2010 White Burgundy Vintage Assessment Dinners – Night One – Feb 7, 2018 at Valentino

WINE TALK
21

Just wanted to pop in and say that I find myself reading and rereading all the threads in this series as I explore white burgundy and am super grateful to you Don for the reference material :slight_smile:

22

I’ve pretty much stopped buying Boillot cause of our dinners. Used to buy 4-5 cases a vintage of the same wines you did.

23

Jeremy:

I didn’t taste them in barrel like you did, but when the wines were released I tasted about 15 different wines and I didn’t pick up on the botrytis either. I’ve learned the hard way over the years that I can be fooled into thinking there’s just extra fruit intensity and natural sweetness in a vintage when in fact that extra fruit oomph is botrytis. Then the heaviness and cloying sweetness that obliterates the usual terroir markers sets in about year three or four (e.g. 1986 and 2006 and, to a lesser extent, 1989.) My suspicion is that the producers don’t readily volunteer information about botrytis unless they are asked point blank.

24

Great information Don. Many thanks.

Re: DIAM

Is there a particular profile of tastes imparted by the DIAM? I have heard that the only downside of this closure is that
with a few years you can pick up a specific note(s) that you can trace back to the closure. I have no personal experience here. Just asking out of interest.

25

Not answering your question, but when I was in Burgundy this summer, at least one producer told me that they think screw caps are better than DIAM, but that the market does not accept them at this time.

26

Glad to see that premox appears less prevalent. It’s still a sad state of affairs when a failure rate a little over 6% is considered remarkably low.

27

Don

There are absolutely no discernible tastes or aromas associated with DIAM corks from my perspective and I looked pretty hard to find it. David Ramey from Ramey Wine Cellars spent several years testing and tasting before he finally converted all of Ramey’s wines over to DIAM, and David swears there’s none. Most of these kind of comments trace back to people who have some sort of vested interest which causes them to deride or criticize DIAM based on some fault that only they somehow perceive.

28

Thanks Don.

29

Nice to see Grivault included. I have loved those wines for years, but have had some bad bottles along the way. Not too many, but enough to make me concerned when buying my 2014s.

30

Hi Ian

My friends John Tilson, Geoffrey Troy and John Brincko have visited there for years on their annual trips to burgundy. Geoff told me when they tasted the 2010 that it was their best in a long time, so I ended up getting a couple of tasting bottles. I was impressed, so I bought a six pack. Until the dinner in February, I hadn’t tried any since those early tasting bottles. This particular bottle, once revealed, struck me as not as good as expected based upon the initial bottles. Hopefully the remaining ones will show better. I bought a few bottles from 2010 through 2014 (so far), so we may have a few more vintages of it in future dinners.

It’s funny, but the Clos des Perrieres is truly a forgotten terroir to most burgundy drinkers/collectors. If you ask all of the locals, including Lalou Bize Leroy, they’ll all tell you that the finest non-grand cru terroir in white burgundy is the Clos des Perrieres. But the Grivault family clearly underachieved with it despite its tremendous pedigree. From vague memory, I think the next generation took control in 2008. It makes me wish that Jean-Marc Roulot owned it.

31

Funny you mention 2008! When I visited in 2010, we tasted the 2008s, and they were screaming with acid. Michel Bardet’s nephew is still being groomed, as the uncle is still making the wines. I agree that in greater hands the wines could be better, but I also think the winemaking is so old school that the wines in short term youth (meaning 7-8 years old), they are going to be awkward. We drank an 86 Clos Perrieres while we were there, and the wine was simply stunning. Conversely, I had a 96 last year, and it was so acidic that it was great 4 days later. A 2001 was lights out though, despite being from a vintage that can lack in phenolics. It was a rather complete wine. I feel like the wines all sit one peg down from where they should.

32

Sadly, Boillot has been showing a high incidence of advanced or oxidised wines - probably more so with the CC in my experience. However, I’ve had not a single PM Moucheres unduly advanced, let alone oxidised. Zip. Zero. So that strikes me as rather odd, given that the bottling process, corks and a lot of the winemaking are presumably very similar! I think the CC is a negociant wine, so perhaps this suggests some of the premox issue has to do with the underlying grape material?

33

Perhaps clonal type + ripeness at picking as suggested by the other post today re premox

34

Also stopped buying Boillot after 2011 vintage, such a shame as when they are good, the wines are really right up there with the very best…

Have had a couple of 2010’s recently (drinking them down - only 2 bottles left) and they have been superb, so it’s sad to see so much variation.

35

Paul - have you had advanced or oxidised bottles of the Moucheres?

36

Not from memory, but it isn’t a wine of theirs that I have had a lot of either - the C/C is the wine I (used) to buy the most of, 12+ bottles every year since 2002…

2008 was the most problematic vintage from them from what I have had.

37

H Boillot’s 2015’s were spectacular , I keep on buying and drinking them . But probably sooner than later , based on all the reports

38

I gave up wth Boillot’s PM Pucelles a while back. Every single bottle I’ve ever had has been completely shot.

39

Don, curious on your thoughts on 2010 Boillot Corton Charlemagne, as I still have one 3L bottle left.

40

Feeling better and better about that mag of 2010 of BdM Corton I’ve got sitting in my wine fridge… [head-bang.gif]