Community Tasting Note

• Paul S wrote: 95 points

  January 6, 2014 - Bonneau du Martray, Ghislaine Barthod, Clos des Lambrays and other Auction Steals (Alex's place): Superb. I have always enjoyed Bonneau du Martray's Corton-Charlies but never quite placed them in the highest echelon of white Burgundy; not at least until I had this bottle and it's flight-mate, a lovely 1990. Of the two, the 1988 was subtler, more nuanced and, to my tastes at least, the better wine. This had a fantastic nose on it, with tons of savoury mineral and earth aromas, chalk, a dash of spice, then honey and toasted vanilla, all floating around subtly sweet notes of white white peach, sweet cream and perfumy white flowers. Beautiful. This was a stonier, higher-toned bouquet than the ripe, fruitier aromas of the 1990, but one could still tell the family resemblance between the wines. Same thing on the palate too I thought. This was absolutely superb. Refined, pure, having a certain verticality to it, with a wonderful spine of minerality and fine acidity stretching up in-between layers of pure, transparent white fruit, all laced with little dashes of spice and toasted vanilla, before some sweet lemons showed up on the midpalate. Lovely stuff. This was very elegant; effortlessly so in fact, with a creamily smooth, wonderfully integrated feel to it; yet it was also at once structured and focused, with a real tension that kept the wine taut and lithe all the way into a long, graceful finish, long, full of savoury earth and warm spice and an almost salty mineral twang that pulled away into the back palate, just before the wine faded away with a final kiss of white flowers. A wine of nuanced complexity and subtle strength. Beautiful stuff just starting to hit its peak. Watch this space though - this is one wine that has the balance and depth to go on for years and years yet.

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