2004 Jadot Bonnes Mares, 2008 Roederer Cristal, ...

Couple of quick notes on recent wines flown into and consumed in Colorado.

2004 Jadot Bonnes Mares: Discovered this deeply buried in my cellar, figured now might be a good opportunity to check on the lone bottle I had. Surprisingly rich red fruit, very well balanced, with a deep ripe fruit profile showing spice-infused raspberry. I looked for the Green Meanie profile, but it wasn’t there, not even a trace of anything resembling pyrazine. Grand Cru quality for sure here, although probably the bottle needed at least another 5 years to show its full potential.

2008 Roederer Cristal: As advertised, this is a phenomenal wine we drank out of Zalto Universals. On the nose, brioche and yeast merge with lemon curd, in the mouth it is the sheer intensity and longevity of the wine that impresses. The penetrating spicy/floral profile does not seem to fade at all until swallowed.

2012 Vatan Clos la Neore: I had intended to bring the 2014, which showed beautifully recently, but evidently I had carried out a single bottle of the 2012 that I had buried in the same box. This wine, which I had back in 2016, was in a slightly awkward stage, with the fruit seemingly in the background as compared to its herbal character. Perhaps the 2014 will go through this same stage, not sure…

Jadot’s Bonnes Mares holding is one of their best IMO.

The holding now, or the holding back then. IIRC they lost part of it not long ago.

In 2006, the part of Bonnes Mares Vineyard that was in Morey St Denis, which had completely different soil went back to hairs of Clair Dau.

Few years ago had a dinner with a serious burgundy geeks, it was 8 of us and you could see who was sensitive to green meanies and who was not. To some it was wine of the night and to some, me included it was undrinkable and this particular bottling is one of my favorites in Jadot portfolio. I should mention that on release, with baby fat overpowering the green meanies it was a wine I could not keep my hands off, truly delicious, until it lost it’s baby fat. I will sit on the rest what i have in hope that it will lose its herbacious notes.

The Jadot Web site reports that their holdings are all in Chambolle-Musigny.

I would say I am pretty sensitive to pyrazine, to the point where I have trouble drinking (for example) a 2000 Sociando Mallet. Whatever my tolerance, however, my detection limit is much lower, and I would say this bottle showed no evidence of pyrazine or Green Meanies. My wine buddy picked up nothing either of that character…

However, the bottle was also on the young side–not sure I would call it Baby Fat after 15 years, but still it was a pretty rich mouthful. Some unresolved tannins were also present, so between the two that might account for effective integration of any pyrazine signature. Still would dispute that they were simply covered up, however, since I can typically pick up these trace level characteristics at the PPT level…

Yes that is correct, but from 1986 until 2005 a part of their production came from Domaine Fougeray de Beauclai which is the sole owner of the parcel that is located in Morey St Denis and is on a completely different soil then the rest of the Bonnes Mares that is located in Chambolle.

…Bernard Clair and Jean-Louis Fougeray. For family reasons that are best left in the Clair family, in 1986 Bernard Clair was retiring and decided that he would lease some vines to his friend Jean-Louis Fougeray who was by then already exploiting 11 hectares, rather than as expected pass them to the next generation of the Clairs. Those were not just any old vines, they included a special parcel of Bonnes-Mares, some Chambolle-Musigny and more Marsannay. In so doing, they grounded the re-named Domaine Fougeray de Beauclair – ‘Beauclair’ coming from a blend of Jean-Louis’ wife’s name and Clair.

The Bonnes-Mares is a famous cuvée, coming on a long-term lease from Bernard Clair. The 40 year-old vines (1.61 hectares) accounted for the totality of that portion of > Bonnes-Mares in the commune of Morey St.Denis. These vines formed part of the famous Clair-Daü estate which was in-part sold to Louis Jadot, so Fougeray de Beauclair inherited the obligation to keep selling one third of their Bonnes Mares grapes to Jadot. > From 2005, Fougeray took 100% of the parcel, but it changed again in 2006 with the death of Bernard Clair. > The reason for that change was that Bernard had requested that on his death, the domaine should return 0.4 hectares to the Clair family – in this case the domaine of Bruno Clair. The team at Fougeray say this was never a written instruction so it was entirely possible that they could have kept the whole portion, but they honoured the memory of Bernard by following through his wish. I only have experience of one vintage and that’s the 1998 – it’s a tannic beast that needs keeping for at least another 5 years before approaching again.