Our Chevalier group is doing a dinner which includes all the Grand Crus of Gevrey-Chambertin. I’m interested in your feed back on the tasting order and breaking out the flights. 16 total wines in flights of 4. Have at it!
I think the Fundamental question I’d pose to your group is whether you’d like the most potentially/probably less in balance wines first or 2nd?
If the group’s disciplined enough to smell, swirl, taste talk & potentially pour a flight that’s fun to talk about but not as ultimately fun to fully drink & swallow: there’s a good case for trying some of the younger wines first or at least the uncertain vintages (03, 11, 14).
If you think the group wants to lead with the strongest, likely most in balance wines first, then I’d recommend go with a traditional oldest to younger style approach. But within that ecclectic lineup, there are a lot of wines I’m looking at where if you have them later in the evening, you might have a harder time going through a full, thorough examination…
In tasting like these, I would start with the softer easier vintages. Then go to the older grand vintages like 93, 99 0r 02. Then finish with ascending years and finish with the 15 and later years.
I like this order, and would more broadly support older vintages before younger for this many wines. I find that when you start with a bunch of younger wines and then try to appreciate older Burgundy the nuance / complexity can quickly get lost to palate fatigue. The younger wines will still drink well on their fruit at the end of the tasting
In a wine tasting with only a few wines, I agree with that approach. But, in this case, with so many wines, will they be tasting the most mature wines at a time when their palates are shot.
One idea would be that where are more than one wine from the same producer (like Jadot), pair the wines from the producer together so you can see how wines from a producer change over time. Might help in the future trying to determine how a wine from a producer will age when you are only tasting the producer’s young wines.
I would arrange in flights based on vineyard.
Charmes x 2
Mazis & Mazoyeres x 3
Latricieres x 2
Chapelle x 2
Griotte x 2
Ruchottes and Chapelle
Le Chambertin and Beze x 3 to finish
Finish with the 3 , rest of order up for debate but go from lighter to heavier wines.
Perhaps on reflection
Ruchottes with the two Mazis
Mayozeres with the Charmes as discussed. I do think this should be the first flight - Raphet Charmes is often quite pretty. Don’t know Couvent or Varoilles at all.
Griottes with the Chapelle based on vineyard locations.
I think it would be fun to organise this with at least one older wine in each flight. The producer styles here are quite different, so fun to mix things up.
