Puligny-Montrachet ‘Le Caillerets’ - a vertical tasting

WINE TALK
1

Our Tuesday ‘Lunch Bunch’ got together …a bit of a different format, in that one of us organized the tasting and supplied the wines. This was a perfect setup for me to share some wines that i have been collecting over the past several years. Some history here….A group of us including Berserkers England, Trimpi and Ackerman were visiting Clos des Lambrays and tasting with Thierry Brouin. He introduced us to one of his whites, Clos du Cailleret, a wine that I was not very familiar. Some history is in order, Jean Chartron was the principal owner until difficult times occurred in the 1990’s due to inheritance taxes, etc, therefore it is no longer a monopole. Some of the vineyard was sold to Domaine de Montille , Domaine Michel Bouzereau, Domaine de la Pousse d’Or and Domaine des Lambrays. At the domaine, Thierry served us the 2007 and I think we were all impressed with the quality of the wine, given that it was a 1er cru. It had grand cru quality in our opinion. Later in the week, I walked the vineyard, seeing it’s location contiguous with Le Montrachet and Chevalier-Montrachet. I thought, ‘pretty good neighbors’, and given that we all were impressed with the 07 that Thierry presented to us, I started my search on arriving home. Over the past several years, I accumulated the wines tasted below. All the wines were opened approximately an hour prior to serving and served in 3 flights, oldest first, each accompanied with a separate course…all delicious. We voted for top 4 wines and points for the group are listed.

Flight 1
1999 Domaine Jean Chartron Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Clos du Cailleret - starting to show it’s age, but not oxidized. Some caramel and floral notes. Lush palate with enough acidity to provide nice balance. Less minerality than others, but I quite liked it…probably more than others. My fifth and group seventh favorite (3pts)

2000 Domaine Jean-Marc Pillot 1er Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Clos du Cailleret - Nice citrus and mineral notes on the nose. Lacked the complexity and depth of many of the other wines. Very fresh with excellent tangy finish. My ninth and and group sixth favorite (4 pts)

2000 Chartron et Trebuchet 1er cru Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Clos du Cailleret - Mineral, citrus. Definitely more volume in the mouth than the prior wine. Flowers, citrus, mid weight palate. Long enticing finish. Very classy wine and grand cru quality imo. My second and group third favorite (12 pts)


Flight 2
2000 Domaine de Montille 1er Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Le Cailleret - Here we go! This flight a step up in quality. Some honeysuckle, mineral, citrus. Mid-weight with beautiful balance and depth. So long on the palate. Delicious. Classic Puligny imo. Grand cru quality. Close race between this and the prior wine. My third and group fourth favorite (8 pts)

2001 Jean Chartron 1er Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Le Cailleret - Similar profile to #1 but showing less age. Some oak, citrus, mineral notes. Nice depth and mouthfeel. Long finish. Lacks complexity. My eighth and group ninth favorite (zero pts)

2006 Domaine de Montille 1er Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Le Cailleret - A real outlier in this tasting. Delicious, but classic 2006. Very expansive nose of pineapple, citrus. Very lush and round on the palate, but there is ample acidity to balance it out. Dense, dry extract. Sweet , long finish. A crowd pleaser for sure. Almost California like. My fourth and group second favorite. (16.5 pts)


Flight 3
2007 Clos des Lambrays 1er Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Clos du Cailleret - This definitely of grand cru quality. Some history here. On arriving home from Beaune, Brad and I both bought this wine. Unfortunately Brad has had a bad experience with premox however, in his words, the good ones were ‘brilliant’. Fortunately, my bottles have been sound. Guess I’m just lucky. This bottle is the best of my lot…agree with Brad, I would classify as ’brilliant’. Classic Puligny of grand cru quality. So balanced, with complex mineral, floral, beeswax ( almost some Raveneau hints) , and citrus notes intermixed with very nice fruit. Not overly oaked. My first and group first favorite (29 pts)

2009 Yves Boyer-Martenot 1er Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Le Cailleret - Nose quite shy. Some oak and spice on the palate with good depth…Moderately viscous. Nice acidity. My sixth and group 8th favorite (1 pt)

2010 La Pousse d’Or 1er Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Le Cailleret - Most pale color of the group. Some lime, menthol. I originally thought oak, but I think just reduced aromas. Good minerality with some herbal notes. Very nice length… This wine should be fine in time…just way too young to show well for me. My seventh and group fifth favorite (6.5 pts)

All in all, we were quite impressed with the overall quality of the wines. Definitely a sleeper and wines that one might consider, given their relatively low price compared to quality. Hopefully others will chime in on their comments. Also, I know Jon took some pics…perhaps he can post…

2

Walked the vineyard myself so know what you mean about the climat. I think part of the original Le Caillerets lieu dit is GC. Be nice to pick up some of the Lambrays. Chartron have improved over the last few years but still should be better.

3

Many thanks for organizing the wines for this lunch and tasting, Roger. The bright laser lights, music background, dancing waiters, video displays of the vineyard, and outstanding commentary were all worthy of a Golden Globes presentation, and then some ! [welldone.gif]

For a change, my preferences were amazingly identical to the group results, placing the '07 Lambrays first, the '06 Montille second, and '00 Chartron third. No premox with any of the wines, and despite the points spread all of the wines were worthy to reside at table. Can’t add anything to your notes, Roger, which are spot on.

The three course lunch consisted of a Fried Brussel Sprout Salad ( Granny Smith apple, carrot, toasted almonds, HDS Meyer Lemon Vinegrette); Sweetbread Provencal ( Grape tomatoes, Garlic,Fines Herb, Capers, Creamy Yukon gold potato ); Smoked Albacore ( rainbow chard and corn flan, Fresno chile beurre blanc ). I am generally not partial to brussel sprouts or sweetbreads, but these dishes were absolutely delicious and were excellent choices to accompany the wines.

Eight of us in attendance and all left ringing the praises of the entire wine and food experience.

I have photos of the wines and dishes, but haven’t figured out how to get them on to this thread.

Hank [cheers.gif]

4

What a great lunch - the food and wines were great! I just loved all of the dishes also - the Brussel Sprout Salad was to die for and the sweetbreads were perfectly cooked and savory. Hard to explain the flavors in the smoked albacore dish but they were perfectly placed and delish! I’ll get my notes up later along with my preferred wines.

Hello Roger - with the first flight of wines…
1st Flight and Roger.JPG
Smoked Albacore dish - Yummy!
Smoked Albacore.jpg
The yummy '07 Lambrays!
The Fabulous '07 Lambrays.jpg

5

Thanks for the notes! I like the magical precision and steely backbone in Puligny, much finer than Meursault or Chassagne …

6

Nice tasting Roger, glad to read that none if these were premoxed.

7

Roger - cross post this to my Cotes du Beaune sticky thread, and $45 will go to helping animal shelters.

8

I’ve had 2008 and 2009 of Lambrays from this vineyard (one of my favorites) and I agree that it is a super wine.

I did not know M. Bouzereau made a caillerets. Thats a wine that I’d love to try, given how good and steely the Meursaults from that producer already are, it seems like it would play well with this terroir.

9

Roger- thanks for the good notes, very accurate I think. I like the new format too as it allows a member to provide a focused presentation on a certain area or producer.
At the risk of thread drift( the points vs description debates) I want to mention an amusing situation that occurred with one of the wines, the Pousse d’ Or if I remember correctly. As we discussed the wines, going around the table left to right, the person to my left described the wine almost exactly as I had written in my notes, even to comparing it to a particularly well known California chardonnay producer. When I agreed with the description and mentioned my score we discovered that although we both agreed on the words our scores were 15+ points apart because we valued those descriptors so differently! So, a score can be a very important descriptor in it’s own right, IMHO.

10

Nice tasting guys. Looking forward to Tuesday’s with you all soon.
Bill, funny. Were you the high or the low?

11

Thanks for the notes Roger. Cailleret can be special indeed.

12

Splendid to see the happy notes on Lambray’s Caillerets. I’ve got a bottle of their 2011 Folatieres that I can look forward to. Nice work all.

Mike

13

I was “raised” on wine in California so what would you guess? [oops.gif]

14

That’s what I assumed.

15

I very much liked the Pousse d’Or version - does that give me street cred for having a highly inclusive palate :slight_smile:?

16

Jon, As much as you try to pretend here on WB that you’re elitist- you’ve got street cred with me ( but those guys you hang with in DTLA have some work to do…)

17

:wink:

18

Nicely done notes - the words you use make me feel as if I am tasting along with you! The 2007, in particular, sounds amazing.

19

haters gonna hate. I took the subway, I’m super of the people. [snort.gif]

20

I found something in the aromas of the 2010 La Pousse d’Or that I didn’t expect…a hint of diesel fuel, not a pleasing petrol characteristic which is inherent in some quality Rieslings. What exactly contributed to this I can’t say, but it was enough for me to downgrade my assessment. I mentioned this during our discussion but the others didn’t pick that up. Roger felt it was his 7th choice and my judgment would be similar overall.

Hank [cheers.gif]