I opened my other bottle of the 2008 Mikulski Meursault Perrieres last night.
This bottle was very advanced – more than the first bottle – but the aromas were different. The first thing I noticed was when I pulled out the cork I thought I smelled fresh pipe tobacco. So I sniffed the wine-exposed end of the cork (covered with small diameter tartrate crystals) and sure enough it smelled like “Sir Walter Raleigh”, for those of you old enough to remember the popular pipe tobacco sold everywhere and promoted on TV and radio.
The color was much darker than the bottle at the Feb 9 dinner. This one was medium-plus gold. The wine smelled very strongly of apricots and had a strong tropical fruit and botrytis undertone. My wife commented that the wine smelled like a mature botrytised dessert wine instead of white burgundy. I didn’t really get any “rotting frut” aromas in this wine this time (this one had already gone from lemon creme to apricot). On the palate the wine didn’t taste anything like burgundy – more like botrytised reisling. The acidity was relatively high. I couldn’t stand to drink much of this and left what I had poured sitting in the glass a couple of hours to see what would happen. At that point the overwhelming apricot aroma had toned down a good bit and the wine now smelled much closer to the original bottle — intensely rich lemon creme pie along with a little fresh apricot as the secondary aroma. It was still sweet to the point of being quite cloying on the palate despite the high acidity. There was a very distant and brief hint of minerality at the very end of the finish which was about the only faint resemblance to Meursault Perrieres that this wine had. 75-very advanced.
Are you serving the 08 Fontaine-Gagnard CBM in round 2? I’ve got 6 arriving this week that I just bought but strictly on the basis that the retailer (who I trust) will reimburse me for any that are poxed!
No Criots from Fontaine-Gagnard in the night two dinner (this Thursday) as I usually try to minimize the numbers of almost-guaranteed premoxed Fontaine-Gagnards in the dinner. One of the attendees did have that particular bottle as his third option, but thankfully I didn’t have to pick that one. We will have a 2008 Blain-Gagnard Montrachet included in the Mostly Montrachet dinner on March 8.
We certainly did. I laugh that it is the only bottle I’ve had of your list. Thanks a huge bunch for again doing this and reporting so comprehensively, Don—it is absolutely appreciated.
My notes on the PYCM from last May:
“I rescued this orphan from a shop in Chassagne Montrachet and it was more or less always destined for this day. And ho-lee. I slow-oxed this for a day and as good as the aroma was yesterday, it was 3 times better today. Killer matchstick, sweet corn and hazelnut, minerals get added later. Delivers on the palate with superstar energy, huge hazelnut and almond hit to brace and buttress lemon, minerals and unripe pear. Lars and I (and others) got into a fascinating discussion where, from his viewpoint, he loves the wine but blind would say it would fit into a Cali profile with the butteriness and wood. Me, I really like Genevrieres and I told him I’d have to think that I’d absolutely nail this vineyard blind from this bottle if it were presented. It provides food for thought. But this wine provides food for the soul! Gauche to WOTD one’s own wine? I don’t care. This is in the WOTY discussion and 95.”
I decided I had been niggardly and bumped to 96+ This did indeed end up being my WOTY last year.
Went through the oxidized wiki site looking for any information on Vogue blanc. I have a case of 99 and wondering what I should do with it - haven’t touched it and worried that these could be totally gone. Would appreciate any color on this.
I do not know whether Blain-Gagnard Criots has had the same problems but the two 2008s I have had have both been pristine, one of them being my WOTY a couple years ago.
I am working on the notes for night two. It was pretty depressing to have the ONE obviously oxidized bottle out of the first 57 bottles be a Leflaive Chevalier.
But I think the arrogance at Leflaive, both in terms of pricing and scoffing at questions involving premox, may prove to be Leflaive’s undoing from a commercial standpoint. I have been pretty astonished to hear some of my friends who have been very significant purchasers of Leflaive in the past tell me that they have 100% stopped purchasing Leflaive because of the premox issues. For my part, I’ve gone from purchasing 18 to 24 bottles per year to purchasing only one bottle, one bottle and three bottles in the 2012, 2013 and 2014 vintages.
I do not drink mmuch white burg but do have a high-level of interest
At a tasting a couple years back this premier cru vineyard ‘Genevrieres’ was very impressive…the bottle, 2004 Hospices de Beaune Meursault 1er Cru Les Genevrières Cuvée Baudot Méo-Camuzet was slapping the grand crus around like it was it’s job.
