Thoughts on when to drink village Burgundy?

Hey all, I have until recently not pursued Burgundy much at all due to the hefty price of entry. Given the major constraint is a financial one, I have so far really only picked up village level wines. Some Pommard, gevrey, chambolle, and morey wines in particular. Those along with some beaune Premier crus.

These range from 2009-14. I know that generalities are sacrosanct, but for those who have broad experience in the category, when would you ideally want to open such wines?

Thanks in advance!

In general, 2009 is a good early drinking vintage. High toned fruit and not tons of structure (for most producers) Even Jadot is drinking nicely now.

This was a good thread :
http://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/vie … it=+nanson

I mentioned :
in Bill Nanson’s new book he mentions that the plateau of interest lies for GC - 20-40 yrs., PC - 20-30, Villages - 15-20. This is, of course, stated within the context of all the other variables (personal preference, appellation, vineyard, vintage, producer(x3), etc.) as a very general idea.

Clive Coates has a pretty good view on this.
Nothing is absolute, but this is a pretty good opinion on when to drink Burgundy.

http://www.clive-coates.com/observations/when-to-drink-your-burgundy/

Great advice

Those dates are woeful in most vintages. After 5-7 years is the worst time to drink most Burgundy! 10 years for Grand Cru likewise.

Bill Nanson is s much better guide IMHO. YMMV.

This is not wrong - and as stated above it vm depends … vintage, producer, commune, vineyard (if any) …

Personally I rarely drink Village wines before 12-15 years of age, but a 2011 now can already give some pleasure …
2009s are still very primary but nevertheless accessable …
I recently was served a 2008 Morey that was very good … (but no hurry).

If available I´d prefer 2007, 2003/02/01/2000 and older, maybe 2006 …

Lot of good info in this thread already, for me it depends on vintage, from the recent vintages I intend to start on 2014 village wines in 2026 and 2015 in 2031, and I fully expect some of the wines to need a little more time in the cellar to come around

I definitely wouldn’t call 2009 high toned. Low toned if such an expression existed!

If the cork does its job, a village wine can last just as long as a Grand Cru. I just drank my last bottle of '92 Comte de Vogue Chambolle last week. One of the weakest vintages of the past 50 years, deemed as drink young. I wish I had more.

Claude told me to THINK about '05 Chandon de Briailles Savigny in '17 or '18.

It really depends a lot on style. Erwan Faiveley’s Village wines have been delicious at any age. I’m not sure if any of his father’s are ready yet!

Wow, I’m not the most experienced burgundy drinker, but this is terrible. I generally feel that burgs go through a youthful peak with mostly primary fruit with some added complexity and softening; and much fully mature peak when its much older. Frankly most better village burgs (as well as 1ers and GC) even from the early 90s havent really reached their fully mature peak IMHO.

Which is why the 2018 vintage may be my last year of purchasing GC Burgs.

While I’m with you on the longevity of village wines I’m not sure that that wine is the best example, due to a vintage, it’s probably declassified Musigny and Amoureuses.

In whole honesty, I don’t think I have ever had a properly made and aged burgundy that was past it’s prime, they keep on evolving.

I guess definitions are slippery here. Maybe high intensity, low acid would be a better descriptor. Anyways they seem quite approachable and I wonder about long term aging potential. I disagree with the Loooong windows expressed for ideal drinking. You would have to be immortal to enjoy some of these wines if those windows of 30+to 40+ years are the best. Given all the variables, any wine over 30 years old (except port and Madeira, sauternes) is a real crap shoot in terms of peak drinkability. How many wines will have cork failure at that age?

Why did Rudy have to freshen up all those old patriarche bottles of Burgundy with Marcassin? Why not just re-label them as GC and pass them off as authentic? Because they would probably have tasted like a watered down bottle of rose, and likely an oxidized one at that. Point being that I think there is a kind of necrophiliac faction in the wine community that worships these really ancient bottles. I do enjoy some of the incredible old bottle tastings that are published here but i have got to wonder how many of those tasting impressions are colored by the atmosphere and romanticism of tasting really rare wines. I am not disputing the value of the occasional Cheval 47 or the 61’s in Bordeaux, but those have got to be the .0001% of wines.

Think Clive Coates has it about right. Should there not still be some fruit in wine that is aged?

To add to Dennis’s points. The vinification has changed dramatically from 90s to present day. Many wines back then were extracted and over-oaked; to satisfy certain a few peoples palate. This implied wines needed time to be approachable. Now a days vinification is gentle and very little new oak is used at the village level. This makes the wines approachable and enjoyable at much younger age. The 14s and 13s I have had are delicious. Sure they don’t display secondary elements and nuances, but don’t stop yourself from popping one.

Wine-making, reputation of domaines, sites are all moving targets.

If your village Burgs are devoid of fruit after ten years, then you are buying poor quality wines.

I wonder what a village wine really means in the modern era. I mean, the village Vosne-Romanee from respected but hardly super-fancy negociants like Bouchard and Jadot has been $75+ in recent vintages. That’s more expensive than some pretty high-level classed growths from Bordeaux in good years, and it’s not far off the price of some very good Burgundy premier crus and even lower-end grand crus like Corton. These are not cellar defenders any more, at least they aren’t sold that way.

Marcus, there are cellar defenders from Burgundy. Just not from fashionable addresses. I recently had a Mercurey 1er cru from domaine de suremain, remember picking it up for sub $25. I know for many, its below their dignity to quaff a Mercurey, but the wine was lovely.

Great vintages raises quality in across the board. Village wines may drink like Premier crus and so on depending on the producer. From a great vintage, a village wine from a good producer will take some time. But I don’t think this holds on the average years. I think in average to good vintages Clive Coates recs are spot on.

For instance, a lot of good 2007 Grand Cru Burgs are in a drinking window right now. Waiting 20-30 years for those would have you missing out on some good drinking (and probably past peak). OTOH, then take a year like 2005 where good number of villages burgs that still need time in the cellar. Certain producers and vintages are clear outliers.

If I don’t get chance to taste a wine, I usually buy enough bottles to sacrifice one young to get an idea of the stucture. Even with mid tier producers, it is getting harder to procure (and afford) wines to properly follow through the years.

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