A solid bottle of Cristal. A hair towards the creamy and autolytic side, but at this point, that's to be expected. Nice richness and breadth on the palate here, with a bit more stone fruit on the palate, as well as plenty of those yeasty, bready elements. Very fine, precise bead.
France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru
A very good bottle, but I felt it was missing some of the oomph that I would expect from the appellation. In fact, this drinks a little more along the lines of, say, the Bouchéres than a grand cru in that it is missing the fan-out and broad palate presence of Corton-Charlemagne. Nonetheless, an excellent bottle of chardonnay, though I will say that the more recent vintages of the house have been better executed.
France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru
Mature, yes, but wonderfully so. This is very much that baroque, old style of white Burgundy that really doesn't exist anymore. At first, this was closed on the palate and nose, and there just wasn't much on display, save for the intense, mineral core, but with a few hours, this lightened up and fruit started to emerge more, without sacrificing any of the structure. Another great bottle from one of my favourite white Burgundy houses.
I'll admit that others at the table liked this more than I did. To be sure, it's an excellent bottle of Dauvissat despite the non-wax top, but I still found it for want of more breadth on the palate. Great acidity and minerality, with a touch of waxiness as well, but this somehow also felt a hair dilute (all the more surprising given the ripe vintage), which may well be the same manifestation of a lack of breadth for my palate.
France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru
A very impressively statured wine; of the white Burgundies tonight, this was probably the most oak-forward. I don't think I found the Ramonet mint here, but I did pick up a little of that egg custard note that I've always associated with the house in my mind. The palate shows the richness of the vintage very well, and while the acidity is relatively low, this doesn't feel overwrought or heavy at all.
Insane. I'm pretty sure this was in the top three wines for everyone at the table tonight. Not really all that much to say about this though -- it's really what an orange label should be. The overall intensity is fantastic, with plenty of green herbal tones, the lychee spice, and petrichor on the nose. The palate is a similar manifestation, but with the chewy, stony minerality that great wines so often have. Texturally luxurious, this is pretty much as good as it gets. Very much ready now.
This is nothing like modern Roulot. There's far more creaminess and less of the reduction and white-hot acidity here. The fruit is ripe, broad, and yellow in tone, and there's a lovely mineral undertone to everything that is going on here. A hint of botrytis spice, but none of the earthiness that I mentioned in my previous bottle.
Served double blind. I was quite confident this was old Bordeaux, but with the relative lack of cabernet greenness, I was thinking that this was a Right Bank wine. It certainly had a plumminess that I really enjoyed, and the mature, earthen tones, but still holding onto some red fruit had me think this was a ripe, generous Bordeaux vintage like 1955 or 1959. Two decades off. Not only that, at the end of the evening, maybe 3-4 hours after initially tasting it, this bottle wasn't just hanging on, but might have gotten more aromatic and powerful. A real treat, and not just of intellectual curiosity.
I loved this. The intense, juicy strawberry notes combined with the autumnal maturity of pinot noir made this a pretty trick wine for my companions to pinpoint. Grenache, and Rayas, were tossed about as guesses. It's clearly not Burgundy, but (at least to me, with the benefit of having this wine sighted) it's also clearly pinot noir. Very light and elegant on the palate, but with no lack of depth or complexity.
France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru
Served double blind. A clearly, spicy Burgundian nose, to the point that many of us imagined stems here, and thought it was Dujac (I certainly did -- the Combottes). Indeed, a generous spice, and relatively dark fruit, though I didn't pick up the beetroot that contaminates so many wines of this vintage. Quite structural and firm, the fruit feels more black than red, even if at no point is this wine is heavy.
Italy, Tuscany, Montalcino, Brunello di Montalcino
Served double blind. The green, coupled with the firm tannins had me at Bordeaux immediately. Especially with the greenness, I thought that this was a 1970s-era wine, because of the general struggles to reach ripeness back then. It's not particularly charming or expressive, and the wine is monolithic, stern, and heavyset. This may well be the house style, but it's another in a long string of disappointments from Biondi-Santi.
Italy, Tuscany, Montalcino, Brunello di Montalcino
Served double blind. Somehow I got it into my head that this was something like a 2000 Bruno Giacosa. There's a lovely perfumed note on the nose, with some dried red floral notes, which is probably what led me to Piedmont. On the palate, the tannic structure is firm and relatively coarse, and still needs some time to resolved. The generous expression of fruit here led me to guess a ripe Piedmont vintage. With the benefit of hindsight, I am thinking that what was missing here was the crisp mineral disposition of Poggio di Sotto.
Served double blind. A lovely, effusive nose, with tons of spice and ripe black fruit. Quite pinot in style there. The palate is where this gets weird. It's very ripe and feels slightly porty, and for my palate came across more as Châteauneuf-du-Pape than any sort of pinot noir. And after the reveal, I'll note that this doesn't have the intolerable oakiness of the earlier vintages. Clearly, there has been improvement in the wines here (of course, given how those early wines are dumpster fires, that's not saying all that much), and this is far and away the best Marcassin I've tasted.
France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Musigny Grand Cru
No. 421. The nose on this is really weird. It comes across slightly stewy, but also has some dirtiness that isn't pleasant at all. I was brave enough to take a small taste, and thus conclude that this bottle has one of the greatest differences between nose and palate. There's a brilliant red-fruited acidity on the palate, with the usual Vogüé sternness. Enough tannins here that a few decades more will do little to harm this.
France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Gevrey-Chambertin
Served double blind. For my palate, this came across as a post-modern wine from a good producer, but from a lesser appellation. There's a perfumed, crunchy red fruit thing here that makes this feel like a post-modern style to me. Not complex on the palate, but very easy to drink and enjoy. I guessed something along the lines of 2019 Camille Thiriet.
2012 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut 93 Points
France, Champagne
A solid bottle of Cristal. A hair towards the creamy and autolytic side, but at this point, that's to be expected. Nice richness and breadth on the palate here, with a bit more stone fruit on the palate, as well as plenty of those yeasty, bready elements. Very fine, precise bead.
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2013 Domaine Génot-Boulanger Corton-Charlemagne 90 Points
France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru
A very good bottle, but I felt it was missing some of the oomph that I would expect from the appellation. In fact, this drinks a little more along the lines of, say, the Bouchéres than a grand cru in that it is missing the fan-out and broad palate presence of Corton-Charlemagne. Nonetheless, an excellent bottle of chardonnay, though I will say that the more recent vintages of the house have been better executed.
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2008 Louis Carillon Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Referts 93 Points
France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru
Mature, yes, but wonderfully so. This is very much that baroque, old style of white Burgundy that really doesn't exist anymore. At first, this was closed on the palate and nose, and there just wasn't much on display, save for the intense, mineral core, but with a few hours, this lightened up and fruit started to emerge more, without sacrificing any of the structure. Another great bottle from one of my favourite white Burgundy houses.
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2009 Vincent Dauvissat (René & Vincent) Chablis Grand Cru Les Preuses 90 Points
France, Burgundy, Chablis, Chablis Grand Cru
I'll admit that others at the table liked this more than I did. To be sure, it's an excellent bottle of Dauvissat despite the non-wax top, but I still found it for want of more breadth on the palate. Great acidity and minerality, with a touch of waxiness as well, but this somehow also felt a hair dilute (all the more surprising given the ripe vintage), which may well be the same manifestation of a lack of breadth for my palate.
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2009 Domaine Ramonet Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Morgeot 93 Points
France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru
A very impressively statured wine; of the white Burgundies tonight, this was probably the most oak-forward. I don't think I found the Ramonet mint here, but I did pick up a little of that egg custard note that I've always associated with the house in my mind. The palate shows the richness of the vintage very well, and while the acidity is relatively low, this doesn't feel overwrought or heavy at all.
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2015 Weingut Keller Morstein Riesling Großes Gewächs 98 Points
Germany, Rheinhessen
Insane. I'm pretty sure this was in the top three wines for everyone at the table tonight. Not really all that much to say about this though -- it's really what an orange label should be. The overall intensity is fantastic, with plenty of green herbal tones, the lychee spice, and petrichor on the nose. The palate is a similar manifestation, but with the chewy, stony minerality that great wines so often have. Texturally luxurious, this is pretty much as good as it gets. Very much ready now.
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2008 Domaine Roulot Meursault Les Luchets 93 Points
France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Meursault
This is nothing like modern Roulot. There's far more creaminess and less of the reduction and white-hot acidity here. The fruit is ripe, broad, and yellow in tone, and there's a lovely mineral undertone to everything that is going on here. A hint of botrytis spice, but none of the earthiness that I mentioned in my previous bottle.
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1934 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 93 Points
France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac
Served double blind. I was quite confident this was old Bordeaux, but with the relative lack of cabernet greenness, I was thinking that this was a Right Bank wine. It certainly had a plumminess that I really enjoyed, and the mature, earthen tones, but still holding onto some red fruit had me think this was a ripe, generous Bordeaux vintage like 1955 or 1959. Two decades off. Not only that, at the end of the evening, maybe 3-4 hours after initially tasting it, this bottle wasn't just hanging on, but might have gotten more aromatic and powerful. A real treat, and not just of intellectual curiosity.
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1989 The Eyrie Vineyards Pinot Noir Willamette Valley 95 Points
USA, Oregon, Willamette Valley
I loved this. The intense, juicy strawberry notes combined with the autumnal maturity of pinot noir made this a pretty trick wine for my companions to pinpoint. Grenache, and Rayas, were tossed about as guesses. It's clearly not Burgundy, but (at least to me, with the benefit of having this wine sighted) it's also clearly pinot noir. Very light and elegant on the palate, but with no lack of depth or complexity.
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2006 Alain Hudelot-Noëllat Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Aux Malconsorts 95 Points
France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru
Served double blind. A clearly, spicy Burgundian nose, to the point that many of us imagined stems here, and thought it was Dujac (I certainly did -- the Combottes). Indeed, a generous spice, and relatively dark fruit, though I didn't pick up the beetroot that contaminates so many wines of this vintage. Quite structural and firm, the fruit feels more black than red, even if at no point is this wine is heavy.
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1975 Tenuta Greppo (Biondi-Santi) Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 90 Points
Italy, Tuscany, Montalcino, Brunello di Montalcino
Served double blind. The green, coupled with the firm tannins had me at Bordeaux immediately. Especially with the greenness, I thought that this was a 1970s-era wine, because of the general struggles to reach ripeness back then. It's not particularly charming or expressive, and the wine is monolithic, stern, and heavyset. This may well be the house style, but it's another in a long string of disappointments from Biondi-Santi.
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2006 Fattoria Poggio di Sotto Brunello di Montalcino 93 Points
Italy, Tuscany, Montalcino, Brunello di Montalcino
Served double blind. Somehow I got it into my head that this was something like a 2000 Bruno Giacosa. There's a lovely perfumed note on the nose, with some dried red floral notes, which is probably what led me to Piedmont. On the palate, the tannic structure is firm and relatively coarse, and still needs some time to resolved. The generous expression of fruit here led me to guess a ripe Piedmont vintage. With the benefit of hindsight, I am thinking that what was missing here was the crisp mineral disposition of Poggio di Sotto.
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2013 Marcassin Pinot Noir Marcassin Vineyard 90 Points
USA, California, Sonoma County, Sonoma Coast
Served double blind. A lovely, effusive nose, with tons of spice and ripe black fruit. Quite pinot in style there. The palate is where this gets weird. It's very ripe and feels slightly porty, and for my palate came across more as Châteauneuf-du-Pape than any sort of pinot noir. And after the reveal, I'll note that this doesn't have the intolerable oakiness of the earlier vintages. Clearly, there has been improvement in the wines here (of course, given how those early wines are dumpster fires, that's not saying all that much), and this is far and away the best Marcassin I've tasted.
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1991 Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé Musigny Cuvée Vieilles Vignes 90 Points
France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Musigny Grand Cru
No. 421. The nose on this is really weird. It comes across slightly stewy, but also has some dirtiness that isn't pleasant at all. I was brave enough to take a small taste, and thus conclude that this bottle has one of the greatest differences between nose and palate. There's a brilliant red-fruited acidity on the palate, with the usual Vogüé sternness. Enough tannins here that a few decades more will do little to harm this.
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2021 Domaine Armand Rousseau Père et Fils Gevrey-Chambertin 90 Points
France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Gevrey-Chambertin
Served double blind. For my palate, this came across as a post-modern wine from a good producer, but from a lesser appellation. There's a perfumed, crunchy red fruit thing here that makes this feel like a post-modern style to me. Not complex on the palate, but very easy to drink and enjoy. I guessed something along the lines of 2019 Camille Thiriet.
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