Tasted Sunday, February 1, 2015 by brooklynguy with 613 views
Only one flawed bottle (and some tasters found the wine drinkable in spite of this). Lafarge wines for me showed not as well as I hoped for. But the good Vosne wines were so stupifyingly good that the whole night was great, in my book.
This had real pungency and intensity and also a lovely silky texture and improved with time open. Not great articulation of flavor or aroma. The wine is still in a very tannic place. It was pretty and highly enjoyable, but not an inspiring showing.
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Opened 90 minutes or so before drinking. Balanced, lovely, harmonious, and with absolutely seamless texture. And yet to me the wine lacked real dimension in aroma and flavor. I liked drinking it but this bottle to me did not justify its elite status.
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I thought this showed very well in the context of the vintage. There was alcohol jutting out at first, and the wine comes across as a bit rough and fire-y. But is calms a bit, it never sacrificed the gorgeous texture Chênes usually achieves, and it had good intensity of flavor. An imperfect wine that offered a lot of pleasure.
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The fullest in body and fruit concentration of the 4 Lafarge wines on this night. Texturally lovely, tannins have either receded or are still buried under what is quite a load of fruit. Good acidity and balance, but the package here is large and although graceful, without the articulation of aroma or flavor that I wanted.
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I fully expected to be let down by this, my first experience drinking a bottle of La Tâche. Not the case. The wine opened up over about a half hour in the glass and showed sparkling and incredibly articulate Indian spice aromatics - "like Kalustyans," someone said. The intensity belies the lightness of color and body, and the wine was wonderfully complex. There was almost no fruit in the way of the spices on the nose - it surprised me in how it felt like all layers had been stripped away and we had this incredibly transparent view into the wine and the place. A great experience.
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One of the only sources of disagreement at the table. A few people loved this wine, saying things like "this is exactly what I'm looking for in Burgundy." I can understand this viewpoint - the fruit is ripe and clean, the wine is lush and potent, mouth-filling and expressive. It is a well made wine, without question.
If this is representative of the Cathiard style of Malconsorts then although I respect the wine, I am not a fan. I found the oak influence and the heavy extraction to be prominent enough to detract from my ability to experience what it is that Malconsorts has to say. Delicious wine, but for me it sort of misses the point of having vines in the Malconsorts vineyard.
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The other source of dispute on this night. The wine was flawed, at the end we all agreed. But it could have been the very mildest TCA, or it could have been what i think the French call 'le jeune' - affected by cork (but not TCA). In some glasses the wine was marred in its aroma and constricted a bit in flavor. In other glasses it showed better, and my glass was one of the good ones. Even the good ones were flawed, but less so. Mine had very enjoyable moments, with classic Vosne hard spices, bright and pungent red fruit, and a lovely mineral streak. There were also moldy and constricted moments. A shame, I bet the wine is really good when it's not flawed.
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With the La Tâche, the wine of the night for me without question. This changed a lot in the two years since I last had it. Still not in the prime drinking window for sure, but shows so much more of a sense of place now. Ripe and beautiful fruit, wonderful balance, real harmonious integration of all of its parts, and completely delicious. But the most compelling thing are the gloriously expressive aromas of dry spices like cumin and cinnamon and star anise, and the incredibly expressive flavors that carry on so long after swallowing. Beautiful wine and evocative in no small way of its very illustrious neighbor just down the slope.
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A disappointing wine, but not flawed or compromised in any way. Next to the Drouhin wine from the same vineyard and vintage, this one showed the error of its ways. Overly extracted and on the verge of clumsy, it felt overblown in its richness and largeness of body. Nothing reminiscent of the articulation of terroir that the Drouhin offered. Perhaps if I had this on its own I might have at least enjoyed it some? But in this situation the wine simply seemed like the product of a set of misguided decisions.
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2001 Louis Carillon Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Referts
France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru
Fantastic showing, really inspiring to everyone at the table. A "my lord why don't I drink white Burgundy more often" kind of experience. Full in texture and very pungent on the nose, with that classic and gorgeous nose of lemon cream, flowers, and gleaming minerals. Balanced with really fine acidity, glowing with intensity on the finish, and the whole experience feels delicate somehow. Deeply evocative of place and simply a wonderful bottle.
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