Echezeaux Extravaganza
Tasted Friday, January 11, 2019 by cortoncharlie with 311 views
Introduction
Echezeaux themed dinner from 1983 to 2007. Only Rouget, Jayer (Henri + George) & DRC.
Flight 1 - Warm-up (1 Note)
Let's stretch those tongue muscles ahead of a long evening 💪
Flight 2 - The post Jayer years (2 Notes)
Flight 3 - Late 90s (2 Notes)
Unlike the older vintages I find the Rouget quite different from the G Jayer in this vintage.
Flight 4 - Here comes the DRCs... (3 Notes)
The wines were decent but overall probably my least favourite flight. I never had good luck with 95s as I find them a bit too hard for my taste and for me most 96s never seem to be ready (and sometimes I question if they ever will be).
Flight 5 - Getting down to the business end... (3 Notes)
The wines were great and will get better especially the G Jayer. Tough luck for the 90 Rouget but considering it was the only bad bottle in the whole tasting we should be thankful.
Flight 6 - Contenders for WOTN (3 Notes)
Real deal. Words or numerical score don't do justice.
Closing
Overall felt extremely fortunate to be able to taste such a wonderful lineup of great wines. The wines were all of impeccable provenance and to understand the evolution in the presence of such experienced tasters was immensly educational.
A few things learnt/reaffirmed about my own feelings towards these wines:-
1) No easy rules when it comes to Henry, Henry for George or Rouget and you need a lot of experience with the individual wines and vintages to make sense of it all. That said, there seemed to be more of a common DNA in the earlier years (late 80s to early 90s).
2) Reaffirmed my views about 95s and 96s. There are certainly wines/makers I like from these vintages but overall not really my cup of tea.
3) When it comes to DRC, I always felt their Ech tend to underperform relative to their other wines but they certainly know how to make a good wine in a hot year. While I feel it may be bit silly paying current prices for this wine I am sure the hordes of Chinese buyers looking for the cheapest DRC wouldn't care less...
4) Echezeaux - over the years I've probably had more downs than ups when it comes to Echezeaux as a vineyard and this tasting (while the wines were all superb) really didn't change my opinion. These guys are obviously making the best wines from here and if you had to drink an Echezeaux you can't go too wrong with these domains. I did come away thinking this is a situation of the winemakers punching above the Terroir weight class and if we had slipped a Cros P in there it could be evident...
5) On the great late Henri Jayer. All the talk about who's the next "Jayer" is basically meaningless. It doesn't mean there won't be better wines or makers but let's just accept he is unique and his life was a gift to all lovers of wine in general and red burgundy in particular. I try to reflect on why I (we) love his wines so much. I think it is because they hit you at a raw emotional level. We can over intellectualise fine wines at times but with Jayer, the way the wine communicates is like hearing a few bars of music versus sitting through a great speech. The wines are genuine and the pleasure they give are genuine and you don't need a critic's score or a tasting note to convince you or explain why you should like it. To me these are actually "simple" wines where there is no need to overcomplicate things. I also have to give a hat tip to the overall consistency and how he maintained a common "identity" in his wines.
1992 Etienne Sauzet Montrachet
France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Montrachet Grand Cru
From an immaculate looking magnum. I found the wine pleasant but overall a bit flabby. Lots of dense yellow fruit but didn't have the cut and tension one would expect from a Montrachet in a top vintage like 1992. Others seemed to enjoy this a bit more but I tend to go for more nervy whites...
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