2010 Muscadet and Burg Tasting

A rather eclectic mix at this tasting, but very interesting to say the least. I was impressed by the whites, enough to purchase a few bottles of the Muscadet and to start sourcing for the white Burg at a better price, but rather less so with the very pricey reds.

• 2010 Domaine de l'Ecu Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine Orthogneiss 91 Points

  France, Loire Valley, Pays Nantais, Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine

  A solid little Muscadet - this delivers superb value at its price-tag. It had a tightish nose when first poured, with rather unremarkable notes of fleshy white fruit with some ripe tropical hints and just a little flinty seashell edge. It opened up just a bit with time, to show some flowers and a touch of spice. Nice enough, but never quite expressive. It was the palate that impressed me. Here, there was some weight and a suggestion of ripeness in shades of sweet melon fruit. It certainly had a good amount of depth as well. However, this was marked by a lot more flinty and minerally than the nose suggested - something that I appreciate in a Muscadet. It had lovely definition and an almost linear focus that became clearer as the fruit faded past the midpalate and the wine became positively stony at the finish, with an almost bittersweet, slightly smoky feel. There was a good bit of mouthwatering acidity in there somewhere as well. It was a bit overshadowed by the fruit on the attack and the minerality on the midpalate, but it really burst into life right at the end. I liked this quite a bit. For such a young wine, it showed plenty of power and flesh, but matched with a nice sense of finesse and purity. Still young, it still needs a bit of time, but at its price, this is a no-brainer purchase.

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• 2010 Domaine de l'Ecu Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine Taurus 93 Points

  France, Loire Valley, Pays Nantais, Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine

  I could not quite figure this out. It was certainly an impressive, even excellent wine, but it just did not taste like a Muscadet to me. If one can put that aside, there really is a lot to admire about the wine, even in its extreme youth. It had a very rich nose, almost like a white Burgundy, with a sweet, almost creamy note and then ripe aromas of red apples, suggestions of stone fruit and a very flowery perfume. I picked up just a touch of chalky minerality at the edges, otherwise, this would have been hard to pick-up as anything akin to a Muscadet on the nose. The palate was almost as confusing. The extended length on lees and barrel-aging that the wine went through shows up in its luscious, fleshy white fruit and rather sweeter, more melon-ish midpalate. It was rich, creamy, almost unctuous in texture, yet it also carried with it Muscadet hallmarks of precision, focus, lovely freshness and a beautiful minerality. Really puzzling. However, all things aside, it is without doubt a solid wine - powerful, ageworthy, with lots of nascent complexity for something so young, and a musuclar strength undergirding the whole package. It had a great finish too, coating the backpalate with a layer of rich white fruit speared through with a boatload of minerality. Great length and grip here - very compelling. It is rather too young to really properly assess I would say, but I liked what we saw on the day. It will be interesting to try this again in 3, 5 and maybe 10 years - it should bloom with time, and could make a truly excellent wine when it does.

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• 2010 Domaine Fontaine-Gagnard Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Vergers 93 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru

  This was a superb 1er Cru - my favourite wine of the tasting. The first thing that hit me on the nose was a waft of smoky, toasty, nutty oak. A bit obvious, but it was nicely integrated with very attractive notes of ripe apples, honeysuckle and some earthy mineral accents. The palate was quite brilliant, showing almost Grand Cru-like depth and texture, if not quite the requisite precision and grace. However, it was certainly compelling in its creamy layers of melon fruit, fleshy apples and touches of sweet lemons. Beautiful stuff, but more important than just the depth and fruit, this was also pierced by a wonderful mouthful of fresh, energetic 2010 acidity, so that wine was a lovely marriage of great intensity with an unusual sense of grace for a Chassagne. Great lingering finish too, with a nice amount of stony mineral extract staining the backpalate. Still young, still not entirely together, but what raw material it had - this is a superb 1er Cru that should be a joy to drink from 3-4 years on.

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• 2010 Olivier Bernstein Gevrey-Chambertin Villages 89 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Gevrey-Chambertin

  I was not fond of this. It had good source material, this much was sure, but I thought the the fruit had been amped up so high that this shared more in common with New Zealand than some of its neighbours in the Cote d'Or. It started out with a really ripe nose, bursting with cherries and raspberry aromas that bordered on being distractingly sweet and confected, and then shades of brambly roots and some Gevrey accents of meat and earth. The palate was a bit too extracted to my taste, with more sweet cherries and red berries coated with rather obvious tannins. There were shades of the new world here as well in the sweetness on the midpalate and also on the woody grip in the background. What the wine did have was good depth and a fine balance, with a good bit of focus and drive to it, especially at the impressively long finish with its mineral and bramble nuances. So overall, not a bad wine, but certainly not to my taste at this early stage in its development.

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• 2010 Olivier Bernstein Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Les Cazetiers 92 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru

  Rather overpriced for what it is, but this was otherwise a pretty nice wine. It was much more composed on the nose than the Gevrey village that preceded it. Still rather sweet in its shades of red cherry and ripe berries, a bit candied too, but certainly less so than the former wine, which in turn allowed for more typically Gevrey notes of earth, meat and bramble to come out on the bouquet. Same thing on the palate too. It was still clearly extracted, maybe a bit too heavy-handedly so, but there was a very nice ring of clarity in its ripe red fruited flavours along with a deliciously savoury base of dried earth and meatiness. It lacked a bit of elegance in its youth I thought, but there was good depth and a supple, muscular broadness to its mid and back-palate, along with a nice ring of freshness that gave the wine a sense of energy and liveliness. The solidly concentrated finish had a sweet touch of cherries and a flowery perfume at the tail. This is obviously a wine of some quality. It needs time to mellow and integrate, but it should be a solid Cazetiers in time. Try again in 2015 and look for peak drinking from around 2018-2020.

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• 2010 Dominique Gallois Charmes-Chambertin 91 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru

  I was not altogether that impressed with this wine. It was certainly well-crafted and very pleasant, but it lacked authority for a Grand Cru, even for a Charmes. It did have a really pretty nose though, with tons of floral nuances, bright red cherry aromas and a nice underlayer of bacon-ny meatiness. I really liked that. The palate was unfortunately rather weaker. Like the nose, it had a lovely flavour profile, with ripe red fruit note suggesting red cherries and dates, alongside a good bit of meaty, earthy bass-notes and some rather more lifted accents of herb and fresh cut flowers. Very pleasant, and all very correct and well-balanced as well, so it went down really easily for such a young wine. What I did not like though was the fact that it was a tad lacking in concentration, so that the finer flavours of the wine seemed to fade into the finish until they were all but submerged under a layer of oak and a firmish grip of tannins at the back-end. This was not a bad wine by any means, quite enjoyable in fact, but it was overall rather unconvincing for a Grand Cru on a strong year.

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