The 1999 vintage stayed primary for so long that it’s exciting to finally see some development and get a sense of what these wines have been packing under the baby fat. I think I caught both of these at a time when they are just starting to turn the corner.
The fruit on the Echezeaux has already shed most of its gloss and sweetness and taken on the patina of maturity, but it hasn’t yet developed much additional flavor so it tastes more like anonymous adolescent red Burgundy in general than something you can peg as near the Vosne/Flagey zip code. That said, it’s still a classy drink. Even if it doesn’t offer much distinction in terms of flavor it has the breadth of a grand cru, and given enough airtime the tannin composes itself into something pretty finessed.
The Grands Echezeaux, on the other hand, manages to illustrate why Echezeaux is always the unloved stepchild of the area. No matter how nice an Echezeaux is, the Grands Echezeaux is always a step up and sometimes several. So it is here. This is immediately more distinctive in flavor than the Ech, obscured for a bit behind an almost Bordeaux-like tannic structure, but eventually the front-end tannin almost completely melts away, revealing material that’s gratifyingly vinous but with a creamy fullness and gloss. Despite that fullness, when you toss it around in your mouth it feels barely thicker than silk. It shows just the slightest touch of a graphite-like minerality and a slight cinnamon scent, a nice forecast of what I hope it’ll show with more time to develop.
These were from the stash Premier Cru offered awhile ago at great prices that took forever to get here. Glad it was worth it!
Great notes on the evolution of 99’s and the two vineyards… Don’t have any experience with the Grands Echezeaux but I keep hearing it’s a big step up in quality from the Echezeaux just like you said…
I need to do a tasting similar to yours so I can really pinpoint the difference!
I just spent a lot of time looking at these two vineyards and it is hard to figure out why the GE is so much better, but there is no denying that it is when looking in the glass. Thanks for the notes on these.
Great notes. It is nice to hear that 99s are showing some development.
I had a chance to do something vaguely similar with some Potel NSG 1er 99s a few years ago. They were all tasty - but young and primary. The lesson I learned from them was that for someone shopping at the lower end of the price range, the NSG vineyards that border Vosne can offer a Vosne-esque profile for quite a bit less than just about any Vosne 1ers I ever see. But that was all pre-05 pricing - I’m not sure how true that is these days.
I don’t think I can really rank Potel that way because it’s a negociant with a wide range of wines from a lot of different sources. The Vosnes are top-notch and that’s what I tend to buy from Potel both because I love Vosne and because nobody has a more comprehensive assortment of the vineyards there - almost all of the best premier crus and most of the grand crus. But as will be the case in any portfolio of that size there are going to be a lot of wines that aren’t as good.