Domaine Pierre Amiot et Fils Grand Cru Clos de la Roche 2010

Opening bottles too soon was a bit of a theme this past weekend, and with this Burgundy I bring you the second of three tales of vinfanticide (the third bottle was a 2010 Leeuwin Art Series Chardonnay — talk about tight). Unlike the Prüm I wrote about a couple of days ago, though, this opened up relatively quickly and provided more immediate drinking pleasure.

On opening, a high toned splat of a wine, with gorgeously specific savoury aromas of beetroot and flowers mixing with a streak of minerality and a good deal of oak. With a bit of air, this opens out somewhat but the wine’s character is fundamentally fine and light.

Structurally, this was much too firm initially, a hard palate structure giving admirable drive but obscuring some flavours. As with the nose, though, this opened up after half an hour or so of swirling, shedding its acidic stridency and softening to reveal a sophisticated, luscious mouthfeel. While it’s not a wine to convert lovers of McLaren Vale Shiraz to Pinot, this strikes me as everything that’s good about the grape in its most classical expression – light, intense, precise, focused. Everything’s here and I suspect it will be a thing of beauty in a few years’ time.

If drinking now, be patient. It’s worth a bit of glass time.

Domaine Piere Amiot et Fils
Price: $130
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Domaine Jean-Claude Bachelet et Fils Bourgogne Rouge 2010

I’m getting old.

The last time I tasted this label was a few years ago when the 2005 was current. Re-reading my earlier note, much might apply to this wine save for a firmer acid structure, not surprising considering vintage conditions. The same light (and quite pleasing) colour, slightly confected red fruits and general air of simplicity. There are a few savoury angles too — a hint of undergrowth, some snapped twig, the suggestion of a child running through a favourite patch of forest — that add interest, although one would never accuse this wine of being overly complex.

This wine begs the question: what’s the point? As an Australian drinker with access to — at last — a selection of great local Pinots at reasonable prices, what’s the value of a cheap Burgundy that isn’t any great shakes in the distinctiveness department? I suppose this proves, at the very least, that small French producers can make technically sound wines at a reasonable price point, which hasn’t always been something to be taken for granted. Otherwise, as pleasant as this is, it lacks dimensions of character and intensity that might elevate it beyond an easy weeknight drink.

Domaine Jean-Claude Bachelet et Fils
Price: $A23
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Domaine Alain Chavy Saint-Aubin 1er Cru En Remilly 2010

I’ve enjoyed many Alain Chavy wines over the years and value this producer for the straightforwardness of his wines. These are vins de terroir par excellence, quite reasonably priced to boot. His 1er Cru Puligny-Montrachets are especially fine, but I’ve enjoyed this wine, from the lesser village of Saint-Aubin, over several vintages, and this edition is one of the most pleasurable.

Forthright aromas of hessian, sulfur, white stonefruit and flint emerge immediately from the glass, even when served quite cold. There’s a good deal of complexity, in fact, which isn’t immediately evident because the fruit seems so up-front and voluptuous at first. With time, it turns increasingly savoury, a reductive influence becoming more prominent as fruit tightens into the grapefruit spectrum.

On entry, what’s immediately striking is the power and impact of the wine’s fruit. I’ve noticed quite a few 2010 white Burgundies from Puligny-Montrachet and surrounds share this aggressiveness, which seems to stem not only from solid intensity but also from firm acid. Perhaps there’s a tendency towards shoutiness, but I value the muscularity on show and feel it may achieve better balance with some time in bottle. The mid-palate is quite minerally, though with plenty of fruit too, and leads to an after palate of powdery texture and taut flavour. Quite long.

While it may lack the subtlety and nuance of a really fine white Burgundy, this is a lot of wine for the money. There’s plenty here to enjoy.

Domaine Alain Chavy
Price: $A50
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Domaine Denis Mortet Marsannay Les Longeroies 2009

From the “value” village of Marsannay comes this lieu-dit by Gevrey Chambertin-based producer Denis Mortet. It was recommended to me and my dining companion by the affable Alan Hunter at E’cco Bistro. I probably would have glanced past this on the list, but Alan’s recommendation was spot on; this is why we love good sommeliers.

The wine itself is tremendously honest and full of flavour. Aromatically, it begins with rustic spice and undergrowth, joined quickly by some bright fruit notes, mostly in the red berry spectrum. I like the sinewy character of the aroma; it’s quite complex, with plenty going on, but there’s always room to move between notes, such that it never smells overwhelming.

In the mouth, a palate structure that complements its flavour profile perfectly. Here continues a run of berry fruit and lignified twigs, supported by a frame of tannin that feels expansive and textural. Although only medium bodied, the wine’s architecture is spacious and allows flavours to articulate cleanly on the palate. The overall impression is of a certain rusticity, which isn’t code for anything unpleasant, more a reflection of the wine’s straightforward character and lack of artifice.

Enjoyed this one a lot.

Domaine Denis Mortet
Price: $A200 (wine list)
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Bouchard Père et Fils Beaune Grèves 1er Cru Vigne de l’Enfant Jésus 2010

I’m sitting down to a few exciting wines tonight, of which this is one. I was a little concerned about its youth but this is an immediately expressive, enticing wine.

Line and length; this has, above all else, tremendous palate structure and persistence. I often feel flavours are privileged in wine appreciation above other, arguably more important, aspects of wine like texture and architecture — those elements that give a wine its narrative. This has plenty of complexity within its savoury flavour profile: cherries, exotic spices, undergrowth, roasted meat. There’s also a decent whack of toasted oak to help things along, and I find the oak especially well matched to the fruit flavours here.

Yet the main events here are mouthfeel and line, one modulating through a series of textural moments as the other ushers each flavour and texture element onto the tongue. This is fascinating to taste because it’s so sinewy and light in the mouth, yet with such drive and length, and such variation too. It’s far from delicate — in fact, its flavours are quite masculine — but there’s real refinement and detail too.

An excellent Burgundy.

Bouchard Père et Fils
Price: $US100
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Clos des Lambrays tasting

I recently attended a tasting of Clos des Lambrays with a selection of vintages spanning 1990 to 2010. Thierry Brouin, longtime oenologist at Domaine des Lambrays, was a charming (though jetlagged) host and humbly provided a view of the domaine’s history and its evolution under his stewardship. This was my first time tasting Clos des Lambrays and I can’t think of a better crash course.

Clos des Lambrays 1990
Defiantly tertiary with a range of old red wine aromas: mushroom, leather, spice. Despite this development, it retains a vibrancy of aroma and is certainly not past it. In the mouth, light bodied with a seamless line, this tastes saucy in the brown sense. A light dusting of tannin arches over an elegant finish. There is still lively acid and freshness. Charming.

Clos des Lambrays 1993
Noticeably more full than the 1990, this wine’s stylings are more masculine and chunky. The flavour profile is quite developed but with an underlying fruit weight missing from the older wine and a sense of minerality that underlines the fruit. Structurally, a bigger, more prominent wine, with more tannins and less exposed acid. At first this dipped through the after palate but some swirling saw that right.

Clos des Lambrays 1995
A really distinctive aroma that shows a pine needle (Thierry suggested camphor) note missing from the other vintages tasted. Light, fresh, with bit more primary fruit, this also came across slightly closed. In the mouth, more masculine than expected with dark berries and a litheness of line, perhaps a bit simple but hugely drinkable and attractive.

Clos des Lambrays 1999
This has a heavy brow, much more inclined to brood than any of its older siblings in this tasting. Dark fruit notes dominate an aroma that is the first of the tasting to seem mostly primary in character. In the mouth, very structured, tannins still prominent and drying, great concentration of dark berry fruit. Oak is also a noticeable influence.

Clos des Lambrays 2006
Very primary, this shows a lighter shade of fruit, spiced oak, heaps of minerality and a slightly raw vibe. The aroma is heady, oak-influenced and quite intoxicating. Exciting. The palate unfolds with cherry essence, vanilla, luxurious richness and chewy density in a framework of powdery tannins. This is fresh, structured and was quite my favourite wine of the tasting.  I wish I had some in my cellar.

Clos des Lambrays 2008
There was quite a bit of burned rubber on opening that never quite blew off, though it did become less prominent after about fifteen minutes of swirling. Once past this, there’s a light, red fruited aroma profile that is pretty and delicate. On the palate, fleet of foot, fruit seeming sweeter here and red rather than black in character. Not sure if this is typical.

Clos des Lambrays 2009
This seemed a favourite amongst the group and I can understand why. Very dense and dark on the nose, but expressive too, and almost a little rustic in its lilt. In the mouth, prickly mineral acid, coffee spiced oak and dark fruit. Also a meaty, umami-esque edge. Quite tannic in a surprisingly loose-knit way, and with very juicy acid, this is screaming for more time, though it’s already reasonably generous. Thierry suggested this vintage clearly expresses the Clos des Lambrays terroir.

Clos des Lambrays 2010
Very tight for now. Even so, there’s great purity of fruit on the nose, along with nougat oak and a dose of adolescent brooding. In the mouth, structure is predictably raw, acid sizzling away and tannin equally firm, flavours tending as much towards coffee oak as dark fruit. Quite hard to assess but, despite its youth, seems of beautiful form and line to me, perhaps more refined, if less obviously characterful, than the 2009. I liked this very much.

Domaine Alain Chavy Bourgogne 2010

In some ways, the styling of affordable wines is just as interesting to me as the achievements of great, no-holds-barred labels. It’s a mantra nowadays that with great fruit, the wine “just makes itself;” even allowing for hyperbole, that does suggest there may be a bit more thought required to make average grapes into wine that’s both accessible and enjoyable.

One option is to make the sorts of cheerfully anonymous wines that, I admit, have their place in the industry and in many peoples’ lives. Another is this – a clearly artisanal wine from a small producer in Puligny-Montrachet that comes in at, given the context, a decent price.

The approach here is one of moderation. The fruit that went into this wine seems of modest quality – it’s too sweet-edged and simply flavoured to be truly fine. But it’s clean, and the winemaking that surrounds it has given it enough counterpoint to frame it with graceful appropriateness. The aroma mixes bright, bouncy fruit with overlays of mealiness. The fruit, at first, showed a slightly distressing pineapple character, but that has mostly blown off and settled to a still-bright but more attractive melon note. There’s no complexity to speak of, but it’s a delicate, polite aroma that knows its boundaries and works well within them.

The palate is fresh and flavoursome, with moderately intense waxed lemon fruit and oatmeal. Here again the fruit edges towards a confectionary vibe and is held in check by savouriness that seems winemaker-led. The fact that it’s not overly driven works in its favour; there’s nothing outsize about this wine, and that means its limitations as well as its strengths are modest. A nice creamy after palate leads through to a finish that is fresh and juicy, with only a hint of sweetness marring the flavour profile. Acid is fine. Serving this wine on the cool side helps to temper the fruit’s more vulgar tendencies.

Some wines seem to squander their potential; this makes the most of its humble beginnings. Nothing more than cheap Chardonnay, really, but a little marvel of styling nonetheless, and attractive for its honesty.

Domaine Alain Chavy
Price: $A18
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Domaine Rapet Père et Fils Pernand-Vergelesses Les Combottes 2005

After a rather poor run of white Burgundies, I was half expecting this to be oxidised, corked or both. Happily, and despite a rather spongy cork, this is in excellent condition. In fact, its fruit is remarkably vibrant and is a real feature of this wine.

Primary fruit, though, isn’t the first impression this wine makes. Rather, a mix of aromas deriving from winemaker input emerge from the glass first, and I let out a little cheer for highly interventionist winemaking when I gave it a good sniff. Chardonnay is, let’s face it, often ripe for a bit of rough handling, and styles like this justify such treatment. Nougat, caramel, oats, cream. It’s a tight aroma despite the range of notes, and I like how its aromas feel packed into a small space, jostling for attention, a little rambunctious perhaps but in their own way disciplined. Fruit is there, pushing through; when it breaks out, I see crisp grapefruit and hints of fuller white stone fruit.

The palate’s acid structure echoes the coiled aroma and complements the character of the fruit. Here, as with the nose, the vibe is complex and fresh at the same time. Again, there are caramel, nuts, nougat and citrus fruit, wrapped in a savouriness that sings of acid minerality. Texture is a comparative let-down, and I feel a wine with this sort of flavour profile and structure deserves more textural interest. As it is, a slippery, full, somewhat one-dimentional mouthfeel. It’s not a ruinous feature, though; there’s more than enough flavour interest and intensity to make this wine a very enjoyable one.

Good value wine.

Domaine Rapet Père et Fils
Price: $A30
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Domaine Rapet Père et Fils Pernand 1er Cru Le Clos du Village 2000

Rather too oxidised to be fully enjoyable, I’ll write this up for completeness’ sake. And because I worked my customary magic on the rather crumbly cork.

The colour is an attractive golden straw. The nose immediately betrays excessive oxidation – whether it affects just this bottle or the wine generally is something I’m not in a position to know. I tasted a similar wine (vintage, producer, classification) in 2009 and it was on song. In any case, that softly rancid brown apple aroma pervades an otherwise rather attractive, fruit-driven profile that seems quite cuddly but with a savoury, herbal edge.

The palate shows good acid and crisp flow down the line. There’s enough fruit here for me to know this would have been a nice wine, once. Good weight and generosity of flavour – the fruit tends towards white stonefruit, with a repeat of the herbal, basil-like notes seen on the nose. The palate’s texture is creamy and soft, but not flabby, thanks to that acid.

I wish I had known it in better times.

Domaine Rapet Père et Fils
Price: $A60
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Domaine de la Bongran Viré Clessé Cuvée Tradition 2002

I have a few Jean Thévenet wines in my cellar and they always provide a completely different view of white Burgundy from pretty much anything else. This wine, from the Mâconnais, is startlingly young for its age and shows the distinctive, botrytis-tinged character that I’ve come to enjoy from Thévenet.

I experienced not-entirely-irrational anxiety as I was opening this wine, based partly on a ridiculously oxidised 2005 white Burgundy I was excited, then disappointed, about last week. This wine’s cork, on extraction, proved to be long and of an apparently high quality. Colour in the glass is beautifully golden, with not a hint of the distressing brown hue that I had feared. So far so good.

What’s really enjoyable about this wine is how it flips between the mineral-driven austerity of tighter Chardonnay styles and the opulence granted it by a hint of residual sugar and botrytis. The palate is grippy and textural, combining with a grapefruit-accented flavour profile to give the impression of pith and pips. So it moves between modes, tight then loose, acid and slight bitterness an intriguing foil to notes of marmalade and richer, riper fruit. If there’s something missing here, it relates to intensity of both aroma and flavour. This isn’t a blockbuster as its 14% ABV and slightly hot finish might suggest. Instead, the wine’s demeanour is laid back, and I suspect what it loses in impact it makes up for in food friendliness.

Cleverly made and provocative in style. Given its freshness, I might taste this again in a few years’ time.

Domaine de la Bongran
Price: $35 (ish)
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail