I have, quite a few times. I suspect this is more a difference in tolerance than bottles we’ve encountered.
Fantastic notes! I’m not sure there’s a better producer of serious, age worthy wines at this price point in the world.
Great tasting and notes! Thank you for posting. ![]()
on the brett topic, here’s my experience and associated hypothesis:
I’ve found some Baudry bottles reduced, which can throw some stank, and that often will resolve with air.
I’ve found some (many) Baudry bottles bretty.
I’ve found some Baudry bottles have a garrigue type of note in them, which can also fool/confuse at first – but - usually - protracted attention reveals this for what it is.
Me too.
I suspect it’s a combination of these things. I am also very sensitive to brett.
Fun lunch! We should have taken pictures of the food as well ![]()
I’m on a slightly different page than Andy, but it’s all personal preference.
Of the two Blancs, the 17 was head and shoulders above the 16. A beautiful wine, one that I think could stand against some of the better Chenins of the valley, like Guiberteau Carmes, Boudignon Hutte, etc. So much flavor, perfect balance, and beautiful complexity already starting to emerge.
Of the 14s, I had a preference for the Grezeaux, which had just a bit more interest than the Guillot. Lovely, elegant weight, nicely complex, really a great value at its price point.
I concluded that I actually prefer the lighter weight wines to the Croix Boissee red. The 14, though very nice, just started to cross the line into being a little too dense and heavy. And I did not care for any of the “younger” Boissee (12, 15, 18). 18 in particular was just syrupy and sweet, with the others being to big and “modern” for my tastes.
The “older” Grezeaux were all beautiful, with the 10 my clear favorite, partly because of its outstanding complexity, partly because I will almost always tend to prefer a wine a little too young to a little too old. A poor man’s Rougeard in this vintage. The 99 was lovely, lots of interest, and (for me) on the back side of its plateau. 2005 we all thought might be flawed in some way, though was still quite drinkable.
As for brett, I will claim that the Cab Franc signature, particularly in Baudry’s style, makes it more difficult to determine what is and is not brett. I did not detect any obvious brett notes, certainly not anything flagrant or objectionable.
Thanks to Andy for setting this up, and for contributing a good number of the wines!
I’m in your camp although less experienced. I’ve had 2 or 3 Baudries and each tasted like poison to me. I may be extremely sensitive to Brett. I certainly am dialed into it from my time “enjoying” Brett styles beers over the years before i got into wines. For someone to say they don’t taste it to me means they don’t know what Brett is or that they can’t perceive it for some reason.
At my age, I know that my nose has become less sensitive than when I was younger. I’m sure I’m not as sensitive to TCA (though I seem to be able to keep up pretty well with my younger wine geek friends), probably brett, and other wine aromas. But I do know the signatures. There is almost certainly some low level brett in many or all of these wines, but in none of them did I consider it obvious or detracting. One of my theories is that the “bacon” note so often called out in syrah is actually brett. Similarly, I suspect that some of the signature notes of Baudry that we ascribe to Cab Franc are probably some low level brett. And in well stored wines, the levels might actually be pretty low.
I’ve had at least 17 bottles of Baudry since 2023 (according to cellartracker) (likely significantly more as my collaborators / enablers love Baudry too) … With the exception of a single white, all were Grez, Guillot, or CB from late teens to 2021 vintages.
I can’t think of a single bottle that didn’t have some Brett. Like @Otto_Forsberg, I love the rusticity this imparts in these bottles. These wines feel wild (particularly Grez and CB) and complex and create interesting intersections with food.
I think initial exposure to oxygen provides some counterbalance to the Brett in the form of fruit and floral perceptions but by no means does the Brett go away.
Sorry, that’s a false assumption. After some 47 years of being in tasting groups with folks ITB (I have been off and on since the mid 80s), I sure as hell know what brett tastes like. I’ve had enough Tempier from the 80s and 90s to know what it is. Lenoir Chinon? Too much so I sold it. As I said above, I’m fairly brett tolerant so a little doesn’t at all bother me. I didn’t detect any overt brett on the Baudrys we had.
Separate and apart from the differences in two tasters’ subjective experience, my understanding is that even if two bottles go under cork with identical brett “counts” they can wind up with very very different counts based on storage temps. If I have it right, brett can really take off at 70-75f (vs very slow growth at cellar temps) so even a few extra months on a store shelf could make for a much brettier bottle than its sibling from the same case that was sold first.
Glad to hear you can make a sweeping and conclusive determination whether there was brett in these wines after having “2 or 3 Baudries [sic]" in your life. And you didn’t even have to be there and drink the wine!
Yep. And I’d say the same if, instead of 2 or 3, it was 200 or 300.
I really think it’s wise for folks to abstain from saying what any given bottle of wine smelled like, tasted like, or what flaws it did or did not have if they were not part of smelling and/or tasting said bottle. I don’t feel this is a radical idea, but given this conversation maybe … ?
Having tasted so many Baudrys, which - to me - are wines that invariably show some signs of brett, this just feels contradictory. It just doesn’t seem plausible that people who profess being very familiar with brett don’t detect any in any of the Baudry wines. It sounds impossible that every single bottle of Baudry I taste has at least a tiny bit of brett, yet somehow your group managed to find a bunch of bottles that have no brett?
I feel that the thing is most likely the way how Alan put it; I suspect many of the notes people think are inherent to Cab Franc or Loire reds is just brett. I’ve seen many people identify a slightly bretty wine in blind tastings as a Cabernet Franc (or Rhône Syrah) even when I (tasting the same wine at the same time) don’t think the wine has anything to do with those wines.
I, too, got my initial exposure to brett in bretty beers, so for me, it’s very easy to identify a bretty wine - it’s just that element that is common with them and bretty beers. I’ve even seen people comment how fascinating and complex a flavor profile of a grower Champagne is. When I comment that it’s just a tiny amount of brett they are picking up, people just scoff and say something like “Champagne can’t have brett!”.
Usually my reaction is just: Okay then. ![]()
Anyways, at no point I’ve said Baudry wines would be overtly bretty or objectionable due to brett. For example I love Baudrys for their rustic flair - although I can imagine how they can taste like poison to people who are very sensitive to brett, because it certainly is there. To me, some Baudrys can have a huge smack of barnyard and horse stables, while others might just have a little bit of phenolic spice and leathery funk, but nothing particularly animalistic. And this might also play into what @JustinP said - brett can even have a “bloom” in the bottle, so it is true that one bottle might be barnyardy as hell, another just subtly funky. However, to have different levels of brett in a bottle, you first need to have some brett in the bottle!
But I’m glad I’m not the only one - if @A_M-i-l-l-e-r (and @David.Berman with his more modest exposure) weren’t here, I might begin to think you are collectively trying to gaslight me! ![]()
Or it could be you expect Brett in Baudry, so you think what you are tasting has to be Brett.
It cuts both ways.
That’s quite a feat in blind tastings!
I’m assuming not every bottle of Baudry you have had was blind?
Lol no.
But every Baudry has been bretty, no matter if it is blind or not.
Believe me, I know what brett smells and tastes like. That is not something I conjure up in my imagination just based on expectations! If I did, I would be so much more happy with modern Musars.
Look, I’m not particularly sensitive to Brett, so I didn’t notice any in the bottles we had. But, of the 9 people there, only 1 or 2 thought there might have been a mild hint of Brett in a few of the bottles.
I also know plenty of people who have been drinking Baudry ever since Dressner started importing them into New York, and while everyone knows Baudry can be Bretty, you are the only person I know that claims that every bottle of Baudry he has ever made reeks of Brett.
I’m assuming you have had more than “2-3 Baudries (sic)” in your life, so I’m taking your experience more seriously than the other guy, but it could be you might be the one with the outlier experience since there are numerous folks I know who over the past 15 years reported drinking bottles of Baudry without detecting perceivable Brett (and they have also reported drinking Bretty bottles too)
This is exactly the opposite of what I have been saying all the time.
Virtually in every post I’ve said that all the Baudry bottles I’ve had have been bretty to some extent, but quite rarely the reek of brett - some might have a big smack of barnyard, but some have been just subtly bretty with vague notes like leather or phenolic spice.
I’d say a tiny minority of bretty wines I taste actually reek of brett. On the contrary, I think most of the bretty wines I taste have nothing more than a subtle note, nothing particularly obvious. Most Baudry bottles I’ve had belong to this category.
Oh yes, many more.
FWIW, I think La Porte Saint Jean bottles are normally more obvious in bretty character and while I wouldn’t say these reek of brett, I can easily imagine people who do not tolerate brett would say so.
If I’d have to name a wine that actually reeks of brett, I’d nominate Bruyere & Houillon’s 2016 Les Tourillons. That is one of the wines that have been way too bretty even for my preference.
I’ve met people who have been drinking wines for 30-40 years who claim to know all things possible in wine (and they admittedly do know quite a bit), yet many of them can’t identify a bretty - or even a mousy - bottle. Some might think a wine I find corked is fresh, if slightly underwhelming to them. Or a wine that I find already flat and oxidized can be very complex and interesting to their palates (although that is just more a preferential thing - even if I do love aged, fully mature wines myself). So I would take these kinds of things with a grain of salt.
As another data point, I too have never had a “clean” bottle of Baudry.