Let me preface the wine notes with another rhapsodic ode to Frederic Menager and the genius of cooking that is La Ferme de la Ruchotte.
Under much-reduced days and hours of opening, our gite host was able to snag us a reservation. And the food remains unbelievably good. It is a set menu, you take what’s offered, and is 45E for 4 courses. I hate eggs if they’re not in a cake or pastry. In my adult life, I have willingly eaten eggs twice. And both times, it was in the devilishly good herb soup that Frederic makes. Tourte was again on the menu, and his tourte is out of this world. The “palate-cleansing” cheese tray is followed by a sinful dessert—2 thin chocolate-dusted sugarcrisp wafers with custard and strawberries in between—and lime coulade at the bottom. Soooo good. Everything is farm-to-table here. Make this one of your highlights when you come to Burgundy, I beg you.
LUCIEN JACOB
As a start to our adventures in Burgundy? This is a heck of a start. I came here at the urging of Jeremy Holmes. He can recommend now, and I’ll go running, I tell you. We met both Jean-Michel and Christine, but spent most of our time with Jean-Michel who is a) one of the nicest people you’ll ever run into, b) a remarkably gifted winemaker and c) an unbelievably talented artist, whose wood carvings/sculptures deserve to be in a gallery—and I mean a national gallery—and any of which I would be proud to have as a showpiece in my home.
Usually they put out about 60,000 – 80,000 bottles or so. But he’s in Savigny and he lost about 60% of the crop in 2013, including all the 1er Chard. I asked what he does with the resultant empty barrels and he said he keeps them clean with hot water and sulphur and keeps them in the cellar where they won’t be subjected to stresses in humidity or temperature change. He is a winemaker who seeks after fruit, and many of his reds…I don’t want to use the word “feminine”, but they do show this commitment to giving the fruit centre stage. Part of how he carries this out is a love for including a judicious amount of fruit from younger vines in the blend. We had a lot of interesting talk about various vintages—he feels the 08s are slowly starting to come around, he likes the 06s for their fruit vibrancy, though maybe time to get into them for drinking, he says the 05s in Savigny and similar appellations are starting to show with some aeration, but the communes like Pommard and Gevrey will still need time, he too loves the 10s and he feels the 12s are hard to peg, perhaps somewhat similar to the 09s but with more structure and concentration.
Jean-Michel was also incredibly generous, and dad and I tasted 17 wines with him. I was delighted to meet he and Christine and we will hopefully get together again soon. His English is exceptional and we had a lot of fun sharing stories, thoughts and laughs.
2012 Lucien Jacob Bourgogne Aligote
No oak for this. Fresh, with lemon and water notes. Light and juicy, quite citrus, no depth but clean and fun.
2013 Lucien Jacob Bourgogne Aligote
6 months in vat only (as for the 2012). More expressive, with florals and light peach. Unripe peach and a touch of grapefruit too, decent carry here.
2013 Lucien Jacob Bourgogne Rose
Jean-Michel admittedly makes about 500 bottles from saignee for fun. And this is fun, light summer sipper, just a smidge of raspberry.
2011 Bourgogne Hautes Cotes de Beaune
Strawberry jam and a nip of nutmeg, or maybe sandalwood. Enough structure here, drizzle of chestnut on the tongue, chewy chokecherry and cranberry.
2011 Lucien Jacob Savigny-Les-Beaune
Red and black raspberries tickle the nostrils, edgeing of minerality. Follows through with good acidity, a decent showing, though it is lean.
2011 Lucien Jacob Savigny-les-Beaune 1er Cru Les Peuillets
Intriguing, baking spices, roses and violets—along with that sandalwood, I think—are part of the aromatic equation. Cherry and sweet raspberry is the fruit underpinning. This is very tasty, actually, cherry, cedar and some spice notes.
2011 Lucien Jacob Beaune 1er Cru Les Cents Vignes
14 months in oak. Touches of game, plum, sweet currant and potpourri. Again, tasty with cherry, chickoree dashes and black strawberry. Good lines too.
2011 Lucien Jacob Gevrey Chambertin
During maceration, he tastes twice a day. All his stuff is destemmed. This is remarkably perfumed—almost speaks of Pommard (Jean-Michel nods wisely), tantalizing sniffs of mocha, cherry, strawberry. On the palate, it has acidity and some mineral/earthy grit with raspberry and cranberry. A disconnect with the nose for now, but quality in both places.
2011 Lucien Jacob Chambolle Musigny
A tinge of the crushed velvet sense and feel that sometimes I can somehow smell in burgundies. Strawberry and lots of florals present themselves. This needs time—it has balance, clove and black strawberry elements, but not smoothed out yet.
I will note in passing that NONE of these reds were green or ladybug tainted in any way to me.
2012 Lucien Jacob Savigny Les Vergelesses
This gets you right away with more barnyard, the concentration and firmness of the bouquet. Yet on the tongue, it is remarkably generous and complex—delicious roundness already to the black raspberry and dark strawberry fruit, but still with engaging acid. Possible classic on our hands?
2012 Lucien Jacob Gevrey Chambertin
Sedate right now in the nuzzie, quiet with earth, flowers, dark cherry and cocoa. Dans la bouche, again, a fine level of balance, richness and depth. Quite delicious right now.
2008 Lucien Jacob Savigny-les-Beaune
This was open for about 2 days. Light red berry fruit. Even open 2 days, pure Savigny, blazes through with strictness, acidity, tannins, redcurrant and earth.
2008 Lucien Jacob Gevrey Chambertin
The aroma gives you animale, cedar, earth, gaminess and just a bit of black pepper. Open for about a day, this is also strict and full of earth, tannins, touches of chestnut and good black cherry fruit
2010 Lucien Jacob Beaune 1er Cru Toussaints
All sorts of spices—cumin, cardamom, even dry mustard mix with red berry fruit, boysenberry too. This is yet another just-lovely 2010. The balance, the mélange of red and black fruit, slight pepper notes, with back-end of definitely boysenberry, some crabapple and a combo of cinnamon and sandalwood. Yum.
2006 Lucien Jacob Pernand-Vergelesses 1er Cru
A combo of vineyards (forgot to ask which), open for a day or two, has had time to show the richness of fruit. Plum and darker berry fruit waft up the glass. In the mouth, round and with currant, definite iron and earth, but lilting sweetness.
2005 Lucien Jacob Pernand-Vergelesses 1er Cru
This also has been open for a day. But hey, now! We’ve got something here. I love this aroma. Love it. It’s a Burgundy aroma. Plum, black cherry, light clove, earth and even saffron. And—you can drink it. The tannins and fruit have resolved and this is super-expressive raspberry and strawberry sorbet with light cocoa dusting. Excellent and I had to take one with me.
2002 Lucien Jacob Savigny-Les Beaune
I think this was just the villages. And it was the best wine today and almost certain to make it into the Top 20 list for the trip. I mean, really fine, people. An extra smokiness to cherry and strawberry, and soy is starting to creep in just a bit. Le gout, still tons of grip and still pure, pure Savigny with raspberry, currant and a fine herbs side—oregano comes to mind. Very savoury feel and the second taste? Mmmmmmm. I’d want all my Savigny to be like this. 91 or so.
OLIVIER LEFLAIVE
Olivier is still very much involved, but now more at the “hosting” side. So it was that when we arrived, me feeling lucky to have snapped up some time, we ended up sitting and chatting with Olivier for an hour and a half and tasting through an incredible range of whites. Tasting more whites was a vow I’d made for this trip, and this definitely helped! For this visit, dad and I were joined by Andrea and Yarra, two lovely young ladies from Vancouver who we had met at the Ferme de La Ruchotte the couple nights before and who, I hoped, enjoyed the experience and the chance to find out about these wines and talk with Olivier. Olivier is wonderfully engaging and it was easy to draw him into conversation about the family’s history, the vineyards, the wines he feels strongly about and some comparative thoughts on tasting. I am very grateful to have met him and for his generosity in allowing us to taste so much and command so much of his time.
The family has been making wine since 1635 that they know of and he is the 18th generation. However, he started his own label with his brother in 1985 (there are 42 family members who are shareholders in Domaine Leflaive now). He relates the motivation as being threefold—Domaine was very much concentrated in Puligny and he wanted to expand to make white wine from all over the appellation (he has 92 labels). He also wanted to make the wine that he wanted to make. And, Domaine was even at that time starting to be unaccessible and he wanted to make Leflaive wines accessible to many more people. As the comparison, Domaine makes about 150,000 bottles. He runs out about 800,000. Some of the wines will come from the same vineyard but always different plots and he has 15 hectares of his own and buys the rest.
He also does make some reds under his own label—Volnay, Pommard, Santenay, Chassagne Rouge and Monthelie…about 15% of the total production. For coopers, he uses 80% from Alliers and 20% from Vosges and uses 7 coopers. In what appears to be a bit of a trend, he keeps barrels for 6 years through 3 uses of 2 years each. And he wants the oak to definitely not be the star. That gets borne out in the wines.
2011 Olivier Leflaive Bourgogne Les Setilles
“Les Setilles” is the name of his garden, this being an assemblage from only Puligny and Meursault. 2/3 was done in barrel with 5% new. Good, tangy representative. Citrus, but some minerality and raciness on both nose and mouth.
2011 Olivier Leflaive Montagny 1er Cru
A chance to look at one of the Chalonnais wines (they do make a Rully as well). A bit “crisper” with some sweet peas, apple and light flowers. A nick of baking spices and some pear granite along with sweet grapefruit. Light but nice.
2011 Olivier Leflaive Saint Romain Sous le Chateau
Olivier confirmed for me that there are no premier crus in Saint Romain but he also said he considers this site to be the best. 10% new oak, aged for 6 months, snatches of toast and oak now with light white fruit. Good carry here—a bit up from what I’ve had from Saint Romain before.
2010 Olivier Leflaive Meursault Les Vireuils
Now we get into some fun, as he has 2010s of each of the 3 main communes down here and then follows them with 09s of 1er Crus of them. This is a lieu-dit, I believe—I do know that Roulot makes a very nice version of this—and shows a bouquet of sweet, lilting floral and fruit combo. Pear and slight toffee and butter show here, with that kiss of sweetness I’ve found on a fair share of 2010s.
2010 Olivier Leflaive Chassagne Montrachet
We talk about how rare it is that there is a good vintage for both red and white, as there was in 2010. Has coquettish sweeter lemon, freshwater and mineral tones. Sings a mouthsong of decent balance, with tangy, mineral, unripe pear and some lemon again, along with good carry. Not bad…and gets nicer and more elegant with air.
2010 Olivier Leflaive Puligny Montrachet Enseigneres
I’ve always considered this to be an unofficial 1er Cru and Olivier is in full agreement with that. Good class—scents of toast, floral and sidebar of lime. It’s Puligny for sure, that raciness and hint of gunflint along with steel and mix of lemon and lime.
2009 Olivier Leflaive Meursault Les Poruzots
Butter, smoke, more hazelnuts. And in-tense pear. Poire William pear. And this is dee-licious. Probably promote that to shudderlicious. Just dive into the flowers, rich fruit, perfect butter and back-end of figs. This is really nice and captures the vintage beautifully.
2009 Olivier Leflaive Chassagne Montrachet Clos Saint Marc
He shares the vineyard with Genot-Boulanger. Also pear and plenty of apple blossom, but with some more reserver. Here I do find that the oak is upfront, a fair dollop of toast. The fruit is underneath and is there, pear and lime, but not balanced yet.
2009 Olivier Leflaive Puligny Les Champs-Canet
Steely again, mineral, apple and lemon/lime. Star fruit is a definite secondary. Palate finds this pretty full and interesting wine. Element of light ginger here, unripe apple, white pepper also join the fray. Powerful and good—I preferred the Meursault Poruzots but it was a very close horserace.
2011 Olivier Leflaive Corton Charlemagne
Besides the completely unexpected chance to taste this, it also gave me an opening to ask Olivier about the 2007 version, of which I have two. He was quite firm in saying that it was perfectly safe to open these now, though they would keep for a few years. He also reiterated what I had heard from others about 2009s, don’t keep ‘em too long. Anyway, this can see up to 25% new oak, would then be 25% once used and the rest older. Spices and white pepper and that mystery that comes with great white Burg. This makes it on the structure, which surrounds your whole mouth—it is a wine that is stunningly framed, but is still very, very young. Superb, though.
2009 Olivier Leflaive Batard Montrachet
And now we get the nuances of tropical—pineapple, guava, to go with pear and orange blossom. This starts out excellent, with a wine already starting to show its chops, but as it gains air, my minor complaint is that it is a little bit heavy at the back. This does have promise…we’ll see…
2010 Olivier Leflaive Volnay
Just the villages first. Goodness. Super-size cloves, cherry and strawberry aromatics. Tart but balanced fruit, crunchy rather than chewy. Currants, cherry and just a small dab of prune.
2010 Olivier Leflaive Volnay Les Mitans
I think Olivier was quite pleased that I knew about Mitans (I had tried one some years ago). Here again the baking spices play, but darker/black cherry. This has more structure and more fruit, actually, than the villages, which quite surprised me. Dad, Andrea and Yarra all liked this and it is very pretty stuff.
DOMAINE DUBLERE
I was fortunately able to get in touch with Blair Pethel and dad and I enjoyed a terrific visit with him. Blair started working in Burgundy in 1999, working with Patrice Rion, started the Domaine in 2004 and now produces about 30,000-35,000 bottles out of his domaine. He is a huge believer in letting the wines make themselves and doing the lion’s share of the work in the vineyard before grapes are ever picked. He has 6 hectares he uses, of which he owns 3, and he spends a chunk of time in the vineyards, hand-picking, carefully managing, plowing soil, among other things cutting the vine apexes so new young leaves can photosynthesize and cutting the horizontal vines as they grow. Blair comments that he never thought that to make wine, he really needed to be a farmer. He references some sage advice he got while speaking with someone at Bonneau de Martray who essentially said that the soil gives all the colour to the painting and the pinot noir and chardonnay—are just the blank canvasses.
They had just finished some bottling—he co-owns the bottler with a couple other people. When he started, he was doing 50% in Stelvin/screwcap, but he found there was little demand for it. To prevent corked bottles, he’s religious about using a water filter to cut out all the chlorine he can.
2011 Domaine Dublere Savigny-les Beaune Aux Vergelesses
A white Savigny off one of his own plots. Intriguing sniffs of lilac, lavender , star fruit and light fuji apple. Palate adds a tad of butterscotch and some graham cracker. This is already quite polished.
2011 Domaine Dublere Nuits St. Georges Les Terres Blanches
Learned something new today! Blair explained that this is done with 15% pinot blanc—and there are some who make a 90% pinot blanc. The PB vines are 20 years and the chardy vines 40 years. I do get plenty of perfume and lilacs again from the PB. To taste, more pear and very interesting notes of earth and truffle at the very back.
From there it was off to taste the 13s in barrel—note that the reds are going through malo at the moment.
2013 Domaine Dublere Bourgogne in Chassin 3rd-use barrel
From a single lieu-dit in Meursault. Not much on the nose, but plenty of flavour and balance—and directness in the mojth, lots of citrus.
2013 Domaine Dublere Meursault Villages Les Crotets in Francois Freres 3rd-use barrel
Right now, almonds and hazelnuts are right up here. Nutty notes continue, but this shares that feel of sure direction with pear notes and some marzipan starting to poke through.
2013 Domaine Dublere Meursault Charmes from Billon barrel (2nd use, I think)
Again, good nuts, some mineral, pear perhaps. Definitely Charmes, very expressive and energetic at this stage, yellow fruits but still properly framed.
2013 Domaine Dublere Chassagne Montrachet Les Chenevottes from Francois Freres 3rd-use barrel
So fragrant already—a summer’s tropical day on the beach. Palm trees and coconut and stuff. Le gout is very good indeed, apple, citrus, decent levels of minerality, it’s kind of poppy in the mouth right now of course, but sure to settle down. I’d want some!
From there we switched to a 2011 Meursault Charmes to compare
2011 Domaine Dublere Meursault Charmes
More showing of hazelnut, with lilting white fruit. This is excellent—again, really polished, very nice precision—that’s the word I definitely want to use here, crystal feel and structure. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not too lean by any means, pear and even a tiny whicker of passionfruit at the end. Great carry and quite lovely.
OK, back to barrel tasting for the ’13 reds
2013 Domaine Dublere Savigny-Les Beaune Les Planchots du Nord in Francois Freres 2nd-use barrel
This is the plot in back of Blair’s place, a villages. Maybe halfway through malo? Can get at cherries and raspberries in the nose. Has Savigny acidity and there’s structure, question will be whether the fruit resolves. At the moment, glances of prune and some unripe blackcurrants.
2013 Domaine Dublere Beaune Blanches Fleurs in Chassin 2nd-use barrel
Has nice earthy notes, and this is more in balance, with more fruit—macerated cherries
2013 Domaine Dublere Nuits-St.-Georges Aux Bousselets in Francois Freres 2nd-use barrel
All sorts of things here—cherry, strawberry, sweet rhubarb, possibly even some blueberry. Um—that’s FINE. Already focused, bright but delicate—more Vosne with gorgeous sparkly red fruit. A sure winner.
2010 Domaine Dublere Volnay Taillepieds
We finished with a couple older bottles. This shows a rich nuzzie of chocolate-dusted cherries and some plum, earth and a little game. Mmm—so good. Can I buy every 2010 burgundy out there? Smooth as silk, this is, amazing expressiveness, delicious strawberry, cocoa and chestnut at end with a bit more of that rhubarb. And su-blime balance. Super, super stuff that I simply had to have a bottle of.
Blind—the nostrils pick up loam, sous-bois, mushrooms and dried cherry. Since Blair has only been making wine since 2004 I guessed a 2007, and was correct. But this is his 2007 Domaine Dublere Charmes Chambertin. Very elegant, very lissome, flows down the throat effortlessly. It does put on a display—sweet redcurrant, red raspberry, with purity and floral sidebars. Another beautiful wine—Blair likes the aspect of the wine that it fans itself out in the mouth like a peacock. Bravo.
