Beaune, France
Tasted Thursday, March 22, 2012 - Thursday, March 29, 2012 by kingkanu with 1,095 views
A spring holiday in Burgundy, no proper domain visits just chance to get a feel for the area, and it's wines...
Dinner in Beaune at Le Conty's cellar restauarant, a great little cellar restaurant with a pretty great wine list, plenty to choose from with some older vintages at reasonable prices.
This was market day so we stocked up on supplies for the week, we were self catering in a central Beaune flat and got a load of delicious cheeses, salads, vegetables, truffles and mushrooms for the week. Tasted at Patriarche (negotiants) in Beaune (no notes) they had a small but interesting selection of old magnums to buy at some pretty reasonable prices that are worth a punt, I got a mag of 1980 Romanee St Vivant for 160 euros which i thought was well worth trying, then dinner at the flat
Tasting at Caveau de Chassagne-Montrachet, dinner back at the flat. We also tasting at Marche Aux Vins in Beane, but with no notes. One of the sommeliers there pulled us into the vintage room for some more tastings of better wines, which we really enjoyed, especially a Corton-Charlamagne and ended up buying more than anticipated...
Heading out to Nuits-St-George, tasting at Dufouleur, dinner at the flat. Unfortunately went to 2 domaines who were rude and were not interested. Michel Saban didn't want to let us taste more than 2 simple wines, even though he had more open, and the simple wines were pretty average at best. Caveau Fleurieres, who have huge signs up on the main road saying 'Degustation' lectured us that domaines in burgundy didn't do tasting, so we didn't hang around in those unfriendly places.
A day at Domaine Olivier Leflaive, morning workshop and winery tour, tasting lunch and then a small plates dinner at the hotel. This was a brilliant day. The wineary tour was done by Olivier himself, he did this with great charm and humour but still got his passion for wine across in spades. Simon, a sommelier at the hotel took the walk around the vineyards and ran the lunch time tasting and was excellent in both french and english (he is english) At dinner there were other sommeliers who were also extremely knowledgable and explained more about the domaines approach, making more accessible wines for earlier drinking. My main take away was that all the wines showed real balance and were very well made, we came away big fans and with a case of mixed white wines across the villages.
Vosne Romanee, dinner at Le Richebourg hotel. A very nice hotel and spa in Vosne-Romanee, we had a quick tasting at Domaine Francois Gerbert in the village, their borgogne rouge was excellent value at 10 euros, but they also sold some vintages from some of the bigger names in the village from the various Gros domaines, Grivot etc, and my self control was not so good ! The highlight was walking through the village and seeing Sylvain Cathiard loading a lorry on his forklift !
We now know a bit more about how burgundy works and the lie of the land, we've been out and around all the key villages and understood the terroir much more, next time we'll need some better domaine visits to expand the knowledge more
2009 Etienne Sauzet Puligny-Montrachet 87 Points
France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Puligny-Montrachet
(3/23/2012)
Another restaurant bottle in Beaune. Ripe and quite round with little acidity, not what you would expect from a Puligny but with the ripeness of the vintage it was drinking pretty well, I wouldn't think about keeping this for long.
Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue
1994 La Pousse d'Or Pommard 89 Points
France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Pommard
(3/23/2012)
From a Beaune restaurant and notes from memory. Quite a stinky nose which took a short while to blow off. Elegant in style, from the Volnay side of Pommard I would guess. Plenty of freshness on the palate, although it took a while for the ripeness of the fruit to come through. Nice length. Paired with a scallop and black truffle risotto and stood up to it very well.
Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue
2000 Domaine Jean Grivot Vosne-Romanée 90 Points
France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Vosne-Romanée
(3/23/2012)
From a 375ml. Quite rich and darkly seductive, still very primary, but the tannins has melted away if they were once heavy. Nice complexity, good length, a really good village Vosne.
Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue