I have $350 in gift cards at Sherry-Lehmann, and want to buy one really nice bottle of white burgundy. Having almost no experience with this segment of the market, I am hoping the forum can help guide me.
How do you like your chardonnay? Softer and with oak influence or sharp and clean? Also, do you plan on holding this or would you want to drink it sooner than later?
Good questions, Brian, and info I should have included. I prefer sharp and clean with nice acidity. As to holding, I really am not sure, so I guess something that needs 10 years before even approachable probably would not work. Soemthing that you could drink now but would reward aging would be perfect.
If you want to explore the category instead of getting one very expensive bottle, I would get three nice bottles in the $100-150 range from different vineyards and producers. The Bouchard/Jadot Corton Charlemagne, Drouhin Folatieres, Bouchard Meursault Perrieres would fit the bill. Have fun!
Setting aside the absurdity of how large your pipeline to the Fed would have to be in order to accumulate sufficiently many fiat electrons in order to afford 1500ml of Leflaive Chevalier at $7000.
And bearing in mind that you might have to worry about provenance [and whether the good stuff was refrigerated during those scorching-hot concrete jungle summertimes].
The single white which I’d be most interested in trying right now would be the 2008 Blain-Gagnard Montrachet at $449.95.
Runner-up would be a mini-tasting of Chablis:
2012 Fevre Les Clos at $220.00
2012 Fevre Valmur at $199.95
And I’d go with those 2012s if there were even the slightest question as to where the 2008s have been lying for the last five years.
For long-term cellaring [30 or 40 years], I’d grab the 1500ml bottle of 2012 Ygrec, at $395.00.
Also, if you have a sweet tooth, then they have a pretty good selection of 2005 Kracher stickies [which are becoming a little bit of a collector’s item since his death]. Note that “Zwischen den Seen” means that the wine saw only stainless steel, whereas “Nouvelle Vague” means that it saw oak .
I didn’t see anything in the Loire which captured my imagination [no Vatan, no Dagueneau].
And of course Haut Brion Blanc is in the stratosphere [which is why you go with Ygrec].