Somewhat sweet and yet savory on the nose, this wine throw out associations with spearmint, roses, strawberries, and dried straw. There’s also a hint of typically Burgundian sourness there, framing it all to somewhat more serious effect; I’ve enjoyed just smelling this for a few minutes without necessarily feeling compelled to drink any. If anything, it smells unusually ripe, which is a bit of a surprise given the fairly pail, almost milky color of the wine.Somewhat broad in terms of structure and tannin, there’s a somewhat disappointing lack of strong flavor here, buttressed by firm acidity on the finish and a disconcerting aftertaste of stale wheat crackers. Sadly, I’m at a loss to describe what exactly this tastes like other than “like mediocre Burgundy” – it isn’t bad, exactly, and yet it isn’t doing anything at all for me in terms of pleasure. Weirdly, the only thing that comes to mind is something called Crazy Cow, which was a 1970s breakfast cereal that turned milk into strawberry milk upon application thereof. There’s an industrial strangeness here which, paradoxically, comes from a wine which presumably isn’t industrially made. Could it simply be that unusual ripeness in this vintage is overwhelming what interest there is behind relatively full sugars? I don’t know, but I’ll take a pass on this one.Sébastien Roux
Price: $20
Closure: Cork