I no longer have any of this older than 2013.
In my limited experience, this wine doesn’t age well. Have tried the '07, '08, '09, and '11 in the last 6 months, and all were tired and needed to be consumed ASAP. Hoping for better things with the '10, '13, and '15 (magnum) still left
Thing is, I already make too much “mistakes” opening some wines that are too young for my taste, so I don’t need to pile on.
Still, there certainly is some satisfaction with opening a young bottle when you know you’ll probably wait 5+ years to open the next one.
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