Burgundy 2009 - The Second Half

A leisurely weekend saw the buying team take in some 2009s from Sylvain Cathiard, Bruno Clair and Jean-Marc Millot, and more window shopping in and around Beaune's Place Carnot than I care to remember. The rest was good and, though it may not have seemed it at the time, was well needed. For the second half approached. 27 Domaines down, 20 to go until Thursday. Today was spent back in the Cote de Beaune. 8.30am at the affable Vincent Dancer (pictured)in Chassagne was a breeze, such were the poise and moreish minerality of his fine-tuned wines. The wines needed to be particularly good today, the weather has turned and gets fouler, colder and wetter by the minute. Fortunately the wines "turned up on the day", as a premiership football manager might say. Again the cooler zones have proved themselves successful in 2009: Rully, Monthelie, Aloxe Corton and Pernand Vergelesses chez Suremain, Follin and Rollin were all pure, unbridled pleasure. The day finished on a massive high, Ghislaine Barthod has produced one of the most thrilling line ups so far.

Since Saturday there have been some magnificent wines but there are three that stand out, all from the cooler zones of their appellations - Vosne En Orveaux 1er Cru Cathiard, Gevrey Clos St Jacques 1er Cru Bruno Clair and Chambolle Musigny 1er Cru Les Fuees Ghislaine Barthod. Three different wines but all ethereal, haunting and with spine-tingling elegance. If these three don't sit amongst the critics' top spots, then the world is a very unjust place.

Burgundy 2009 - First impressions of the Cote de Nuits

There aren't many vintages that would have me leaping out of bed for a tasting in Pernand Vergelesses at 8.15 at the end of a hard week's tasting, but 2009 is proving to be one of them. The last two days have been a tour around 11 Domaines, 2 in the Cote de Beaune and 9 in the Cote de Nuits, among them Chevillon, Leroy, Rousseau, Roumier and Mugnier to drop just a few names. Again, as in the Cotes de Beaune, the key seems to have been picking early in 2009, most Domaines finishing by mid September. Also the cooler terroirs seem to have done particularly well, Latricieres, the high Chambolle and Gevrey vineyards, the cooler parts of Chambertin.

Burgundy seems in rude health, not only are the top growers making good to excellent wines every year but the average age of these top growers seems to be dropping. I have seen two such young stars in the last couple of days. Christian Gouges' nephew, Gregory, has made superb 2009s that mix classic Henri Gouges structure with a fair dose of finesse and baskets full of fruit. They should age seriously well whilst being more approachable in their youth. Its true that THE highlight so far has been an Henri Gouges Les St Georges 1958 thats shows remarkably vivid, youthful fruit, but rather selfishly I want to get some pleasure out of my 2009s and not leave that luxury soley to my children!

The other star is Arnaud Mortet who has arguably been even more successful. I was blown over by the definition and finesse his 2009s show, equal to the intensity the Mortet wines habitually demonstrate. This is a balance never before achieved at Domaine Denis Mortet.

The wine of the day goes to Chevillon's Vaucrains, it left me stuck for words, I have never know it be so expressive and yet retain such concentration and power.

Saturday morning promises the chance of a lie in, Vosne-Romanee at 9.30, followed by Marsannay and then again back down to Nuits. More of that and another taste of the Cote de Beaune on Monday.

Burgundy 2009 - A taste of Cote de Beaune

November has come around all too quickly, but so much the better! For the autumnal colours and bright skies are a joy here in Burgundy, and the temperatures are unusually balmy. The first three days of our trip has been spent in the Maconnais and Cote de Beaune.

My expectations were, tentatively, high. These 2009s that appeared so flattering and round in May, will they have lasted a summer in barrel unblemished? The answer is resoundingly yes. Initial reports seemed to indicate a great red vintage but I have found that there are some incredible whites too. Dominque Lafon thinks is the best vintage he has made for white wine, whilst not everyone can say that there plenty of beauties up and down the Cote nonetheless. Certainly those who have picked early, before grapes became too overripe, have made wonderfully balanced Chardonnays, admittedly less racy than in 2007 or 2008 but with absolutely tremendous balance: Silky, ripe, fresh and strong mineral identity, and, it must be said, huge length of flavour even at villages level.

I have not made it to the Cote de Nuits yet but this seems to be a quite excellent vintage for Cote de Beaune reds, particularly Volnay. My tasting with Marquis d'Angerville was exhilirating. Whilst you can not really say for all of the wines that they are better than 2005, I think you can for the Champans, it was simply breathtaking. And as a whole range, from villages upwards, I think they are a hair ahead of 2005. In general the Pinots have the silkiest of textures without losing precision or characteristic varietal bitter-sweetness.

More updates from the Cotes de Nuits on the weekend and over the coming weeks look out for video interviews on the 2009s with some of Burgundy's top growers.

Lucky 8

There has been much speculation that Chateau Mouton Rothschild would commission a Chinese artist to adorn their 2008 label. But, not to be outmanoeuvred by their neighbour, Chateau Lafite Rothschild has announced that their 2008 bottles will all feature the Chinese symbol for the number eight. Lafite, already the darling of the Chinese market has seen the price for the 2008 soar from £9000/cs to £10,400/cs in just a day.

Cynics may be tempted to say Lafite is cashing in with a shameless marketing gimmick, but I’m sure those who bought a case en primeur will not be complaining too much. A spokesperson from Chateau Lafite said that the ‘shape of the symbol seems to offer a perfect representation of the slopes of the vineyard (in the Penglai peninsula) and commemorates the launch of our Chinese wine project’.

First impressions

Whilst in Bordeaux last week, Hew and I had the opportunity to revisit a few wines from 2008, 2009 and even got our first glimpse at a 2010. Starting with 2008, the wines of Chateau Latour displayed real breed. The Forts de Latour was somewhat closed, but there is enormous potential here. The Grand vin was by contrast extraordinarily expressive, open and utterly seductive. We also tasted with Denis Durantou at Chateau Eglise Clinet. His 2008 Eglise Clinet is very smart indeed. Flavours are precise, cool and classy; a very serious wine. Denis’ 2009 is off the scales in terms of richness and concentration. It has fleshed out in barrel and is now the most exotic, most decadent Eglise Clinet we have sampled. There is wave after wave of sumptuous velvety fruit – a truly exceptional wine. Denis then shocked us by asking if we would like to try his 2010. He only finished picking on the 2nd of October and there we were on the 19th tasting the final assemblage... Malos will not finish for some time, but the colour was an incredibly vivid purple and the wine was already displaying great depth of flavour and big structure.

Analytically, the 2010s are off the charts. Sugar levels are exceptionally high, whilst the lack of rain has resulted in tiny berries with thick skins, so we can expect good colours and lots of structure. We look forward to tasting more in April...

Bordeaux UGC - The 2008s

The Bordeaux circus rolled into town today. There was not too much talk of industrial action and petrol supplies running out; we were all gathered to re-taste the fascinating 2008s. Many of the Chateaux are still harvesting their Cabernets and they couldn’t resist telling us about their 2010s; remarkable quality, but tiny yields. Many spoke of the young wines as real contenders to the 2009s, but we shall reserve judgement until April.

Back to the 2008s. When we first tasted these in April 2009, the economic outlook was bleak to say the least. The metrological reports suggested a summer that had been even less glorious than 2007, so, it was fair to say that the prospect of tasting and selling the 2008s was not something we were particularly looking forward to. However, we made the trip and we were pleasantly surprised by many of the results.

Despite the cool August, the best wines had a real concentration, coupled with really precise flavours and good acidities. Not `Classic` meaning bad, but `Classic` meaning good, to steal a phrase from RUN DMC. The economic outlook remained gloomy, so Chateaux such as Angelus, and the 1st growths made the bold decision to release first and at very attractive prices. The market place tentatively bought the top ten or so wines, but it wasn’t until Robert Parker waxed lyrical about the 2008s, that merchants and customers started to by a wider range of Chateaux. The rest as they say is history.

So, how are the wines showing now that they are in bottle? This is not a consistent vintage; we were very picky and we advise customers to be cautious with their purchases too. Yes the best wines are fabulous, but there are some stinkers too. The big question is, has Parker stuck his neck out too far on this one? Many wines achieve similar or better scores in 2008 than they achieved in 2005. 2008 is no 2005, but there are some fine wines. On the basis of today’s tasting, Pontet Canet, Lynch Bages, Pichon Baron, Leoville Poyferre, Beychevelle, Conseillante, Haut Bailly, Domaine de Chevalier, Rauzan Segla and Leoville Barton are all very smart wines and will offer collectors much enjoyment. The biggest surprise is the improvement of the Margaux commune. We were very disappointed by our initial tastings, but many of these wines have improved in barrel. Despite the weakness of sterling, many of these offer very good value (particularly when compared the magical 2009s). Other than the wines mentioned above, there were particularly strong showings from Ormes de Pez, Lafon Rochet and Poujeaux. The dry whites are crisp and classic, whilst the unsung sweeties are delightfully crisp with beautifully precise flavours. There is enough botrytis present, but these are not blockbusters. Guiraud and de Fargues were the richest offerings on show, whilst Climens was the most complete.

All in all, there are some jolly good wines from 2008, and the fact that this is not a 2005 or a 2009 is reflected in the prices. If you pick carefully, 2008 offers some of the best value buys on the market today.

Picking in Piedmont - Harvest is over!

GAME OVER GAME OVER GAME OVER !!!

Yes, we are finally done, we can start breathing again, we are all tired but happy.

We finised picking on Wednesday, it has been a long month. Non stop, no days off, 15-20 hours of work per day, but I can finally say, now that it’s all safe in the cellar, that 2010 will be a GREAT VINTAGE for Piemonte.

So cheer up everyone, excellent results for all the grapes, Dolcetto, Barbera and Nebbiolo, and of course Barolo.

The few rain showers that we had didn’t effect the vineyards nor the quality of the grapes, and even if at the end we were literally running, because we were afraid of mould and infections, we still harvested very good quality grapes.

There are a few more weeks of work in the cellar ahead, pressing, racking, putting the wine into barrels, preparing for malolactic, everything now seems quick and easy, as we no longer need to rush in the vineyards anymore.

All the wines are turning dry easily; becasue we just use our indigenous yeast sometimes the wines tend to remain sweet, but it’s not the case of this year, almost everything is dry now.

This harvest has been an other great experience for all of us, to work close with a very good team makes life much easier, we all worked hard, we were all tired at night and but smiley in the morning...and now we all look forward to the big “harvest crew” dinner that Elio always offers us, and we always make sure he picks the fanciest restaurant in the area, the biggest menu and the nicest wines :-)

See you next year!!

Silvia

Cornas news - Harvest complete.

A further installment from the delightful Matthieu Barret at Domaine du Coulet. It would seem, with the exception of the painfully low yields this year, things are looking good in 2010...

"Hello all,

I was not able to write to you as regularly as I wanted to keep you informed about the harvest in 2010.

We have been cutting grapes for the last three weeks with a small team of 10 people. The harvest is healthy and ripe and over the third week we collected grapes with a very big phenolic maturity. This last week, we harvested the summit of our mountain (which is the base of Billes Noires) and the East hillsides (which is one of the bases of Terrasses du Serre).

I ‘ve decided not to make any “Gore” cuvee but a “big” Billes Noires

in 2010 which will be, in my opinion, a great vintage of elegance and fruit in the spirit of the 2007.

We brought in 11 plots which oscillate between 12.7 and 13.9 % of potential alcohol. The yield per hectare is close to 15 hl which is a little bit frustrating as it is way too low! This is the third vintage in a row, below our technical objectives which are 20 hl / ha (which is not very pretentious…).

This week we shall begin to draw off the first tanks for the first press - always good moments to share.

Our grape-pickers' team made a beautiful sorting with

a lot of precision, which allowed us to vinify almost all the tanks without SO2.

I enclose two or three photos of the grape harvests to make you share these beautiful moments in the life of the estate.

See you soon,

Matthieu"

Viviani awarded 3 Bicchieri in 2011 Gambero Rosso

The Slow Food movement began in 1989 and continues to gather pace around the world as a grass roots, not for profit organisation that promotes and recognises small, locally focussed food and wine producers. In 2010 the organisation joined forces with Italy's most highly esteemed wine publication Gambero Rosso. Together they taste literally thousands of wines each year, including in the review only those wines they deem to be above average. The highest accolade they award is the much coveted Tre Bicchieri (Three Glasses), indicating an "extraordinary wine"

For the 2011 edition, and for the 10th time, our newest listing, the already highly popular Viviani, has been awarded 3 Bicchieri for their stunning Amarone, Casa dei Bepi. Anybody who tasted it at our tasting will surely agree, for their style is quite different to most of the Amarones we had ever tasted before. The key to their production is their situation in the cooler Mazzano zone, right at the highest limits of Valpolicella production with vines at around 450m above sea level. It's a family domaine, tiny in size, run by Claudio and Sandra Viviani. Talking to them you get a sense that their other great wine love it Burgundy, and tasting with them you get a real sense that this love transfers across to the way they produce their Amarones. Delicate, elegant and full of finesse, they are surely some of the leading wines in the appellation.

Picking in Piedmont - Larigi Time!

Finally we are done with the Dolcetto picking, pressing and racking. We have now started barbera and the vineyard we decided to start with is Larigi.

Larigi is one of our oldest vineyards, it was planted by my grandpa Giovanni in 1948, and the vines still look healthy and in good shape...just like baby vines.

The production is always very limited, not just because of the age, also because we do a drastic green harvest in July-August to reduce the yield perhectar.

Since we had a very hot and dry summer, the grapes look really really healthy, in some spots even a little bit dry, they almost look like raisins, which tells us that the plant has been suffering a bit from drought (see pictures below)

The picking is done by hand and it usually takes a while because you have to look carefully at every grape and at every single berry to make sure there are no damages, and if see any, you pull the berry out and you throw it away, but this year we were picking as fast as superman, no need to check, Larigi was perfect!

Plus we had the supervision of Mr. Talin, 85 years old (and pictured below), our oldest but fastest picker of the cru. This is the first time he is not picking because of some health problems, he has been work ing the harvest with us for 70 years and he knows every single vine one by one, I’m sure he has names for all of them!

Once all the grapes have been harvested we took them to the crusher-disteammer, and big surprise: 25,5 brix sugar, this will be an other big juicy wine.

Once Larigi is totally picked, we will move on to our regular barbera vineyards, and then soon, the nebbiolo.

Cornas news - The harvest is under way at Domaine du Coulet

Matthieu Barret, the man in charge of the brilliant Domaine du Coulet, always innovating in a constant effort to improve his techniques, sent us this last week detailing the goings on in the run up to the harvest....

"Saturday the 25/09

It is now three days since the harvest started under a beautiful rising sun and a fairly high temperature for the season. We started with our vines in Cotes du Rhone which will give birth to our small production of Côtes du Rhône "No Wine's Land" very ripe with a nice acidity which should give a good balance to the final wine, generally seductive and elegant.

We followed with the bottom slopes vineyards of Cornas in the "Lieux dits Genale, Mazards and Patronne. We found some spots of "vers de la grappe” - Grape worm that we had to sort rigorously. The harvest seems very promising yet we will have a better idea in a few weeks of the precise level of quality after the first fermentations.

We have improved our system this year with the use now a conveyor belt-elevator to feed the vats by gravity. This is very satisfying for us as it increases the amount of full berries in the vat to enhance the fruit aromas in our wines. The potential alcoholic degrees are quite high as we reach 13,5% approximately which is higher than our average of 13%.

Despite a few problems of equipment badly repaired before harvest by our suppliers which made us loose time and energy, we can say that all is going well for the moment!

We had to stop cutting today as we have a small rain of 10mm which forced us to stop. It shouldn't be a problem for the rest of the harvest regarding the small amount of water we had.

The first juices in vat have a superb and dark color which confirms the high phenolic maturities. We have done no intervention on our vats for the moment to able the intra-cellular fermentation to happen so to gain fruit and elegance and bring this very delicate wine texture that I seek and love over all for the fluidity it confers.

I will be in touch with more news, photos and facts from the harvest 2010 at Domaine du Coulet.

All the best,

Matthieu Barret, Domaine du Coulet"

News from Etna: Harvest 2010

News just in from Marco de Grazia where the Tenuta delle Terre Nere harvest is under way...

"We just picked the best white grapes ever, and are starting with Feudo di
Mezzo. It looks very good to excellent, and could even rival 2008 if the
weather holds, particularly in Calderara.
Ciao,
Marco"

Sounds promising.....

The Burgundian harvest bodes well...

The 2010 Cote de Nuits harvest continues at a pace. Even though harvest had already started in the Cote de Beaune last week, there weren’t many Cotes de Nuits vignerons in their vineyard parcels. The first secateur cuts in the Cotes de Nuits would only have been this weekend just gone. My original assessment of the grapes on Monday 21st gave me reason to think that this will be a good quality vintage. Sugar was there, acidity though still a little marked at the time, has since fallen notably during the last 10 days of beautiful weather. This bodes well for a nice balance between alcohol and acidity in the final wines. The fine weather certainly allowed phenolic maturity to progress considerably in the last week and by the weekend full ripeness had nearly been reached. Now the work really starts...

Silvia Altare, Picking in Piedmont

(this post was written a little over a week ago and due to technical problems with our blogging site we have only just been able to get it posted)

Here we are, back to the crazy days, when heart beats a little faster, finger nails get dirtier and sleeping hours get shorter and shorter! Nothing has changed from last year at the Altare winery, we have the same old…or I should say “expert” pickers in the vineyards, and in the cellar you have me, Tes-san the Japanese super manga hero, Robert the winemaker from Cullen’s in Margaret River and Sorin the Romanian Mr. Fix it and Mr. Reliable...and of course Elio supervising all of us.

We are doing much better with foreign languages this year so much so that we are all experts in swearing and giving orders in each other’s languages. Working for a vintage in a cellar is a cheap and fast way to learn a language; perhaps we should start a new trend and have people coming for free work just to learn the language!

We started picking Dolcetto last week, finally back to the usual time of picking.Yes, we are expecting a great harvest, I know I should talk about harvest only when everything is picked and safe in the cellar, but I cant help it, grapes look amazing, the weather is just how it's supposed to be, the picking crew is all excited, and we are all here ready to work hard to make some good juice! The first pressing we made 2 days after crushing.

Dolcetto literally spends only 2 days in the rotary fermentor, and it’s amazing how much color, tannin and aromas we can get after only 2 short days on the skins. We picked at 21-22 brix, less than usual, but we will finally get a light Dolcetto, exactly as it’s supposed to be.

Getting the juice out the rotary fermentor is easy, but to get the skins and the seeds out and put them in the press, that’s something else! Your hands turn purple and when you are among people there is not hiding that you are a winemaker!! At the same time we were picking the white grapes of Bosco and Albarola in Cinque Terre, Liguria, where Elio has started a little winery a few years ago. It originally started as a hobby, but is now turning into hard work…just what we needed!

We are planning on starting barbera by the end of this the week, in the meantime, so that we don’t loose the’ momentum’ that we have now, we are labelling, doing visits at the winery, delivering, and the most fun, which I get to do, running the office :-(

Harvest News - The pick of the bunch

Drumroll please...

The stage is set and a verdant hush descends over the vineyards of the Northern Hemisphere. Harvest is upon us with it the old world's wine world tenses in collective anticipation at this most heart quickening time of the year. Vintages can be made and lost in the coming weeks when the clemency of the early autumn weather is well and truly put to the test.

So it is with delight that we announce voices old and new to guide us through the trials and tribulations of the various harvests. From the bunch to the blog in the quickest time possible we have...

...from Bordeaux's right bank, the returning voice of Edouard Moueix, providing updates from Providence, one of the stars in their stellar collection of Pomerol estates. New to us year is Maxime Thienpont, son of Luc, giving us the left bank perspective from the vines of our much loved Margaux micro-property Chateau Clos des Quatres Vents. Lovers of Piedmontese wines will be delighed to hear that Buyers' Blog favourite Silvia Altare has kindly agreed to furnish us with more of her delightful reports from the frontvine, while further south Marco de Grazia has agreed to give us updates from the slopes of Mt. Etna and one of our estates of the moment, Tenuta delle Terre Nere. Last and by no means least, the extremely affable August Kesseler has agreed to keep us up to speed on events in the Rheingau.

There are more big names to come so watch this space, it is guaranteed to be something of a harvest festival...

Sheer Montrachet Magic

Its wines may well cost an arm and a leg, but Montrachet or "Le" Montrachet is one very special vineyard. Last night at an informative tasting and dinner with the hugely articulate and congenial Drouhin winemaker, Veronique Drouhin, a group of us tasted some lovely wines, red 2006s from both Cotes, a super Vaudesir Moulin des Vaudons 2008, not to mention a stunning barrel sample of 09 Clos des Mouches white but the star of the show was Montrachet Marquis de Laquiche 2007. Intense rich yet fine, taut and weightless, it totally flooded the senses and just went on and on and on... It does really take you to another level of wine enjoyment, too much of this and almost all other white wine would start to seem very ordinary.

Vincent Pinard upgraded to two stars in the Revue de Vin de France

France's historic Revue du Vin de France has been published monthly since 1929 and is cited by Jancis Robinson as "France's only serious wine magazine". It carries no little weight amongst the wine making and wine drinking fraternity of France. So it is with delight that we announce the entirely deserved upgrading of the Vincent Pinard domaine to a two star estate. The revue goes on to say amongst other glowing praise, that “progress has been more impressive than in any other cellar in Loire’s central vineyards (Sancerre & Pouilly.)”

Sancerre praise indeed...

Would you give someone your last BaRolo?

Not judging by our customers response to the 2006s on Monday. Despite the strike, customers were scrummaging ferociously for a sip of the best La Morra, Serralunga, Monforte and Castiglione Barolos money can buy. This is proving a really classic, structured vintage yet with enough generosity and fruit to allow us an exciting glimpse of even greater things in store. Wines from Gaja, Voerzio(pictured), Altare Scavino and Clerico, to name but a few, must make this tasting of Piedmont's best one of a kind in the UK

Two other highlights were Terre Nere's 2008 Etna Cru wines, arguably their best vintage so far, and a flight of undoubtedly the greatest ever wines to come out of Toro, the 2009 Teso la Monja wines were extraordinary and surely await high critical acclaim.

J&B named IWC Specialist German Wine Merchant of the Year.

The German section of our wine list has long been an area very close to our Chairman's heart. Over the past 30 years his love of German Riesling has been transformed into our extensive listings from the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, The Nahe, Rheingau, Rheinhessen and Franken.

So it was a delight to receive the award for the 2010 Specialist Wine Merchant of the Year. You could say it was just another riesling to be happy...

Doing it in Style...J&B House Red Burgundy featured in the Sunday Times

Both buyer Giles Burke-Gaffney and our house red Burgundy given two thumbs up by Bob Tyrer, Style's weekly wine columnist.



"Ever since a brute called Giles Foster tried to beat me for some schoolboy idiocy - the other prefects stopped him - I've had both a problem with authority and a wariness of Gileses. So it was a delight to come across Giles Burke-Gaffney, who shows no sign of beastliness. Perhaps that's because he has one of the wine trade's best jobs, as buyer for Justerini & Brooks, the royal wine merchants, and certainly one of its best views. From his desk, he looks up St James's Street towards the fleshpots of Mayfair. His Chairman, Hew Blair, sits opposite him with an even better vista down towards St James's Palace (and the black front door of Berry Bros & Rudd, the old rivals). On the day I popped in, the chairman was away, but he had left his dark-blue pinstripe suit neatly folded over his chair, facing our Giles. I swear I caught Giles bowing to it.

Justerini & Brooks has always been a bit of an enigma to me. Its fortunes rest on a popular whisky, J&B, yet the wine end of the business has seemed a bit aloof. When I dared to enter its splendid office as a mere punter a decade or so ago to ask about buying one of its wines, the responses ranged from nonplussed to sniffy. Things have changed, I think. Much of its trade is still with restaurants and traditional private clients, but it has a well-functioning website that, if you ignore the plutocratic bottles and search for JandB House, reveals a gem. Justerini & Brooks red burgundy, a house wine, costs less than £10 yet is much better than the price suggests. Giles won't say who makes it, but hints at an illustrious name who doesn't want to be associated with low prices. If I were the Queen, I'd cancel the Corton (about £500 a bottle) and serve this at my Buckingham Palace banquets with my own salmon or lamb.

I've been trying other cheap house wines from other independant merchants and I'm afraid that, so far, they've all gone down the sink. So, after St James's, it's off to Tesco and Waitrose for two more of the best bargains in the realm." Bob Tyrer, On the Bottle. Sunday Times Style, 05/09 2010