This is a domaine wine. This put some tonnelier’s kid through college, but otherwise is basically worthless. There seems like there is decent, albeit stony/red fruited/high-acid raw material under here, but it clashes with, and eventually drowns under, the waves and waves of vanilla and caramel and coconut and the oak tannin that gives this the texture of whole milk. Nasty stuff.
FWIW, I’ve never had luck with the old tale that high-slope village plots perform well in warm vintages; be it this wine, Anne Gros’s Combe d’Orveau, Daniel Rion’s Vosne village. Nothing but swings and misses.
In 8-10 years, the oak will integrate and the baby-fat fruit will die down. It will show much better. There will be some enjoyable secondary character.
Last week I enjoyed the 2000 of this wine. I don’t have a whole lot positive to say about the 2000 vintage in general, but this wine was showing/drinking very well…12.5 years from vintage.
So you had some reason to believe Meo-Camuzet Vosne Village drinks well 3.5 years after vintage?
It is pretty easy to criticize any wine this young for showing oak, if it saw any. Meo is known to use oak - but the wines age long. So there is no point jumping in early.
Criticize any wine this young for showing oak? Nonsense. I’m saddled with a better half who likes her burgundy young, so I drink, I would guesstimate, 50-100 bottles of young burgundy a year. I have a pretty high oak tolerance, as long as its low-char oak. Hell, I like D. Laurent.
I would say that this is the oakiest young burgundy I’ve had since a 2005 C. Dugat Bourgogne. It’s a 1 in 200 bottle, in terms of over-oaking. The oak is so bad that I recognized, without looking it up, that it was francois feres, because I remembered the smell from a bottle of W. Selyem from last year. Seleym may be the oakiest of the big new world producers.
What am I trying to say? Regardless of whether this wine will integrate in 10 years or 20 years or whatever, its an abomination of a village wine. Undrinkable swill, at least from now till the foreseeable future.
Obviously you are entitled to your view of the wine. Your note is quite provocative, and you should expect not everyone will just agree with you.
I don’t believe in wasting wine just to engage in a discussion, so I’m not about to open one of mine. However, my pal who I drink a lot of Burg with (and who has an old-world palate that I trust) tasted this wine at the Domaine. He is a pretty tough scorer. Here’s his note:
•2009 Domaine Méo-Camuzet Vosne-Romanée - France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Vosne-Romanée
Tasted at the Domaine. Another riper nose with aromas of dark raspberries, red cherries and hints of spice. Well concentrated on the palate with rich and dark pinot fruit flavours, good acidity with ripe and slightly firm tannins. This coats the mouth and offers intense fruit and a weighty profile. The acidity here is quite good given the vintage and this keeps the riper and weighty mouthfeel in check. Jean-Nicolas says this plot is usually one of the last to be harvested. Needs 5 years. Very good. 89+ (89 pts.)
That’s all I have to say at this time, other than that I’m not the least bit concerned about my bottles for the long term.
Haven’t had this particular wine, but have had several Meos and they’ve all basically sucked. A producer I avoid like the plague, made all the easier by their ridiculous prices.
And I think different people are sensitive to different types of oak or oaking. In general I’m pretty tolerant of even ridiculous levels of oak (love Roty), but some producers use a certain type of char or treatment that just make me gag (all of Helene Garcin’s various Bordeaux I’ve had taste like cigarette ash to me, for example; and this is not a euphemism, they literally taste like I’ve dumped an ashtray in my mouth).
Can’t speak to the oak problem as I haven’t noticed it before in Meo’s wines. Also haven’t tasted that village Vosne.
The 2009 Vosne 1er Les Chaumes had some pretty harsh tannins, no overt oak problem. The 2009 Corton les Perrieres was also a bit rough with some vintage roundness. Both need a good deal of time. In contrast, the 2009 NSG 1er aux Murgers was ripe and silky. The 2003 Clos Vougeot was hot and over-ripe while the 2001 was elegant and beautifully red fruited. The 1999 CV was magnificent. Not sure total avoidance is the best strategy. YMMV.
Objectively, Meo-Camuzet does use a lot of new oak in his village Vosne - 50%. And nearly all publically available notes on the wine comment on the oak influence. So, like, kudos to the folks who have higher oak tolerances than mine, because you can enjoy a bottle that I cant. But this is a very oaky village wine. I guess the beauty of wine is that someone can find subjective pleasure in this bottle.
Though it’s sometimes possible to drink this sort of wine young with great pleasure it is not what it’s meant for, and it isn’t really the wine’s fault if it doesn’t show well.
Wow. I never would have thought that an '09 village vosne would be so contentious. I don’t have a ton of experience with Meo at the village level, but on those few occasions when I’ve had the opportunity to taste Meo’s cros parantoux or vosne brulees, I’ve considered them to be among the rare, few wines that can reach the heights of burgundy. For me, the chaumes is generally disappointing (although I’ve been relatively uninspired by chaumes from everyone with the exception of liger belair) but the murgers and bougots are top notch nuits.
A
Who knows? A lot of people have foolishly opened 05 Burgundies and Bordeauxs. That doesn’t make it wise, or give the drinker grounds to complain if the wine tastes overly tannic. It’s their mistake. There are lots of 01 and 02 village Burgundies that are just entering a good drinking window.
But there are plenty of producers that make village burgs that are delicious young and delicious old. If Producer X is making a wine that is undrinkably-oaky young and may (or may not) integrate with 10 years of bottle age, isn’t that bottle inherently inferior to something with a longer drinking plateau, especially if a very small percentage of bottles produced are actually held till the “correct” time to drink?
Put differently, if a wine is undrinkably oaky for the first 10 years of its life, then the implied cost of the bottle is the NPV of [Purchase Price] + [Storage Cost for 10 years]. We’d be talking about a $100+ village wine in this case.
So all village wines should be made for drinakability on release?
Come on.
If you find one you like young and old, go for it. But how many did you taste on release and like that are also drinking well now at 10 years? And how do those compare with the ones you didn’t like on release now that they have 10 years on them?