La Paulée d’Angerville Dinner

Whites

• 2022 Domaine Marquis d'Angerville Meursault 1er Cru Santenots

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Meursault 1er Cru

  Yellow. Nothing but oak on the nose. Medium weight, nice citrus and acidity, but the wood is heavy handed. Average acidity. It sweetens at the end, the wood becomes less prominent, and some soil pops up at the end. Better with food, but this is mediocre Meursault.

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• 2021 Domaine Marquis d'Angerville Meursault 1er Cru Santenots Flawed

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Meursault 1er Cru

  Deep yellow/golden. Caramel. Whatever redeeming value it had, this was just horribly oxidized, and a second bottle was no better. Why was this even served given the condition?

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• 2020 Domaine Marquis d'Angerville Meursault 1er Cru Santenots

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Meursault 1er Cru

  Yellow. Pear, less oak, and fragrant citrus. Medium weight. Brightest of the wines with bitter citrus and moderate soil. Some herbal complexity and manageable oak on the finish. Discrete and elegant for such a big year. Excellent and probably the best white I’ve had from d’Angerville, but to keep it in perspective, this is not compelling Meursault.

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2020 Volnay

• 2020 Domaine Marquis d'Angerville Volnay 1er Cru Champans

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Volnay 1er Cru

  Deep ruby/purple. Herbs, chocolate, and ripe black fruit on the nose. Medium to full bodied, incredibly voluminous for a Volnay. A rush of powerful, perfectly ripe fruit on the attack. Such a hedonistic start that it’s hard to believe it is d’Angerville until with air, it slims down, showing tart stemminess and serious drying tannins. Wow, this must be one of the most outsized wines ever produced here. Its material should make it immortal.

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• 2020 Domaine Marquis d'Angerville Volnay 1er Cru Taillepieds

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Volnay 1er Cru

  Ruby. Bitter chocolate and wintergreen aromas. Not nearly as massive as the Champans but still rich, pliant, and naturally sweet. Deep blueberry fruit, fine acidity, and stony, earth drenched tannins. Excellent cling and length, and the tannins provide necessary counterpoint to all the generosity of fruit. Fascinating contrasts of sweet, tart, and soil. Fabulous wine and I think I prefer the relative restraint to the full throttle Champans.

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• 2020 Domaine Marquis d'Angerville Volnay 1er Cru Clos des Ducs

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Volnay 1er Cru

  Yes, second bottle of the day, this time with dinner. Spending more time with it led to a greater appreciation of the vivid blueberry fruit, citrus and spice nuances, salinity, complexity, and weaving together of fruit and soil. It too is unusually large scaled but discrete and relatively subtle compared to its stablemates. A joy to drink now recognizing its immense future potential. This ain’t your granddaddy’s Clos des Ducs, but what a magnificent wine it is!

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2018 Volnay

• 2018 Domaine Marquis d'Angerville Volnay 1er Cru Champans

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Volnay 1er Cru

  Deepest ruby of the 2018’s. Aromatic mix of piquant blueberry and green tones. Medium weight. Much more noticeable soil than the 2020. Tart red fruit, very good acidity, drier tannins than the more recent vintage, but a touch of bitter chocolate at the end. A delicious attack gives the veneer of approachability, but the strong terroir and grainier tannins provide a very different structure which makes me think this may be clenched and closed for quite some time. Not nearly as generous as its 2020 counterpart.

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• 2018 Domaine Marquis d'Angerville Volnay 1er Cru Taillepieds

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Volnay 1er Cru

  Ruby. Perfumed fennel. Medium+ body but tighter and less caressing than the 2020. Sweet blueberry fruit is followed by tart acidity and puckery tannins. Penetrating and very mineral, more detailed than the younger vintage. Elegant, structured, moderately long and very Taillepieds in character. Very bright for such a warm year. I really liked it.

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• 2018 Domaine Marquis d'Angerville Volnay 1er Cru Clos des Ducs

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Volnay 1er Cru

  Again, a second go with this wine but more time to spend with it in the glass over a meal. Like the bottle this morning, the fruit sits behind the herbal elements and strong soil, and it is lighter weight than its younger sibling. Fragrant, elegant, and excellent complexity at this juncture. Lovely blueberry fruit like many of the wines tonight (maybe there was something in the air), and more of a sweet/tart contrast than in the 2020. It will need a lot of time to fully express itself.

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Clos des Ducs

• 2016 Domaine Marquis d'Angerville Volnay 1er Cru Clos des Ducs

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Volnay 1er Cru

  Magnum. Even ruby. A swirl of sweet fruit and fennel on the nose. Perfect medium weight, very fluid feel. Harmonious ripe red and blue fruit, bright acidity, and a long, earthy finish with slightly dusty tannins. Approaching maturity in the next 5+ years, and a classic, subtle, beautifully balanced rendition of Clos des Ducs. I loved this one.

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• 2013 Domaine Marquis d'Angerville Volnay 1er Cru Clos des Ducs

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Volnay 1er Cru

  Magnum. Medium ruby at its core. Aggressive fennel scents. Medium weight. Transient burst of ripe fruit with a rapid segue to earthy, dry tannins that cut off the finish. Lean, green, and mineral. Both this and the 2006 which followed were very much old style Clos des Ducs, and I didn’t particularly care for either tonight.

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• 2006 Domaine Marquis d'Angerville Volnay 1er Cru Clos des Ducs

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Volnay 1er Cru

  Magnum. Full ruby, deeper than the 2013. Secondary perfume. Medium weight. Citrus, chocolate, black fruit, and licorice upfront, and then it all abruptly runs into a very tannic finish that is hard as nails. Somewhat more generous than the 2013 but still pretty tough going tonight. Hard to say in which direction this is going; a charitable interpretation is that it is still too young, but I’m not so sanguine about it improving from here.

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It was an interesting choice to do this red wine oriented dinner at this great seafood leaning restaurant. Most of the pairings worked well, but the scallop in a butter sauce did not.

My impression of the whites was not very positive, and I won’t elaborate beyond the notes. The 2020 and 2018 Premier Cru Volnays were both superb sets from 2 warm vintages, but they were far from identical. Compared to the younger vintage, the 2018’s had cooler green notes to balance the ripe fruit and firmer tannins providing more structure and bite. This makes me wonder if the phenolic maturity lagged behind the ripeness of the grapes. At any rate, as a group, the 2018’s will probably be more appealing to fans of a more classical style than solar vintages generally produce. Sure enough, people at my table were divided in their preference for these vintages while admiring the quality of both. After these ripe wines, the 2 older Clos des Ducs transported us back to a different era.