I’ve reported previously on the wines of Famille Carabello-Baum, the Burgundy business of Californian entrepreneur Michael Baum, who also purchased the 300-year-old Château de Pommard in 2014.
Since then, head winemaker Emmanuel Sala has been replaced by Paul Negrerie. Like Sala, Negrerie is a Burgundy native, but his flying winemaking experience has taken him to New Zealand, South Africa, Australia and the United States. It’s reasonable to guess that his travels may have broadened his Burgundian sensibility.
Across the portfolio, Michael Baum has been moving toward organic and biodynamic certification for the wines. He says that’s also pertinent to the appointment of Negererie: “We had been searching for some time to find a vineyard manager and winemaker team that can take our biodynamic thinking to the next level. Jean-Marie Frey (our new vineyard manager) and Paul are young, smart and passionate. They are experienced in organic and biodynamic practices on several different continents and we are thrilled to have them. We can already feel JR and Paul focusing more on both experimentation and precision across our cuvées.”
The same team makes the domaine wines for Château de Pommard, and the négociant wines under the Famille Carabello-Baum label. There is a bewildering range of these – close to 30 different cuvées at village, Premier Cru ad Grand Cru level. The wines come from across the Côte d’Or.
I was recently sent three of the latest releases from Carabello-Baum, which are reviewed below. I was also sent three wines from the Clos Marey-Monge, the jewel in the Château de Pommard crown, that I will review in part II of this update.
These wines were mostly made by Emmanuel Sala, but finished and bottled under the direction of Paul Negrerie, so it is too early to say if his influence will change the house style. That style is for bold and flavourful Burgundy, the reds substantial and rich, the whites normally displaying a creamy oak fullness. But that is not to say these are atypical or clumsy expressions of Burgundy: the wines to me have beautiful balance, the reds never lacking in Pinot fragrance and nuance, the whites always crisply defined.
These are unapologetically modern interpretations of Burgundy. Yes, you could argue that the New World influence is there, the wines with a certain solidity and ripeness, but they also show terroir and they show finesse.
Are any of these wines available in the UK, Tom? They’ve been talked about so much that I feel the need to taste one or two, though I’m not sure I want my Burgundies to be polished as it often means higher abv levels (as the two reds above seem to bear out) and look what happened in the Southern Rhône and Bordeaux when the wines became ‘polished’.
Hi Paul. Carabello-Baum exports to the UK from its website (chateaudepommard.com) but at the moment wine-searcher is not showing any retail availability within the UK. Yes, definitely higher alcohols across the range really, which appears to be a house style and does give them a ripe character, but as you know, it is all about balance and I have never felt any of their wines to be unbalanced – or unsubtle.
Thank you Tom
A timely reminder that this is a good address for quite polished Burgs at prices not too daft in the context of today’s marketplace
Cheers Ray, and I think ‘polished’ is a very good description for these wines.