On Tuesday morning we went to Maison Jadot. We had a lot of wine - a lot of wine. These are totally different wines from what we had Monday. Domaine Dublere’s wines are very pure and elegant and Cecile Tremblay’s wines, while richer than Dublere’s wines, are still on the elegant side of Burgundy. By contrast, Jadot makes very powerful muscular wines. Still, the wines retain their terroir and each wine was quite different from the next. We had a number of 2012 whites - a St. Aubin that was quite beautiful. Let me stop here and say that price is just no reason to drink bad wines. The 2011 Bourgogne Blanc from Dublere, the 2012 St. Aubin from Jadot and the Macons from Lafon (see notes from Wednesday) and just great wines and great values. If price is an issue and you still want to drink great Chardonnays, drink these. We also had a Meursaul, Beaune Bressandes (white), Chassagne Montrachet, Puligny Montrachet, PM Garenne, CM Chenevottes, and Corton Charlemagne (all 2012s). For reds, we had a Santenay Gatsulard, Beaune Bouchevottes, Pommoard Commaraire, NSG Boudots, GC Petite Chapelle and Clos Vougeot. Again, these wines were harder to taste than the 2010s when I was here two years ago, but these 2012s are very impressive, dense wines - kind of a combination of 2009 and 2010.
Tuesday afternoon we visited my good friend Ray Walker. It is just really hard for me to be objective about Ray’s wines. I just love what he is trying to do and love the results. We tasted through Ray’s 2011s, his MSD Mont Luissants, MSD les Chaffots, Volnay Robardelles, GC Corbeaux, Mazoyeres Chambertin, Charmes Chambertin and Chambertin. I think Ray’s 2011s were really good. Certainly, 2011 was not as great a vintage from what I have had as 2009 or 2010, but the wines were very impressive, especially how different each wine tasted from each other wine. I would probably drink these on the earlier side for the beautiful fruit, but it will be interesting to see how these age as well. Of interest, Ray showed us samples from two different barrels of the Mazoyeres, on with free run juice and one partially with press wine. It was fascinating how different that taste with the press wine being more tannic and structured as can be expected. I look forward to tasting the final assemblage. Ray also showed us a fascinating White Mazoyeres and he fermented with the skins, etc., like he does with the reds, but actually lets the fermentation last even longer than with the reds. Just a fascinating wine.
Ray is pushing the envelope to be as pure as possible. No new oak, three punchdowns TOTAL (less than many producers do per day), etc., etc. Certainly, nobody knows exactly what will happen, but the results i have tasted so far I really like. This is quite a serious young man with definitive ideas on what he wants to do and is doing it with no compromise. I cannot wait to see the results over time of what he is doing. As I said, I am not objective here, I am a fan.
At dinner, we saw another serious youngish man when we went to Caves Madeleine where we had a spectacular meal. Lolo, the proprietor kind of reminds me of Ray in a sense that he knows exactly what he wants from the food and from wine and is setting out to get it. This simpler food with great ingredients made perfectly. I loved the meal and I loved talking with Lolo during dinner. We had a Chablis Valmur from Raveneau 2007 and a Vosne Romanee Chaumes 2007 from Arnoux for dinner. We are really finding that 2007 is a great vintage for restaurants because the wines can be drunk with pleasure now.
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
) 15,000 bottles deep, he could only buy it sans stock, especially in Beaune where the bail is very high. Thus it will take him a while to build the cellar back up from scratch.