09 Wine

Rod decided that Monday Table should have a look at 2009 Burgundy, after a couple of 2002 Champagnes that is. We had an excellent meal at Matilda in Melbourne.

2002 Pol Roger Champagne Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill: A fresh nose of ripe apple, toast and peach. It is complex, full and rich, with a relatively high dosage feel, countered by chalky acidity. Length is good.

2002 Salon Champagne Blanc de Blancs Brut: Pure white peach and green apple fruits. There’s a hint of spice and good richness. It is certainly ripe yet possesses a high degree of elegance and a long finish that is loaded with chalk and flint.


2009 Maison Leroy Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Folatières: A punchy, tropical nose of pineapple, mango and apricot. It is a rich wine but also with a high degree of precision and freshness. Drinking right in the zone.

2009 Olivier Leflaive Montrachet, Grand Cru: A dense and powerful wine that has just had the edges planed off a little by some oxidation. There are petrol and sappy white peach notes and it is unctuous of feel with good acidity buried under the flesh.

2009 Domaine Marc-Antonin Blain Bâtard-Montrachet, Grand Cru: Quite a bit of spearmint and spice along with pure white peach fruit. It is an elegant Bâtard, of moderate weight but beautifully long, fine and persistent.

2009 François Raveneau Chablis 1er Cru Les Forêts: White peach, fennel and white flowers on the nose. Rich, sappy and layered in the mouth. Good volume and a clean and fresh finish.


2009 Louis Jadot Charmes-Chambertin, Grand Cru: Charming, opulent and ready to go. Pretty red and blue fruits. Good flesh and perfume and really breathes up ion the glass. Textural with a savoury closure.

2009 Domaine Tortochot Charmes-Chambertin, Grand Cru: Meaty, funky, wild and woolly.

2009 Domaine Humbert Frères Charmes-Chambertin, Grand Cru: A whiff of clay, a shot of espresso and deep dark fruits. Good density and weight. Rich and creamy and crammed with black cherry and earthy flavours.

2009 Leflaive et Associés Charmes-Chambertin, Grand Cru: There’s some smoke to the aroma along with rose petals, pomegranate and raspberry. It is elegant and nicely detailed, with good finesse and persistence.

2009 Bonneau du Martray Corton, Grand Cru: Very youthful and quite tight, showing a glimpse of red berry and some meat. Chalky of structure and long and dry.

2009 Domaine Dujac Bonnes Mares, Grand Cru: A highly perfumed nose of rose petals, root vegetables, pomegranate, dark cherry and earth. It is rich. Complex and layered, a highly perfumed yet supremely powerful wine. Delicious now, even better in another 10 years.

2009 Egly-Ouriet Coteaux Champenois Cuvée des Grands Côtés Vieilles Vignes Rouge Ambonnay: Kind of has a ‘Leroyesque’ smokiness with real floral spice lift. It is only mid-weight but has lovely balance and has some beef stock and Hoisin development. With further air the scent of violets appears.

2009 Domaine Armand Rousseau Père et Fils Chambertin, Grand Cru: Big G made comment that ‘Chambertin is the sort of wine that makes Willy Wagtails fight Emus. It certainly made me feel strong. This is an even and calm wine, with real latent power. There are berry and cherry fruits and a cool feel. It is complex and voluminous, with great breadth and outstanding length. It strikes the perfect balance between sweet and savoury elements.

2009 Domaine Armand Rousseau Père et Fils Chambertin-Clos de Bèze, Grand Cru: A sweet core of fruit and more opulent than the Chambertin at this stage. It is luscious and velvety, with spiced laden red and black fruits that glide over the palate. There’s great depth here but also a lightness in the mouth and the long finish is carried by sweet tannins.

2009 Domaine Château De La Tour Clos Vougeot Vieilles Vignes: Very primary, smelling of Vitamin B and ripe berry fruit. It is rich and dense, with so much power and presence. The finish is quite stony and possesses so much grip. Should be pretty special in two or three decades.

2009 Maison Albert Bichot Grands-Echezeaux Domaine du Clos Frantin: Had a bit too much coffee and chocolate and I just reckon may have suffered from a little bit of oxidation.


2011 Château d’Yquem, Sauternes: Immediately expressive, showing notes of apricot, coconut, lavender and vanilla. Explosive in the mouth, dripping with luscious fruits and exotic spices. There is so much happening in the mouth, even after swallowing.

2015 Château d’Yquem, Sauternes: One of my favourite young Yquems. Complex aromatics of passionfruit, coconut, apricot and honey. It hits the palate with a hit of sweetness then continues to build. There’s terrific underlying acidity and for a wine of such flavour intensity it is light on its feet. Length is simply superb.


1909 Laurent Viguier Sainte Croix: Plenty of Indian spice on the nose. It is full and sweet in the mouth, with notes of salty plum, chocolate and grilled nuts. It has nice finesse and decent persistence.

Nice notes. Was the Olivier Leflaive still under natural cork at that point? I presume so.

For some reason your comment about the Chambertin reminded me of Saintsbury’s line about Montrachet to the effect that “it makes your veins swell like whipcord”.

Hi William,

I didn’t see the cork, I assume it was natural. having had their '09 Batard and Corton-Charlemagne recently, and both of them showing particularly well, I had hoped the Monty would have shone.

Cheers
Jeremy

Thanks for the notes, Jeremy (and the citation, William),
(I had to look up “willy wagtails.”) I opened an '09 Fourrier G-C VV this weekend; after an initial blast of raspberry and plum, it settled into a more subdued, sinuous delicious drink, still recognizable as Burgundy and Gevrey.

Is it your opinion, then, Jeremy, and yours William, that despite worries about overripeness or their being “too big,” the '09’s are serious wines giving serious pleasure and enjoyment relatively early (which has largely been my experience)?

I haven’t run into many overripe 2009s Burgundies, but I do find that both reds and (especially) whites can simply be a bit boring and facile, without much energy or concentration. To be clear, plenty of great wines were produced, and Jeremy tasted several, but I think many are marked by the comparatively large yields of the vintage and the comparatively low acidities. Raphaël Coche likes to call it the year with the ‘flat electroencephalogram’, meaning it lacks what one might call signs of life, and I don’t disagree. I am happy to have the 2009 Burgundies that I purchased in my cellar, and it’s a vintage I look for on restaurant lists in the search for something open and expressive, but it isn’t a vintage I’m trying to backfill with (and it is generally quite aggressively priced now).

Great characterization, William,

Very helpful and very clear. Obviously, I taste far fewer Burgundies than you, and I don’t really own much white. The reds from my own cellar that I’ve had so far I’ve been happy with (and a few from restaurant wine lists as well). But what you say seems spot on and sums up succinctly much of what’s been said around the vintage. Maybe I’ll have to do some '09/'10 comparisons to see if I find these differences myself.

Thanks again!

What are the producers that avoided the facile plague? Interesting is Grivot as I just checked I bought very long on Grivot (not a bad idea as he then increased his prices big time… but only if the wines are any good…)

I think your Grivots will be fine, Antoine.

I don’t think facile is a plague in this case, just a broad vintage characteristic. At the '09 EP tastings I was terrified because I thought the wines seemed Californian. As usual, I learned that I know nothing. The wines quickly transformed to proper burgundy, though from a ripe vintage. I loved them young, not so much now, but expect I will again when they shed more baby fat. My criticism of the vintage is low detectable acidity. Hopefully with time, as the fruit subsides, the wines will seem balanced. I’d bet on it.

For those of you nervous about ‘09, you’d better back fill other vintages now. 2017 was hot, and I’m told 2018 was the hottest year in burgundy ever, dwarfing 2003. Happily the growers seem to have learned a great deal since that candied vintage.

I wonder what impact the monster 2019 heat waves have had?

Jeremy, how do you think the Egly-Ouriet compared to some of the Burgundies in terms of quality?

Aggressive as in low? Any suggestions where to find some properly stored '09’s? Or do you mean in the broad wine searcher sense?

Brady, I suppose William means high prices… which would deter him from backfilling even if he wanted to.
Hoping you are doing well across the pond…

Not Jeremy, and I haven’t had the 2009 recently, but it can be right up there. It has its own style, but if you had to place it in Burgundy you might think of higher-altitude Chambolle I guess. The 2015 and 2012 that I drank a couple of months ago were brilliant.

The plot is right in the heart of Ambonnay, in a gentle depression where the soil is a bit deeper and the mesclimate a bit warmer. The vines are very old but Francis still does a green harvest to keep the yields down. He has tried making still wines elsewhere in his holdings and says it just doesn’t work.

That’s right!

I just tasted through their 2017s: the “Récolte du Domaine” bottlings (now under DIAM10) are seriously good and well worth seeking out!

FWIW I’ve had several vintages of the Egly and been thoroughly underwhelmed. Expensive, not really burgundian, and perhaps at the level of some of the better Village wines from the CdN. Obviously YMMV, as does William’s! I would be more inclined to lump it in with German and Austrian PN, and it should be priced accordingly as a “fun” $50 wine…

I was also guilty of under-rating the 2009 burgundy vintage after release. I’ve came to appreciate them and find they are generally drinking well early which is a plus (at my age). Editing to add I was referring to the reds.

I have only had 2017s from barrel (a year ago and that was from producers I like), but it did not tasted like a really hot vintage in that the wines seemed to have adequate acidity. That is not to say the acidity was as high as in 2008, 2010 or 2014, but, to me, it seemed like around the acidity in 2007s (I am talking reds). I guess I will know better and from a larger range of wines next March at the next Paulee Grand Tasting.

The '09 whites are certainly ripe, a little tropical and low in acidity. There is some pleasure to be derived but I’d much rather be drinking the '11’s.

I didn’t buy a huge amount of '09 reds on release but quite like where they are now. They have calmed down and there is good perfume.

Doug, The Egly certainly held its own. It was browning a little and was more advanced than the other wines but it was certainly spicy and overt and a real crowd pleaser.

It seemed to me at the time that the severe price escalation of Burgs really hit it straps with the '09 vintage and I did not buy heavily. I liked '08 and '10 and I was weary that the wines might be a bit tough. In hindsight they now look cheap and a couple of recent wines have developed nicely and as has been noted above been relatively approachable.

Analytically, 2017 is definitely below-average in acidity, especially the reds. For reds, I really think the best analogy would be a cleaner, purer version of 2000. For white, for a variety of reasons, 1992 might be the best comparison, though the wines are probably a bit lower in acidity than the 1992s.