Alain Burguet was one of the very first producers I visited in Burgundy back in 1994, consequently it I have a bit of a soft spot for his wines; good job they are consistently top performers! The Mes Favorites (just called Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes back then) is regularly better than his Gevrey Premier Crus and is clearly one of the best village wines on the Cote. Other reviews I’ve posted include [link2post id=”1041″]2005[/link2post], [link2post id=”333″] and 2001[/link2post]. I’ve had the 2002 quite recently (but did not post about it) and it was another pulchritudinous village wine. These are the kind of wines one feels fortunate to buy: they are not expensive, the quality is always very high and they are made by a nice fellow. It always feels good when one buys the produce of nice people.
2003 was a bonkers hot vintage all over Europe and so a lot of wines had much of the refinement baked out of them. This, on the other hand, may be ripe but there is distinct class and style to it. It is a damned good village level wine.
(Note: Sorry if you get told about this post twice, the original post seems to have gone missing from the site.)
[image image_id=”3576″ align=”left” size=”medium”]Gevrey-Chambertin Mes Favorites 2003, Domaine Alain Burguet
The cherry fruit on the nose is ravishingly lovely; it is ripe, but very fresh and bursting with just-picked vivacity. There is also a rich earthiness present which I find distinctly engaging. This is a fruity, complex nose with a definite degree of refinement and élan. A refined 2003, who would have thought it? It is certainly charming the socks off me. The palate has an old vine depth to its fruitiness and a sophisticated interplay between good acidity and a svelte tannic structure. It is impressively long with all its delightful, polished flavours it just slips down a treat. This wine is positively graceful which is far from what one might expect considering how hot the weather was in this vintage. But this is more than a good 2003, it is a damned impressive Burgundy that any Pinotphile should be coloured a florid hue of satisfaction when drinking it. Its manifest charms are really doing that ‘moving aesthetic experience’-thing for me as it clearly punches well above its station as a village wine. A delectable wine of terrific character that is glorious to drink now but it has the harmony to age for a while yet.
