1/4/2024 - weezie Likes this wine:

Nice moderately priced red burg that is squarely in it's drinking window. Of course not in the same league as most Grand Crus (as one would expect given the pedigree and price point), but a reliable daily drinker when paired with food.

12/29/2023 - atbarbar Likes this wine:

A decent Savigny. Very light body and spirit, cherries, some flowers and balanced juicy acidity. Drinks easy and pleasantly. If that is worth $50 or more is a different story. Maybe marginally. Ready to drink can wait a bit longer.

7/27/2023 - brooklynguy Likes this wine:

Very good wine. The nose shoes a density of aroma without excess weight - a friend tasting it blind thought it could be northern rhone, such is its animale character and black fruit. I love the nose here, showing a violet aspect that I get in many rhone wines but also in some bordeaux. Lifted - very good acidity. We drank it alongside a 2010 Baudry Grezeaux, and to me the Baudry showed a more perfect composition, better overall balance. Only in comparison was I able to see that this wine, while utterly delicious, is also a bit blocky and fruit forward, even now almost 20 years on. Not a criticism - it's what the vintage gave.

1/24/2022 - fitzi wrote:

This wine is in a great place right now, with a little exposure to air - say, 20 minutes in the glass or 30 in a decanter. The preliminary curtain of sandy tannins parts, granting ingress to succulent, juicy fruit flavors which lean cherry, and engaging attention by the contrast in textures. Fine acidity and good balance, everything very nicely proportioned, no flab. Only seven months since my last bottle, but this one is much better than I recall from that sample; sipping after the wine had been in the glass for a bit, I really had to do a double take, so surprised was I by the quality and impact of the inner fruit. My favorite Beaujolais, I'd say, or maybe tied with Foillard Morgon du Py, which offers great flavors and textures in a distinctly different presentation of Gamay.

7/21/2020 - fitzi wrote:

Light straw colored, delightfully fresh-looking. From the bottle, not fresh but still youthful; not yielding much flavor or aroma at first, as you would find in a still-young Neore or Clisson Muscadet. Intimations of very fine acidity and complex depth with small sips. With aeration, these features are more pronounced, and the wine gets more exciting. Reminds me of Ponsot 2004 Aligoté Mont Luisant, more than anything else I've tasted.

I was much relieved by this bottle: the last one I opened (about half a year ago) was a maderized mess, and I have four more after this one. I read somewhere the Neore takes 20 years to reveal itself, and I can believe it after this bottle. Good as it is, tho, I can't wrap my lobes around the $300 price you find for this vintage - with intervening vintages at $350. Maybe I'll see the light in another seven years; otherwise, give me a Raveneau Chablis or Corton Charlemagne, if we're shopping in that price range.

12/31/2021 - atbarbar Likes this wine:

A sweet wine. Already some brick color. In the nose, lots of musk and white flowers as soon as opened, very pretty charming nose. The fruit is already caramelized, and the fruit is pomegranate or cranberry and finally after tasting it on the 2nd of Jan caramelized orange or some other citrus rind. Very sharp acidity, that balances out very well the sweetness of the wine, pomegranate balsamic vinegar acidity. There also some spices, spice box and cedar. Some underwood soil, some leaf decompostion and ferrous, blood minerality. Long on the palate, the acidity is vibrant, and leaves a trace of those spices and some mocha latte, or milk chocolate. Just a tad warm given the vintage but the acidity keeps everything in check. A wine that can be cellared for a little longer but definitely in its drinking window, I would consume in the next 5 years. Curiously my evaluation is so different from FITZI's who seems to find that the wine is not ready for consumption.

11/28/2021 - L-C. wrote:

Intense nose of sweet poached raspberries and quetsch, sous-bois and some rasperry liqueur notes. In the mouth medium bodied, concentrated and with fine, but firm tannins that are not yet resolved. Lively flavours, very good length. Overall this is really very good and I think could gain a little more with some more cellar time, but is already delicious now. Give it a bit time to open up though. 90-91 pts.

11/6/2021 - fitzi wrote:

This isn't ready yet, unsurprisingly , though possibly it's approaching the very beginning of an early drinking window. Some development is evident, but a dense tannic veil dominates, cloaking fruit and acidity both. The signature slightly burnt flavor of the 2009 vintage is modest and in the background. Hold for at least several years.

9/5/2021 - Philbeagles Likes this wine:

Hurray.... I finally get the "incongruent" ratings on barrel tasting ratings vs what I see a few years later. I bought this 2018 Dominode and received it shortly upon release . Immediately enjoyable, very wow-ish....Fruit very prominent with nice acid structure/backbone to make it all work. Now I am sadly watching it shut down. (7 of 12 splits I have consumed, first 6 were wow-ish, 7th is now shut down) I have to wait another number of years to see this again with a different flavour profile I am sure . Booooo... but yayyy I see how things work now. I have 2014's and 2015's that are in thie "stark" phase. On the plus side I have 12 full bottles and 12 more splits in the wings of the 2018 Dominode and aux Guettes. PS: Food was coq au vin. THis will be very good in years to come. Buy it... but be patient.

6/27/2021 - fitzi wrote:

I approached my first bottle from the fabled Oregon producer with enthusiasm, but it turned out to be a charmless brew of fruitless sour and arid tannins. Too young? It didn't taste flawed, just really mediocre. Hard to reconcile my experience with the note from April 2020 (Chablis28 appears to be describing Pinot from Dundee Valley, rather than Willamette, so, a different wine).

8/7/2021 - Philbeagles wrote:

Hmmm.... I am not sure about some of these ratings and the drinking windows. This seems to be waning but yet the window is not supposed to open until 2024.... and last until 2060...WTAF is JG saying (93+). Maybe I do not understand burgundy yet, I thought I was getting the hang of it... Its a stretch to give it an 89 .. I do not see this getting better. I do understand that tertiary flavours do evolve but I do not see this changing chemical compostion and becoming that. My reference point for tertiary flavours is a 1996 De Vogue Musginy VV when it had about 8 years on it. It was sublime. I have 6 more of these with which to experiment. Fingers crossed.I guess its is the in same category as someone giving at $12 burgundy a 100 point rating. It still makes it into CT scoring.

Caveat emptor.

8/1/2021 - fitzi wrote:

This is very good now with half an hour's air time. Tangy, somewhat in the style of a Chablis, also lemon and mineral notes reminiscent of a first-class Nantes Muscadet. A bottle I opened about a year ago left me perplexed, somewhat in the style of Vinum's note, but this is now very drinkable, interesting and pleasant. Maybe seven years is exactly the right amount of time. But, I think, more development yet to come.

7/16/2021 - angryphoton Likes this wine:

PnP. Tasted blind in a line up of some nice burgs, held its own (Lambrays, Mugnier Chambolle, Dujac MsD). Still has some stiff tannins but was more graceful and open than others expected once revealed. It was quite enjoyable though, still have 4ozs left and will try later tonight. If you have multiple bottles, pretty good to try one now, if only 1, try in 2-4 years but not longer IMO.

5/9/2021 - fitzi wrote:

Added a bottle of this to my last Envoyer order to try, based on the general praise here, combined with its reasonable price. Opened it Friday and tasted over two days; no evident flaw.

After high hopes, this bottle was a disappointing surprise. The wine's utter, flavorless, depthless, simple bone-dryness seems to be its only interesting characteristic. I like this quality, generally, when it's paired with some other characteristics, but, by itself, meh. In a still wine, I get more from a good muscadet. In a sparkling wine, I'd prefer a decent Loire or Jura Cremant - Tissot's at least offers spectacular Chardonnay fruit on the second and third days. On the Habert's second day, it was mostly gassed out (unusual, in my experience, for a decent Champagne), and the underlying wine was an insipid nothingburger; I couldn't bring myself to finish the bottle. By contrast, a Champagne like Lallier non-dose is complex and extremely interesting even after the fizz is gone.

I hate to be harsh, but Champagne begs for critical review - more so than other wines. Those who like Hebrart won't be deterred by my opinion, and those who haven't tried it will have the benefit of an alternative point of view.

5/8/2021 - JoeDwine wrote:

From 375....soft but still showing some tannin.
Slight bitter note, smoke, menthol, licorice and nice acidity. Some funk....above average but nothing more.

12/20/2020 - fitzi wrote:

Out of the bottle and for the first day, this wine was too sweet for me to enjoy. The second and third days, the sweetness had receded, and the acid-sugar balance was rock-solid and exemplary, giving a superb example of wine from this vineyard - as you'd expect from Prum in a year like 2001, and in keeping with other notes on it.

Personally, however, I'm finding Mosel wines, in particular, less and less interesting than Riesling from Rhein/Rheingau/Pfalz. In the MSR category, Saar producers grab me more than Mosel or Ruwer ones, and Kabinets are more appealing than Spaetleses - forget about Ausleses.

1/1/2021 - fitzi wrote:

From 750, New Year's Eve. With the cork, a rich aroma of freshly roasted coffee emerged from the bottle. Poured a large glass, decanted half the bottle into an empty 375, left the remainder in the bottle, open, on the counter for 24 hours. Drank the glass slowly over the course of the evening,

The wine from the glass was a brambly mess, flat, flavors hard to differentiate, little aroma, no finish. The wine worsened over the course of the evening, if anything, and I wrote it off to either mild corkedness or just bad winemaking. This evening, out of a sense of scientific interest, I poured the remainder from the open bottle. Still largely dumb, this now came across as a very large-scaled wine indeed, with a nascent resurgence of the initial coffee, substantial depth, and a real finish. But inarticulate, so likely still a baby,

I'm going into such excruciating detail here because of the note posted a couple of days ago by Doublemagnum, to which I feel my experience adds useful information. Based on the second glass tonight, I'd estimate that, in this format, the wine needs something like another decade to develop into even youthful maturity, when it has the potential to be a very grand cru indeed. An interesting surprise, and I'll try to keep hands off the remaining bottles until at least 2025.

11/28/2020 - fitzi wrote:

With New York strip steak at solo Thanksgiving.

On opening, this wine is almost sauvage with edgy acidity, combined with hefty body. After an ample decant - 6-8 hours - less savage, but persists as remarkably acidic for a Bordeaux, in my experience. Fair pairing with fat-rich beef. After two nights open in the bottle, the acidity has settled down to much more normal proportions, and there is a tantalizing tease of tertiary fruit aromas. But, now, the fair-haired damsel of gustatory pleasure gazes down from a window high aloft in a dark tower of stern tannins, her beauty only to be guessed at.

Very interesting. Will the fruit outlast the massive endowment of acidity and tannins? I bet it will. I think this wine will age effortlessly for another decade and may, at that time, be something quite special. But that's just an opinion.

10/23/2020 - brooklynguy Likes this wine:

Absolutely top class Savigny les Beaune, as good as I’ve ever had from the north side of the river and qualitatively equal to any Dominode I’ve had too. Darker and richer in style than those though, which makes sense given the clay soils. Opened and poured out a small taste two hours before drinking. Immediately gorgeous on the nose with florals, plums blackberries and also some bright red fruits too. Over a few hours a pungent earthy minerality emerges and sings just as beautifully as the fruit and the flowers. The palate is completely delicious and balanced with vivid acidity and good structure. Not as complex or detailed in the palate as on the nose, but my bet is that comes over the next 5-7 as this continues to unfold. It’s ready to drink now, but feels like it’s at the early part of its best stretch of life.

12/5/2019 - fitzi wrote:

Out of the bottle, lean and mean; nothing there but a thin curtain of drying tannins. A day later, the beginnings of fruit flavors & aromas on the mid-palate - tar, licorice ... the usual suspects - and a soupçon of finish; everything still rather thin and delicate for the appellation. If this wine continues to develop, it could offer a quite attractive bottle in a few years; if not, it's kind of a yawn. I lack the experience with Nebbiolo varietals to express an opinion about where it's heading.

Better with food than alone - no surprise there.

10/9/2019 - Keith Levenberg wrote:

Yit'gadal v'yit'kadash sh'mei raba...

7/26/2019 - fitzi wrote:

Lean and mean. Do not disturb? Or a cranky oldster? Undecided.

6/6/2019 - Rgentile wrote:

1hr decant
Eye: Deep crimson
Nose: cherry, spice, oak toast
Palate: black cherries, black fruits, earth and wood with medium plus acidity and medium finish.

Overall this drinking nicely now. Solid structure and acidity, lovely. Enjoy!

6/7/2018 - Nojomoschwa wrote:

Boy, I really wanted to love this, but just couldn't. There is no doubt a lot of wine there, but I just didn't quite 'get' it. Will keep trying with Muscadets from great growers.

12/11/2016 - ski695 wrote:

I often love Cru Bojo as my goto Pinot Noir substitute and all around great drink. However I continue to usually be underwhelmed when I age them. I did prefer these younger but the Brun stable was not one of my favorite from the vintage. In fact more 2009s are simply not loving me these days. So maybe I just like them younger, will need to see more. Been happy with a pretty wide variety of 2013/14 FWIW. Anyhow this wine has dropped some fruit but still quite nice especially n the nose. Palate is perfectly fine but shortish finish.

12/2/2016 - fitzi wrote:

My note posted yesterday was for a 2005 Garants, not a 2011 - apologies!

11/8/2016 - brooklynguy Likes this wine:

This is excellent wine. It starts out very slowly, disjointed and almost severe. I think that it is maybe 5 years too early to be getting into this wine, based on what I experienced tonight. At first there is a whiff of dark fruit, and not a whole lot else. But after 90 minutes open the wine begins to articulate itself, showing a prominent mineral side, with savory elements of wood and charcoal, rock, and something like shrimp paste. Yup. And then there are waves of fruit, and it is vivacious, juicy, and alluring high toned red fruit, and still noble and focused. Two and a half hours in and the wine just sings. Energetic and driving, with sweet and complex fruit and savory aromas and flavors too, and all perfectly balanced, showing great purity, and completely harmonious. The finish is very long and entirely mineral. There is an awful lot of wine here, in a humble package.

10/22/2016 - fitzi wrote:

A bit of personality on first opening, but then a joyless wine. Either shut down hard or just not enough fruit.

12/9/2015 - fitzi wrote:

Piqued by Rollerball's note to open another, and s/he's right: the wine has transitioned from stony and querrulous to tasty and ebullient. The former stoniness now presents as keen acidity, conveying appealing energy and freshness to the ample tannins and juicy pinot fruit, which is now on display. Nose is classic damson and plimsol. After some concern previously, I'd say now good call on the vintage here by Gilman.

4/4/2014 - fitzi wrote:

Vivid red, lean and somewhat sere out of the bottle, with muted aromatics. Medium to medium-light feel, though recorded at 13% abv. Flavors towards bright end of the red spectrum - strawberries, raspberries. Rather scrubby texture, with very fine-grained tannins moving over the palate. Gains in substance with air time; the sense of lightness without giving up red-wine pith and character is a good achievement. You could drink a bottle of this easily without really realizing it. Very good, but definitely in the geek aisle: genuine and interesting without flattery or pander.

6/18/2016 - Guy Des Rosiers Likes this wine:

Tasted from magnum. Medium-lemon core. Shy nose of lemon, lime and mint, showing a bit of age. Fairly round and rich for Muscadet. Not showing very much by way of fruit (mostly lemon and grape). The acidity is balanced. Lacks some of the freshness and crispness of young Muscadet, and signs of age are showing on the finish. Drink up.

Update: Taking Fitzi's advice to heart, I re-tasted this after about 18 hours in the decanter. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the slightly oxidative notes had disappeared, and in fact some of the salinity and crispness of young Muscadet had re-emerged. Based on this, I would agree that the wine merits a higher score (I have adjusted my rating accordingly), and there is no rush to drink this. Still, having had very mixed results aging the 2005s for more than 10 years , I would be cautious about going too long on this. As an aside, I would love to be proved wrong about the age-ability of top Muscadet, as they represent tremendous value.

2/26/2016 - Rieslingfan wrote:

Sadly this was premoxed.

2/21/2016 - Bob H wrote:

Yellow-gold in the glass; pleasant sea-scented nose.

Tart on the palate, light-bodied, but otherwise undistinguished. Better on the nose.

I see a lot of positive commentary about Michel, but have to admit that I have yet to try one that really "rang the bell".

12/20/2015 - fitzi wrote:

This is a pretty great wine. The first day, it was an almost odd composite of distincitive elements, each intriguing on its own merits: tannins that were stern but also zingy, freshening acidity, fruit that still conveyed a sense of lushness. Made me think of the early Picasso cubist paintings that are so well-organized, even though the immediate appearance is completely disjoint. Second day, the components marry up, and the wine is knock-out in both weight and content. Serious, even profound, and an incredible value, in the world of wine, at under $30.

7/21/2015 - geeky? not sure wrote:

Day 1: Good, but not particularly notable SLB: high acid (much higher than I'd expected for an 09), lively, nice but restrained fruit.

Day 4 (or so) after being left corked in the fridge: Very impressive - explosive, complex spices; expansive weightier palate. Awesome.

Will sit on my last one for a while.

5/30/2015 - tooch wrote:

Crystalline, bright, and focused. Brilliant.

5/25/2015 - fitzi wrote:

This wine is clean and, with air, at cool room temperature, nicely intense, showing iodine and seaweed, along with plenty of acidity. Doesn't wow, however, and it's hard to understand the $100+ price tag I see attached in the market today. Perhaps it needs more time to reveal its glory.

4/6/2015 - Roughl Does not like this wine:

This was over the Hill, still drinkbare but the alcohol is disjointed. Note to myself: Keep this for cooking. Coravin sample

1/24/2015 - fitzi wrote:

Coravaned a bottle with the Weygandt crew at the big Loire red tasting today. Developing well, tannins smoothed, nary a sign of green or barkiness, but fruit is still timid, so gives the impression of being closed. An accomanying taster suggested he'd give it another five years. It was also showing a green olive aroma that I found captivating, so I'm an optimist here.

....

We uncorked this bottle the following Friday, after about a glassful had been drawn out via Coravin the previous Saturday. The wine had developed nicely, showing very impressive finesse, smooth tannins, and excellent cabernet flavors - in no way worse than a very good Bordeaux, imho. Lacked just a bit of depth and acidity to make it really great. Did not last long - the second day after uncorking, deterioration was evident.

11/13/2014 - tewino wrote:

Mean little wine. Lots of structure, thin fruit. Not worth the $$$

10/18/2014 - MLipton wrote:

The usual Clos de Briords character: rainwater purity, minerality and citrusy fruit. A touch of oxidation suggests that this might not make it in the long haul, but perhaps this cork was particularly suspect.

8/12/2014 - fitzi wrote:

A good bottle.

7/3/2014 - brooklynguy wrote:

Very strange. Smells and tastes like dried raisins, roasted, flawed. But I bought it on release and stored it at a "professional" facility. No signs of heat damage. Perhaps the wine simply oxidized. Sad, anyway. I don't think this is representative of the wine.

6/11/2014 - cephomer Likes this wine:

Pale crimson color with lots of bricking clearly showing this to be a mature wine. Nose is all tertiary notes, lots of mushroom and earth in particular. Medium bodied with some faded tart red fruit--primarily sour cherries. Some spice, earth, forest floor. I get a real woodsy feel on the palate. Good complexity and surprisingly round mouth feel. Tannins fairly well resolved. Nice length. The wine is likely a bit past its prime, and it's not a particularly elegant wine, but there's sufficient fruit to balance the acidity and tertiary elements. Still plenty to enjoy here if one appreciates the older, more rustic red burg style. Much better than I expected at this point in the wine's life. Perhaps it's a bit closed right now?

11/28/2013 - xwine wrote:

From magnum. Stunningly good. Creamy yet taut, citrus, stones. Glided across the palate, kept improving in the glass. Tremendous wine!

8/8/2013 - salil wrote:

Such a great showing, more intense effervescence than I recall from previous bottles, and a vivid stony mineral base beneath layers of bright quince, pear and citrus fruit and gentle wooly and nutty elements. So light on its feet with the barest hint of sweetness, and fantastic acidity keeping it very vibrant and precise, all too easy to drink.

7/14/2013 - tooch wrote:

Was able to drink different bottles in back-to-back nights and the differences were stark. This was largely driven by bruised, warm apples and butterscotch and felt like it was about a quarter mile down the premox road. My girlfriend who isn't as big a wine geek as myself, took one sip and said, "this is premoxed, right?". My experiences with Servin with age on it haven't been great, so while this wasn't overly surprising, I was disappointed.

7/13/2013 - tooch wrote:

Gorgeous nose of flint, lemons, and fresh flowers. The palate was full and borad with a full spectrum of citrus and minerals. While the cool mineral edge seems to have died off since a year ago, this is still pretty nice.

11/11/2012 - Mourik1973 Likes this wine:

Beautifull nose of tropical fruit with hints of minerals. Long after taste. I have tested it in 2010 and it was totally closed and needed allot more years. Last year i have tasted it and it was beautiful. I think it still can get 5 more years.

3/7/2013 - fitzi wrote:

Meh. Nice cork, but not much of interest happening in the wine. Awkward stage or past prime; not promising, but wine can surprise.