For the first time I can remember (and amazingly this was my 11th vintage) the DRC Press Tasting was on a Monday. As is traditional now the wines are shown to the press just after bottling, which was done in the last two months. The Domaine de la Romanée-Conti wines are amazingly easy to taste at this young stage. I have always thought it would not be the case even as little as 3 months later when they start to become constrained by bottling. It’s always a massively exciting tasting regardless of the vintage as you are dealing with the very essence of terroir. The tasting takes a relaxed yet studious tone, there is very little talking at all, whilst Aubert is almost always in attendance, as he was again this year, there is no speech or presentation. The wines are “left” to do the talking themselves. The wines (no Vosne Romanée 1er Cru Duvault Blochet this year) are tasted in the order below with the Montrachet never shown (more of that later!), the notes are my own and brief – I’m not a massive fan of scores so there aren’t any – each wine taken on its merits, it’s not a competition after all:

Echézeaux – Beautifully “Pinot”, red fruits, elegant and feminine, good acidity and poise, long finish…very impressive.

Grands Echézeaux – Immediately less obvious than Echézeaux, fruit red again with a hint of something darker, a leafy note and more impressive on the palate than nose at this stage.

Richebourg – As with last year tasted before the Romanée-St-Vivant, Richebourg was more gutsy with a masculine edge, serious and more brooding to me.

Romanée-St-Vivant – Classy and a little more “showy” than the others so far, red fruit again, rich and a touch decadent, the biggest (good) surprise for me.

La Tâche – As is often the case (almost always for me) the most obviously performing wine and, if I were pressed, the most impressive, richness and splendor combined, brilliant texture, hidden structure too.

Romanée-Conti – The nose showed more than some years, exquisite balance and harmony, palate tighter and giving less away…so impressive and true.

With the tasting over before 12.30 it was brilliant to have a brief window for Aubert to present the wines and vintage to the entire C&B Team, the samples were minute – it’s amazing how far a bottle can go – the entire press and home team requiring less that 2 bottles of each wine!! Aubert is always calm when speaking and manages to make something very complex sound simple. “A vintage that will be for the nose” being one of the more memorable quotes.

From 1 Thomas More Street those that were lunching – Adam, Alison, Rachel and & I were hosting Aubert, Serena Sutcliffe MW, Anthony Hanson MW & Remington Norman MW – moved on to Lunch at C&B Paternoster Square. The post tasting Lunch has been a tradition, a massive personal highlight, and a thank you to Aubert for as long as I can remember. It is a good chance to relax and get the views of some of the wine world’s biggest names. Exciting though this is for me there is nothing to rival the fact that we now taste the Le Montrachet 2007 at lunch. The 2007 was a spectacular wine, especially when you consider it was the last picked of the wines (17th September) and you can well see it. A gorgeous young gold colour and exotic nose, to make an almost farcical comparison it reminded me of the 2005 with a dash more zest and acidity – you could drink it now or at anytime over the next ?? years – as Adam’s tasting note says, Noble Wine. The other wines at lunch were the 2007 Echézeaux, Romanée-St-Vivant & La Tâche. In particular the La Tâche shone again for me. Conversation flowed – everything from the Hospice auction to Le Corton to the En Primeur 2009 campaign in Bordeaux – but one question I wanted to ask Aubert, because we get asked it a lot, was which vintage the 2007 wines reminded Aubert of. He said the weather was so unique that it was hard but eventually he said a civil marriage (no churches) of 1997 and 2004.

The only problem for me now is what on earth do you do on Tuesday when your Monday is that good?

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I had been really looking forward to seeing and tasting at Roty, Domaine Joseph Roty and Philippe Roty (pictured, below) are both producers that we have worked with for ages but so sought after are the wines that we rarely have any to taste in bottle, having sold them all on release. Really this is one Domaine with two names the only difference is that Philippe’s wines are made across the road (literally) whereas the Domaine Joseph Roty wines are Philippe, his mother and sister as a collective. A little like Gilles Jourdan this is not for those wanting any sort of marketing or “showroom pampering” this is about good winemaking with good ingredients and top quality results. It’s also not a small tasting with 19 wines all from 2007 – 2 whites, 1 rose (the only one of the trip…in my eyes a good thing) and 16 reds. Roty release their wines a year later once in bottle hence tasting the 2007’s not 2008’s. The winemaking is kept simple with, generally, 18 months oak for the reds (little of it new) and 100% de-stemming. Philippe said that 2007 was “very much their sort of vintage”. The whites were very mineral and will repay patience as is the case with the majority of 07 whites. Interestingly the Bourgogne Blanc is a blend of Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay. The rose was good but not my sort of thing – apologies but I’m not a rose fan. Moving to the reds there is a very “Pinot” feel about them with the fruit always expressive and backed up with a genuine but not over powering structure and a really wonderful minerality. There are four Marsannay’s, a lot by anyone’s standards, but they are mighty fine and I have “buy” written large by the Marsannay Ouzelois. Likewise for the Cotes de Nuits from Philippe’s own vines. Having said that there is a real step up to the Gevrey’s with the Champs Cheny tasting superbly. The Gevrey La Brunelle (picturd on right) is a Clos (walled vineyard) in the “garden” out the back of the Roty’s house and it very much has it’s micro climate. The Chambertin Grand Cru’s of Mazis, Griottes and Charmes were all superb with all three scoring 18-19+ with me. Philippe and family gave us lots of time and the visit was a revelation, for me one of the highlight’s of the whole trip.

We then dropped our bags in Beaune despite parking trouble that meant the car park was shut for a Fete that never actually appeared all week, grabbed a quick lunch and set off for Puligny.

Franck Grux (below) met us at Olivier Leflaive and offered a very kind and massively useful trip round the vineyards. For me this was a real education as Franck knows every inch of the finest white wine vineyards in the world, argue over it if you like, but from Meursault down to Chassagne has to be the place for the world’s greatest whites. We set off from Puligny towards Meursault looking at how the slope and aspect largely determines the classification – which wherever you go nobody seems to disagree with. In general the flat land at the bottom of the slope is Bourgogne Blanc then as the slope starts you have villages, then on the middle of the slope we are into 1er Cru or in places Grand Cru and then at the top you have an assortment of vineyards that can be real gems, St.Aubin above Montrachet or Auxey-Duresses above and beyond Meursault. Once we had been round Meursault, taking in Clos du Cromin (below right, with Meursault behind), we made our way up to Auxey-Duresses along the top of the Puligny 1er Cru’s to St.Aubin and then back down to the crossroads (left) where you have Le Montrachet top left, Batard Montrachet top right, Criots Batard front right and Chassagne Blanchots bottom left – all just showing how intricate a region Burgundy is. Having done the tour we jetted back to Oliver Leflaive to taste. As we have already offered the 2008’s Olivier Leflaive wines Franck decided, sensibly, we didn’t need to taste them all but instead we would look at three 08 Liet Dits (named single vineyards but not 1er Cru’s) and then compare them to three 1er Cru’s. The first three were Meursault Clos du Cromin, Puligny Les Meix (a personal favorite) & Chassagne Les Blanchots – all tasting well with the Puligny just the pick for both Alison and I. We then compared them to Meursault 1er Cru Poruzots, Puligny 1er Cru Les Referts & Chassagne 1er Cru Abbaye de Morgeot – the step up was abundantly clear in the texture and length as much as anything – a good experiment. We finished off with Puligny 1er Cru Les Referts 2005 which whilst still young was starting to show well, to drink now I would decant first. We then had to leave in a little bit of a rush to head north but managed to say hello to Olivier himself on the way……Thanks go to Franck for his time and energy!

Next stop was currently the most northerly Grand Cru white (can you name the one that is further north but not currently produced?) – Bonneau du Martray, somehow in nearly a decade of working with the wines of Bonneau du Martray I have never met Jean-Charles Le Bault de la Moriniere. We arrived in darkness which was a shame but it did have the advantage of Jean-Charles saying I must come back to see the vineyards…..that is an offer he wont need to repeat. Having discussed the market and presented the “fresh of the press” offer – the 2008’s are already all but sold out – we went through next door to taste. To say that Jean-Charles is a perfectionist is almost not strong enough a phrase, everything is examined and considered every step of the way. The barrels used for ageing the wine (a third of which is new oak) are all hand selected and the coopers even return to taste the wines from their barrels. Since 1969 Jean Charles has only missed one harvest, the hot 1976. We tasted (short notes):

Corton Charlemagne
2008 Elegant and fine with beautiful texture.
2007 Still tight and very classical, all there but hiding! Beautiful.
2006 Broader (relatively speaking), more lush and a little more flashy, still very Bonneau.
2005* Some smokeyness, a little closed, texture is superb. Delicious with Pata Negra – top tip from Jean-Charles
2003* Such a charmer, opulent but not overblown, delicious
1999* Very much my sort of Burgundy, lovely and beginning to drink well
1991* Good texture but possibly to my mind the one wine that had suffered from being open so long.
*opened 3 days previous – we like to do this in the tasting room here too, gives a good idea of the wines potential and pedigree, we encourage producers to do it too

There is always a wonderfully crystal clear and light colour about the Corton Charlemagne that is often not seen in other wines, the style is all about elegance but with a taut core that allows for gracious aging.

Corton
2008 Good structure, white pepper and dark fruits
2007 Classical Pinot nose, rd fruits and violets, impressive
1995 Some age showing in a good way, red perfumed fruit with slightly degraded cheesecloth….good wine!

The tasting did not finish until 8.30 and Jean-Charles was very generous with his time. We very much hope to do another dinner or Masterclass this year, I was delighted to have finally made it to Bonneau. Next years release (2009) will be our 10th anniversary – I can’t believe how quickly that has come around.

Over dinner we discussed the wines and tried a 2005 Volnay from Lafon that was dense tight and not for drinking now (as seems the way with so many 2005’s now). The group on the table next door to us were in Burgundy tasting on a trip from Canada and very kindly offered us a taste of their Vosnee Romanee 2005 from Meo Camuzet which sold the same story….good but not now!

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There have been a series of tastings in the last few days which has meant great bottles to try.

Dom Leflaive P-M Village 07 – stunning, complex, rich yet pure a stonking bit of burgundy value. Just my sort of wine.

Corton GC 2001 Bonneau du Martray – drinking perfectly from now on, red fruits combine well with good soft structure and a lovely minerality.

Clos de Tart 2006 – Big, full, masculine but with charm, all encompassing yet “slick” structure…will last and last and be superb, a special treat.

CNDP (Chateauneuf du Pape) Cuvee Felix 2006, Versino – The more Rhone 06′s I have the more I like them, this could fool you into think it was “ready to go” as the fruit on the nose is bright, lively and delicious but then you realise the structure on the palate and it take on a whole new level of seriousness…with food now you would be ok but this in 5+ years will be a real treat.

Roc de Cambes 2004 – Juicy, slightly tarty and a real pound for pound champion, great anti-snob wine from the cotes de bourg that, served blind, causes many of the big names of Bordeaux a problem or two…..

Trotanoy 1999 – A wine I have had a few times and a good “proper Claret” for drinking now. This was the only wine that will have been better yesterday than now.

After this little array we looked at the 2008 Chablis range from Vincent Dampt (I am unashamedly the self-appointed chairman of his fan club) and compared some (Vaillons & Les Lys) of the 08′s to the 07′s. Cote de Lechet 08 was corked..another is on the way.

Les Lys 07 – good, tight and structured, not giving much away, I won’t drink mine for 2 years 16-17
Les Lys 08 – taut, but fuller than 07, minerla but approachable very good, will buy 17-18

Vaillons 07 – fatter than Lys 07 but still tight, a sleeper, 3 years needed? 17

Vaillons 08 – one of the best 1er Cru Chablis I have tasted at this stage and instantly brilliant, as case to drink soon and a case for 3+ years, 18+

Bougros 08 – From Maison Dampt (Vincent and his brother) from grapes they buy rather than their own vines. Richness from some oak (not sure of the type, new/old etc yet) but not in a cloying way just in a “needs it way”, very good wine and more Burgundy than Chablis if that makes sense.

Tomorrow Mr Bird gets married and Mr Eddleston ventures to our/the sister Champagne houses of Salon & Delamotte (250yrs old next year).

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Holiday was superb, very relaxing, the campsite http://www.colvert.com we go to (this was our 4th visit) is round a lake but only 5mins fro the sea. Days of cycling, swiming, listening to music and chilling, drinks from 6pm (yardarm and all that) lovely food, cards or backgammon, sleep then start again – Heaven! Even managed to fit in some rugby watching (made me feel even less fit for the season ahead) Castres vs Dax….not the greatest game but a decent crowd and lovely atmosphere….the only downside to France this year was the cost, everything the same or more expensive than the UK. As a result the drinking was less exciting than previously when you could get Ok vintages of decent estates for “everyday” money – Tursan and Juracon it was…..

No betting recently (nearly backed Masta Plast at Nottingham, yesterday but managed to resist and a good job too…not a good run) and I’ve slightly lost track of the racing season…hopefully York next week will get me back on track. Sebastiano (the horse I have a tiny share in) is back in training with a view to a first apperance at the back end of September…more to follow as the season progresses

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