2011 red Burgundy : blind tasting ( 14 wines )

Our wine club decided to find out what this vintage is all about . We tasted 14 wines blind . Overall , good to very good wines , some for early drinking while waiting for 2010 and 2012 . Some green notes but certainly not a lot

1. delicious sweet nose , already an excellent glas of wine to drink now , top Pinot . Silky . 92/100 Vosne Romanee Clos du Chateau Comte Liger Belair.
2. square , dusty tannins , not integrated , this one needs ( a lot of ) time . Slightly green finish . Difficult to judge . NR Maison Faiveley Clos de Vougeot
3. More modern style , also with dusty tannins , slight green finish . I don’t like this much . Dujac Morey 1er Cru
4. elegant and pure , very silky wine , pure , ca pinotte 92/100 Gerard Mugneret Vosne Romanee Suchots
5. expressive nose , pure , not so concentrated , slight green finish 88/100 Gevrey Roncevie , Pascal Marchand
6. Power and concentration , reductive , a different style as it somewhat resembles Syrah , but the material is there , 92+/100 Gevrey Chambertin Villages , Philippe Livera
7. delicious already , elegant and pure , sweet , you taste the chewy but elegant extract 92/100 Gevrey Chambertin Claude Dugat
8. Nice boisé , well integrated , round , for the first time also freshness ( something I believe all previous wines lacked , a sign of the vintage ? ) , delicious already 95/100 : Domaine Faiveley Chambolle Amoureuses
9. a bit tannic , needs time to integrate , stemmy . 91+/100 Rousseau Gevrey Lavaux St Jacques
10. very pure , nice red fruit , elegant , a really fine wine 93+/100 Rousseau Ruchottes Chambertin
11. more severe , you taste the stems , chewy extract , no finesse , pure power , not my style , 90/100 ? Dugat Py Villages Vosne Romanee Vv
12. primary red fruit , completely closed , by far most closed wine of the evening , really difficult to assess NR Pousse d’Or Clos de la Roche .
13. modern style , good but def not my style , sweet , 91/100 NSG Boudots , Pascal Marchand
14. pure and silky , very pure , still closed , lacks complexity now 93/100 Gerard Mugneret NSG Boudots

Overall , nice wines that lack minerality and power to be great , but the best ones are very nice . I would only buy them if you have allocations to follow . ( the 2010 wines are not more expensive and are absolute top ,same with 2012 , so why bother ) .

We were 10 tasters : everybody offered their personal top 3 ( 3 points for winner , 2 points for second and 1 point for third place )
Pretty uniform result

1. Faiveley Chambolle Musigny Amoureuses 22 points ( 6 first places )
2. Rousseau Ruchottes Chambertin 14 points ( 3 first places )
3. Comte Ligier Belair Vosne Romanee Clos du Chateau 5 points

Oh yes , we also tasted 3 white wines blind … surprising ( there was 1 wine from each village , same vintage … turned out to be 1996 ! )

1. super sexy wine , fully ready , mineral and straw on the nose , 94/100 : Chassagne Morgeots , Henri Germain
2. Oxydized : Roulot Meursault Clos de mon plaisir ( yes , Roulot )
3. A total wow wine . Gun powder , minerals , fraicheur , this has it all 95/100 : Puligny Montrachet Pucelles Domaine Leflaive .

Herwig, thanks for your notes, interesting. The Faiveley is a good tip of one to look out for.

Cheers, Howard

Not sure how many bottles of Faiveley Les Amoureuses we get around here; I’m sure you’ll let me know if you find some or at least you’ll share some

Thanks for the notes Herwig

Herwig, how long in advance were these decanted? Thanks.

They were not . It would have improved them , no doubt ( but this time , it was not practical )

I wonder if any vintage would fail to show some green notes when bottles are opened a year after bottling?
A shame about the Roulot but those wines are in no way immune to the plague.

Louis-Michel Liger-Belair really did a great job in 2011. Your textural note is especially nice to me. Yes. These wines are silky and sexy. That is what really draws me in along with the aromatics. They are “Leroy-like” . These wines are also getting hard to source in the US. Great note Herwig.

Tom,

I opened plenty of '09’s on release with no hint of green to be seen.

There were many 11’s open at some of the 12 EP tastings. The 11’s had a strong vintage characteristic, and that was green. Not green meanies, IMHO, just a little underripe. Nothing wrong with that, though I agree with Herwig that I’d rather have 10’s and 12’s in the cellar.

Unlike Herwig, I suspect that the 11’s will need some time to integrate, and that the 12’s will be much more pleasant young.

I suspect there will plenty of good sales on 11 remainders in a year or so. And smart buyers who are willing to age the wine will be duly rewarded.

Interesting notes Herwig, you are tasting to many G. Mugneret wines lately . Why no Mortet, Fourrier, Vogue, Thibault Liger Belair, wines ? Have a nice weekend
Cheers
Rainer

or I must be more sensitive to it than most, because they all do to me.

Marty,

What you and Tom describe sounds like the wines shutting down. I like drinking young Burgundy but this is the downside at some point. All you are going to get is structure.

It will taste green. This is true in even the best vintages. At that point, you just have to wait it out. I often wonder too whether this is what we were tasting in at least some of the 2004s. Just an opinion, not a fact. They were really nice when first released in many cases. When they shut down, the wines were crazy green . (Especially Leroy). Some of them are fantastic now. Recent Roty Mazis being a prime example. FWIW.

Interesting note on the Philippe Livera GC, bought some of his 2010 wines but very few people know about the producer. Anyone else has experience with this producer?

Good producer. I’ve had older examples from '95 and '93 of the Chapelle and the Clos Village. The Chapelle is a nice example of the site. The 2010’s are good too. Check out this:

Thanks for the link. I bought some 10’ Chapelle Chambertin and En Champs, looking forward to taste the wines.

Brady , I think we have a heterogenous vintage with 2011 . Some wines are already delicious while others will need a lot of time . I think the Comte LB and the Dugat can be drunk now with great pleasure while other wines , such as the Faiveley Clos de Vougeot and the Pousse d’Or Clos de la Roche need at least 10 years of further development .