White Burgfest 2010 - a blind tasting of the Top 1ers and Grand Crus

I felt honoured and excited to join the White Burgfest tasting 2010 earlier this Spring. The event offered a rare chance to blind taste all of the top 1ers and Grand Crus white burgundies, from one vintage, over two and a half days. There was a crack tasting team of 10 people, made up of the UK’s top Burgundy buyers, aficionados and journalists. We tasted 162 wines, all from the famed 2010 vintage, in flights grouped by commune and then by vineyard or terroir.

Overall 2010 proved itself to be an excellent vintage. There will always be disappointments and variability in a one-off tasting of this magnitude, but by and large the standard was high. The brilliant quality of the tasting’s best wines in mind match anything we have seen from recent white Burgundy vintages. At time of release the vintage was famed for its mix of ripeness and racy intensity. Whilst acidities were high, they were nothing like as searing as in 2007, some wines performed better the longer they were open and will certainly benefit from being decanted but that said the tasting was far from tough-going. There was more evidence of botrytis and overripe fruit in the wines than I remembered from my barrel tastings, but in many cases this lack of “typicity” as some would call it did not bother me at all, where the wine was properly in balance. In fact I found this fruit exuberance extremely seductive.

My overall impressions were as follows:

There were 5 flights of Meursault, a big commune and therefore variable, but there were lots of very good wines, Roulot Michel Bouzereau, Boisson Vadot and Ente all shone, but pick of the bunch, and arguably producer of the tasting was Domaine des Comtes Lafon, his Montrachet was the top wine of the entire tasting and his Meursault Perrieres was the highest placed non Grand Cru. More generally, Genevrieres and Perrieres were a cut above the other vineyards

There was a big difference between the quality of the high, stony Chassagne vineyards where there were some excellent wines and the slightly more cumbersome, lower clay-dominated ones. This was the first year that the group had tasted St Aubin, the flight highlighted what outstanding value for money this less coveted area can offer and in general it was a more exciting line up than at least 3 of the 5 Chassagne flights.

In Puligny-Montrachet Pucelles, Caillerets and Combettes excelled, as should be expected, but there were also some good perfomances from Perrieres and Referts. Bachelet-Monnot, Jacques Carillon, Sauzet, Michel Bouzereau, Ente and most surprisingly of all, Vincent Girardin, were the best producers in my view. In fact Vincent Girardin performed consistently well throughout the tasting.

Next up were 22 Corton Charlemagnes, overall rather disappointing. However there was one wine more interesting than the rest, by a country mile, that of Domaine Rollin. It was so complete and harmonious, brimming with ripe fruit, mineral complexity and requisite freshness, a class act indeed – Remi and Simon, please take a bow!

The rest of the Grands Crus offered much more of what was hoped for, largely exhibiting that extra step of depth, intensity and refinement. Unsurprisingly the most exciting wines of all came from Le Montrachet and Chevalier-Montrachet. Lafon, Laguiche and Jadot's Chevalier Demoiselles were the best wines we tasted.

A Marquis d'Angerville Masterclass

On Tuesday this week Guillaume d'Angerville came to London to present to journalists 16 of his wines at the Connaught Hotel. The tasting was kick-started by the thrilling 2010s. They were nothing short of magnificent even at villages level. 2010 is an excellent vintage and the Marquis d'Angerville wines are up there with the year's very best examples. The Domaine is steeped in history and has made great wines over decades but it is clear to me that, since taking over the reins in 2003, Guillaume is taking the Domaine to another level. This is not being done through wholesale changes, it largely respects the work of his father Jacques - hard vineyard work, minimal intervention in the cellar, a maximum of 20% new oak. The biggest change is the full conversion to biodynamic viticulture and this, together with Guillaume and his team's extreme rigour and attention to detail, are lifting quality through the roof.

Together with the 2010s, we were treated to a vertical of Clos des Ducs, one of the Cote de Beaune's great vineyards. 2008, 2007, 2002, 1999, 1998 and 1990.

Great wine or great winemaking rarely produces something flashy or immediate, to me it seems to be more about wines that are complex, develop in the glass and that show traits which can be attributed to terroir and vintage. There was no question that each of these 16 wines had its own and very clear cut personality - for me this is truely the magic of wine and the magic of Burgundy. My brief thoughts on the various vintages below, anyone still cellaring 1999s take note: Whilst this may be a vintage that closed down for far longer than anyone expected there are signs that, judging by Clos des Ducs at least, patience will reward you heavily.

2008 - Fresh, red fruited, so alive and uplifting, drinkable now and certainly less of the tannic structure than expected but with plenty left in the tank to age very well.

2007 - tender, fruity, sweet as a nut and absolutely perfect for drinking now over the next 5 years

2002 - closed, tightly wound and a little wild initially. After several hours this settled in the glass and some very clear crisp but ripe red fruit aromas and flavours surfaced, eventually this proved to be a beauty.

1999 - even more closed than the 2002, initially this was not my favourite wine of the line up but after 4 hours it opened up into the best wine of the flight, for me, by a distance. deep dark ripe so intense and complex. Stunning!

1998 - a little wild but none of the hard edges I was expecting, in fact this was the biggest surprise of the tasting, not the ugly duckling vintage many said it was, lively crisp characterful, intense but moreish

1990 - still a baby, the most powerful and intense wine of the lot, had not even awoken by the time the 1999 had come round.