The initial idea of tonight’s little tasting was to expand our knowledge of Gevrey-Chambertin villages-level wines. One of the two was so utterly horrible I felt it insulted our guest, so a better wine was popped.
Gevrey-Chambertin 2001, Domaine Maume
Very pale in colour. A reasonably attractive nose of strawberry fruit, but not that much else is there. Some people rave about this producer so I was hoping for a bit more on the aromatic fireworks front. The palate is utterly disgusting. There is bugger all fruit and no charm. The tannins are harsh and bitter, and there are quite mind-buggering amounts of acidity present. There is no harmony to this palate, it just revolts the sensibilities of the lover of proper Burgundy. Thin, acrid and horrible. The nice-ish fruit on the nose is this wine’s only positive feature, the palate is just filth. We gave this a serious swirl in the decanter in the hope it would become less tough, but the balance was never there. Avoid, and have strong words with Mr Maume if you should be unfortunate enough to meet him.
Gevrey-Chambertin ‘Mes Favourites’ 2001, Alain Burguet
Now this smells like proper Burgundy: bold and fruity with a great depth of character. There is clearly quite a lot of concentration present on this nose, a real old vines personality here. The palate has a very pleasing tannic structure: for sure it is quite tannic, but those tannins are rather ripe and silky. There is plenty of fruit here to keep you smiling and, whilst it is concentrated and powerful, it doesn’t lack elegance. This is a really serious village level wine which dishes out a lot of pleasure. Yum.
Chambolle-Musigny 2007, G. Roumier
This nose throbs with charm and loveliness. The fruit is just sex-tastic and there is a pronounced minerality to it. It is still bursting with youthful attractiveness. Yeah, this is another damned-good village wine. The palate is silky and svelte with really refined tannins, perfectly balanced acidity and tits-out fruit. For a village wine there is plenty of complexity and real style. All of those lovely, harmonious flavours persist on the finish for a long time and when they finally fade you just want to drink more. This is clearly a very good vintage for Roumier Chambolle and we are really enjoying it. Not necessarily better than the Burguet, it is a different wine, but it does provide a minging load of enjoyment.
As I thought about Christophe Roumier’s Chambolle 2007 I suddenly recalled a post on a wine discussion board. It claimed that all 2007 red Burgundy is undrinkably bad. This assertion is what we call ‘a load of sweaty tests’. It may not be the very best of vintages, but some of them really hit that lovely spot.
When I tasted the 07s out of cask Christophe Roumier’s wines were spell-bindingly good; my chum Jeremy admitted he thought they were even better than his 07s. When we tried them out of bottle Christophe’s were still brilliant, but during their elevage the Dujac’s had improved to be at least as good, some of them being amazingly stellar entities of total beauty.
Not really so surprising that Roumier and Dujac made wines that are the cat’s arse. No surprise that I also enjoyed (and purchased) wine from Freddy Mugnier (his Musigny was sex on a stick and I am very happy to own some of his beautiful, elegant Nuits 1er Clos de la Marechale) and Domaine de Lambrays. Cyprien Arlaud made some quite lovely wines; he is a top source of quality Morey and doesn’t charge the earth for them.
There have been some other 07s I’ve enjoyed but didn’t taste from cask. I thought de Montille made some quite beautiful wines, I purchased their Clos Vougeot which I found pleasingly refined for the appellation. The Chevillon Nuits 1er crus I’ve been lucky enough to try all struck me as being rather desirable. Finally, Lignier-Michelot 07s were quite attractive and worth looking out for (if you don’t mind a bit of oak).
I am sure there are plenty of other good 2007 red Burgundies, but these are the ones I’ve tried and have no hesitation recommending. If, dear reader, you know of any that we should all be on the look out for, do post a comment.