TN: Blind Tasting (Burgundy, Pinot, SGN)

WINE TALK
1

Blind tasting last night:

Opening white wine: Very steely and stony at first. It was quite cold. After it warmed up a bit there was more depth and richness, but over time a grassy/herbal element crept in that I did not care for.

Reveal: 2004 Bouchard Corton Charlemagne

Wines 1-4: As a group these were not unpleasant, but they were not a lot of fun to drink. #1 was thin compared to the group. #2 had a spritz that took a while to go away, and made the wine taste very sharp. #3 was very green, but had some depth to it. #4 was even greener, with less stuffing. Guessing the theme of these wines was not hard.

Reveal: All 2004s - #1 Joblot Givry Clos du Cellier Aux Moines, #2 Bachelet Gevrey-Chambertin VV, #3 Chevillon Nuits St. Georges Les Vaucrains, #4 Faiveley Chambolle Musigny La Combe d’Orveau

Wines 5-6: Much better performance with these wines. #5 had a lovely, velvety texture, not a ton of depth, but good persistence and pretty red fruit and earth. #6 started with a ton of funk (brett?), but also a lot of richness. The funk lessened over time, but pretty much everyone preferred #5 of the two. #5 was really quite delicious.

Reveal: #5 2004(!) Mugneret-Gibourg Clos Vougeot, #6 2004 (!) Domaine Ponsot Clos de la Roche VV

Wines 7-8: And now for something completely different. Both of these were clearly not Burgundy, with great richness of ripe, fresh fruit, but they also had nice balance and were in no way over the top. I did find #7 a bit candied the more I drank it, but I liked the flavor spectrum of #7 more than #8 which I found a bit dark. Overall I would never turn down a glass of either of these, though one glass would likely be enough.

Reveal: #7 2009 Anthill Farms Abbey-Harris Vineyard Pinot Noir, #8 Radio-Coteau Albergi Pinot Noir

We finished up with three sweet wines. Each of them had its charms. The first showed some pretty spice, quite a bit of botrytis, and a lingering spicy/honey finish. The second was all about apricots and honey, but tasted much less of botrytis spice than the other two (my favorite). The third was a botrytis beast, with all the spicy, scratchy-scratchy elements that heavy botrytis can bring. I actually thought the third wine was some Catoir Rieslaner. I liked all three. I would drink all three, but could probably only drink a lot of the first two. The third was too heavy on the botrytis for my taste.

Reveal: 1998 Schoffit Rangen de Thann Clos St. Theobald Selection de Grains Nobles Gewurztraminer (first wine), Riesling (second wine) and Pinot Gris Lot #1 (third wine)

2

2004 Chevillons put me in the “I’m not buying anymore '04s camp”
Really green.
The two GC sound decent, though not sure id bother.
Nice lineup for blinds, though.
I Still need to try anthill one day.
Cheers.

3

Clearly, 2004 is a very poor vintage in Burgundy - IMHO the worst in the last 20 years. The Faiveley wines that I have had are much like what you stated, pretty awful and I generally love Faiveley. I keep hoping the wines get better over time, as others have suggested, but I am getting more and more skeptical.

Mugneret-Gibourg IMHO made among the best wines of the vintage. The one or two 2004 Chevillon wines I have had were among the better wines from the vintage I have had, but were nothing special.

4

I really like the Mugneret-Gibourg. I don’t think it is an exemplary Grand Cru wine, but will happily drink it.

5

Of the 2004 Burgs I have tasted (and I really don’t seek them out too much anymore), the only two producers where I feel confident I will enjoy the wines are Truchot and Mugneret-Gibourg. This really dates back to the first time I tasted the 2004 MG wines at my first Paulee Grand Tasting where I thought MG was in a different class from the other 2004s I tasted that day. I have had one bottle of NSG Chaignots from them that I did not like that much, but I had just traveled with it and it may just not have shown well.

6

I liked the 2004 Ponsot. I thought it was beautifully structured with wonderful mouthfeel. The greenness was there, somewhere between 20 and 30 percent of the palate, not enough to make me spit it out like the Angerville Ducs or the Anne Gros Richebourg, but enough to make the wine a wonderful buy at $50-60, not at any price it will ever sell at. What the 2004 did was make me a fan of the winery itself, this winemaking with great grapes will produce greatness (extrapolating wildly).

My opinion still is, unless I’ve had the 2004 vintage of a wine, I would stick to the heaviest wines around, so that the fruit masks the green. 04 Roty Charmes Chambertin was like that, a $100 wine, not bad in 2004 (but I’ll never see it at $100).

7

Thanks for that note on the Ponsot. I was prepared for this worst. This gives me some hope.
Re: 2004 Roty wines.
I had the 2004 Roty Mazy recently. No green. Intense fruit and still showing some elevage notes.
Once it was aerated, this wine was glorious!

8

Don - if you have the Ponsot any time soon I would love to hear your thoughts on it. The funk made it controversial.

9

Thanks for the notes and for the format! Sometimes I wonder if 04 and 03 are worth the gamble and if the vintage is really as bad as the perception or how it’s developing since no one is drinking them. Sounds like it really is that bad for the 04. Very informative.

Very interesting to hear about MG. I wonder how they did it and what they did differently.

Thanks again.

10

It might be interesting to taste the 04 Clos Vougeot from the producers with plots adjacent to MG. it almost has to be something about how they handled fruit in the winery, but such a tasting would give an extra indicator.

11

I had a bottle of the 2004 La Pousse d’Or Volnay 1er Cru Clos de la Bousse d’Or in early April 2013 which I thought was pretty nice.

12

I had an '04 Ponsot Chapelle-Chambertin that was such a letdown…the green meanies were in full force and as much as I wanted to like it…I just couldn’t.

13

Well that’s interesting. I have now had Clos de la Roche from Ponsot and Truchot that were very good to excellent, and without obtrusive GM. Anybody had other producers’ versions of CdlR? GM yes or no?

Just wondering if the vineyard might have been spared the worst of whatever the heck caused this.