- Location
- Scotland
Apologies for the length of this ramble.
The TN - NW chardonnay v Burgundy shoot out tasting sparked a couple of very interesting side debates, but mainly the one about whether White Burgundy still deserves the title of ‘The Greatest Ever White Wine’. Assuming it ever did? If it doesn’t then where are the contenders? There seemed to be a few having a nibble at this tasting.
I’ll give you my angle to start with, as I have probably been seen as a White Burgundy-basher on these pages for a few years now.
I first visited Burgundy in 1990, on holiday, but specifically to taste and buy wines. My first year two years’ holidays were near Mâcon and I concentrated on the wines of the villages in that area (Lugny, Viré, Clessé and Pouilly) as well as the Gamays of Beaujolais. 1991 was the year I came across Domaine Michel (specifically the father and youngest son, Franck) and (at that time) their splendid Mâcon-Clessés (since then Viré and Clessé have earned their own AOC of Viré-Clessé). I have now been going there for 27 years and am still very impressed with their wines. I must add that they are not stellar wines and do reach the heights of their cousins further north, but, for what they are, to me, they punch above their weight and produce a wine that is better than ‘everyday’, but one we can afford to drink on a regular basis. They are also wines that evolve with age and I have tasted every vintage of the traditional bottling (no oak) since 1986 right up to the 2016 last week. Some vintages I have tasted at over 20 years old, and just last year I opened a magnum of their Vieilles-Vignes Futs de Chênes 1997, which was in splendid condition. While the domaine is now run by the sons, and there are a few more cuvées, nothing much has changed in the cellar.
After that we stayed further north and it was then that I got into the white wines of the more famous villages of the Côtes de Beaune.
I decided to steer clear of the big names, mainly because of price, but I also wanted to find lesser known producers where it was easy to get an appointment and they had a decent range to taste through. This is where the guides of Clive Coates, Robert Parker and Oz Clarke came in handy.
I started to select producers who were under the radar but had plots in vineyards throughout the spectrum of White Burgundy, from generic Bourgogne to Grands Crus. This where I got into producers like Lequin-Roussot, Fleurot-Larose (both in Santenay), Paul Garaudet (Monthelie), Michel Prunier (Auxey-Duresses), Hubert Lamy (St Aubin), Maurice Ecard (Savigny les Beaune), Vincent Rapet (Pernan-Vergelesses) and Tollot-Beaut (Chorey les Beaune). There were others, but these are the ones I visited regularly over the next 15 years and started to get to know the white wines of their respective villages, plus Chassagne-Montrachet, Puligny-Montrachet and Meursault (all at village and 1er Cru level) and some Grands Crus like Bâtard-Montrachet, Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet, Corton and Corton-Charlemagne.
I would hang on to many of the wines for 10+ years they were truly amazing wines to drink, especially with good age to them and, usually, the further you went up the classification ladder the better the wines were. They were spectacular in some cases, with depth of flavours and complexity I had never experienced anywhere else in the world of white wine. There were lean, mineral but complex wines, others that were exotic in their fruit flavours and the one that I can never forget was a Bâtard-Montrachet 1992 from Fleurot-Larose. Even coming from a ‘softer’ vintage, it had everything – exotic fruit, hints of terroir, fat, opulence, mineral and a finish that lingered forever. That was, and still is, the best white wine I have had the pleasure to drink and savour.
No doubt there were, and are, better producers than the ones I experienced (I read often about them here on w-p forum) but for me these wines were truly outstanding, just affordable enough that I could by a few bottles of their top wines every vintage, so was able to experience them over a number of vintages.
This was when I had no doubt White Burgundy was king. Nothing came near it.
So what went wrong?
Round about the end of the 90’s and early 00’s I started to notice that 3 to 5 year old wines tasted far too mature for there age, and specifically, than what I had become accustomed to. There were still some wines that tasted fine but others, from the same vineyard, vintage and producer that was different. I don’t think I had heard of premature oxidation then, but that was what I was detecting. Then I started to hear about the dreaded pox and I began to realise that was what I was experiencing in some of my wines. All my affected wines were from the Côtes de Beaune and, as I had been used to ageing my 1ers crus and grands crus for 10+ years, I started to get more and more pox’d wines. It seemed I was pouring more bottles down the sink than I was able to drink.
The end of buying Côtes de Beaune whites came when I opened my last ever Grand Cru – a Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet 2001 from Hubert Lamy. I had never tasted CBM and to get a single bottle I had to buy a ‘caisse prestige’, consisting of 11 mixed wines from St Aubin, Chassagne and Puligny plus my precious CBM. After about 5 years I started to notice that the other wins were not quite right and in 2010 (to celebrate my recovery from swine flu) I decided to open the CBM. Basically, it was knackered. The worst affected out of all the others in the case. I reckon I only had 4 drinkable bottles in that case.
So, from 2010, I stopped buying white Burgundy completely (apart from Domain Michel, of course).
It is only in the past couple of years that I have ventured back ad that was some Chablis from the Cave Co-op up to 1er cru level, and even then I’m sure I have detected a subtle hint of oxidation in a couple of 5 year old examples. It will be a long time before I start buying again at the levels, and quantities, I had been doing.
A number of factors that make me now very angry with the mess that White Burgundy has become include –
· The producers won’t admit to any issues – real head in the sand attitude to the mess
· Why won’t White Burgundy age like it used to?
· What has caused the problem of premature oxidisation? Corks? Low sulphur regime? Pneumatic presses? A combination of these? Anything else?
· Why do they seem to be doing nothing to resolve it and give us back the wines we used to love?
· Why, in many cases, have prices gone through the roof and there is still no resolution to the problem.
· Buying White Burgundy is a very expensive gamble – one I’m not prepared to take.
· The producers used to make seriously great white wines (the best in the world) that could age gracefully over 20+ years. Now many are incapable of lasting 5 years. Also, if this is they way producers want to go (and I don’t believe for a second the move has been deliberate), then how come they haven’t made wine that can be great within the first 5 years of its life? The notes and scores from the tasting mentioned, although a one-off, just reinforced that young White Burgundy is hardly any better than many New World wines.
All of the above has turned me off White Burgundy and has put it in serious danger of losing the title of the Best White Wine in the World, if it not already has done.
That begs the question though – if White Burgundy is no longer worthy of top spot, who are the contenders?
The TN - NW chardonnay v Burgundy shoot out tasting sparked a couple of very interesting side debates, but mainly the one about whether White Burgundy still deserves the title of ‘The Greatest Ever White Wine’. Assuming it ever did? If it doesn’t then where are the contenders? There seemed to be a few having a nibble at this tasting.
I’ll give you my angle to start with, as I have probably been seen as a White Burgundy-basher on these pages for a few years now.
I first visited Burgundy in 1990, on holiday, but specifically to taste and buy wines. My first year two years’ holidays were near Mâcon and I concentrated on the wines of the villages in that area (Lugny, Viré, Clessé and Pouilly) as well as the Gamays of Beaujolais. 1991 was the year I came across Domaine Michel (specifically the father and youngest son, Franck) and (at that time) their splendid Mâcon-Clessés (since then Viré and Clessé have earned their own AOC of Viré-Clessé). I have now been going there for 27 years and am still very impressed with their wines. I must add that they are not stellar wines and do reach the heights of their cousins further north, but, for what they are, to me, they punch above their weight and produce a wine that is better than ‘everyday’, but one we can afford to drink on a regular basis. They are also wines that evolve with age and I have tasted every vintage of the traditional bottling (no oak) since 1986 right up to the 2016 last week. Some vintages I have tasted at over 20 years old, and just last year I opened a magnum of their Vieilles-Vignes Futs de Chênes 1997, which was in splendid condition. While the domaine is now run by the sons, and there are a few more cuvées, nothing much has changed in the cellar.
After that we stayed further north and it was then that I got into the white wines of the more famous villages of the Côtes de Beaune.
I decided to steer clear of the big names, mainly because of price, but I also wanted to find lesser known producers where it was easy to get an appointment and they had a decent range to taste through. This is where the guides of Clive Coates, Robert Parker and Oz Clarke came in handy.
I started to select producers who were under the radar but had plots in vineyards throughout the spectrum of White Burgundy, from generic Bourgogne to Grands Crus. This where I got into producers like Lequin-Roussot, Fleurot-Larose (both in Santenay), Paul Garaudet (Monthelie), Michel Prunier (Auxey-Duresses), Hubert Lamy (St Aubin), Maurice Ecard (Savigny les Beaune), Vincent Rapet (Pernan-Vergelesses) and Tollot-Beaut (Chorey les Beaune). There were others, but these are the ones I visited regularly over the next 15 years and started to get to know the white wines of their respective villages, plus Chassagne-Montrachet, Puligny-Montrachet and Meursault (all at village and 1er Cru level) and some Grands Crus like Bâtard-Montrachet, Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet, Corton and Corton-Charlemagne.
I would hang on to many of the wines for 10+ years they were truly amazing wines to drink, especially with good age to them and, usually, the further you went up the classification ladder the better the wines were. They were spectacular in some cases, with depth of flavours and complexity I had never experienced anywhere else in the world of white wine. There were lean, mineral but complex wines, others that were exotic in their fruit flavours and the one that I can never forget was a Bâtard-Montrachet 1992 from Fleurot-Larose. Even coming from a ‘softer’ vintage, it had everything – exotic fruit, hints of terroir, fat, opulence, mineral and a finish that lingered forever. That was, and still is, the best white wine I have had the pleasure to drink and savour.
No doubt there were, and are, better producers than the ones I experienced (I read often about them here on w-p forum) but for me these wines were truly outstanding, just affordable enough that I could by a few bottles of their top wines every vintage, so was able to experience them over a number of vintages.
This was when I had no doubt White Burgundy was king. Nothing came near it.
So what went wrong?
Round about the end of the 90’s and early 00’s I started to notice that 3 to 5 year old wines tasted far too mature for there age, and specifically, than what I had become accustomed to. There were still some wines that tasted fine but others, from the same vineyard, vintage and producer that was different. I don’t think I had heard of premature oxidation then, but that was what I was detecting. Then I started to hear about the dreaded pox and I began to realise that was what I was experiencing in some of my wines. All my affected wines were from the Côtes de Beaune and, as I had been used to ageing my 1ers crus and grands crus for 10+ years, I started to get more and more pox’d wines. It seemed I was pouring more bottles down the sink than I was able to drink.
The end of buying Côtes de Beaune whites came when I opened my last ever Grand Cru – a Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet 2001 from Hubert Lamy. I had never tasted CBM and to get a single bottle I had to buy a ‘caisse prestige’, consisting of 11 mixed wines from St Aubin, Chassagne and Puligny plus my precious CBM. After about 5 years I started to notice that the other wins were not quite right and in 2010 (to celebrate my recovery from swine flu) I decided to open the CBM. Basically, it was knackered. The worst affected out of all the others in the case. I reckon I only had 4 drinkable bottles in that case.
So, from 2010, I stopped buying white Burgundy completely (apart from Domain Michel, of course).
It is only in the past couple of years that I have ventured back ad that was some Chablis from the Cave Co-op up to 1er cru level, and even then I’m sure I have detected a subtle hint of oxidation in a couple of 5 year old examples. It will be a long time before I start buying again at the levels, and quantities, I had been doing.
A number of factors that make me now very angry with the mess that White Burgundy has become include –
· The producers won’t admit to any issues – real head in the sand attitude to the mess
· Why won’t White Burgundy age like it used to?
· What has caused the problem of premature oxidisation? Corks? Low sulphur regime? Pneumatic presses? A combination of these? Anything else?
· Why do they seem to be doing nothing to resolve it and give us back the wines we used to love?
· Why, in many cases, have prices gone through the roof and there is still no resolution to the problem.
· Buying White Burgundy is a very expensive gamble – one I’m not prepared to take.
· The producers used to make seriously great white wines (the best in the world) that could age gracefully over 20+ years. Now many are incapable of lasting 5 years. Also, if this is they way producers want to go (and I don’t believe for a second the move has been deliberate), then how come they haven’t made wine that can be great within the first 5 years of its life? The notes and scores from the tasting mentioned, although a one-off, just reinforced that young White Burgundy is hardly any better than many New World wines.
All of the above has turned me off White Burgundy and has put it in serious danger of losing the title of the Best White Wine in the World, if it not already has done.
That begs the question though – if White Burgundy is no longer worthy of top spot, who are the contenders?