I am currently changing antipsychotic medication. This requires tapering down the dose of the evil, rejected antipsychotic and then slowly increasing the dose of the new, fantastic medication. Currently, I am taking the lowest dose of the rejected antipsychotic and have only one more day at this level before starting something more useful. This means I am floridly psychotic and having a pissingly shit time.
I had a terrible headache earlier and I could feel each whack as people banged red hot nails through my skull. When the headache went the top of my skull felt all broken and shattered. I keep seeing people with enormous carving knives hanging about in doorways in the flat. What is particularly nasty is when I am having a shower, one of these unsavoury fellows starts to open the shower door and puts his huge carving knives through the gap.
So things are pretty shitty at Elitistreview Towers. So when the editor suggested we open a bottle of wine to lift our spirits, I felt perturbed by his use of the word ‘spirits’ given what I have seen lurking in the corners of rooms when it is dark; but his use of the word ‘wine’ charged me with enthusiasm.
Terroir is made in the winery, wags often quip – so will this be Nuits Saint-Georges de chez Volnay? Let us pop and investigate!
Nuits Saint-Georges Premier Cru aux Thorey 2012, Domaine de Montille
Now, I mean this in the least pejorative, most positive way one can use this word about a wine: it smells delightfully pretty. And what could possibly be wrong with that. It is light, perfumed, elegant – so pretty!
There is the merest hint of new oak on the nose, which surprised me a bit, but it doesn’t take anything away from the sheer, god-damn attractive nature of the nose.
There is a hint of green leafiness to the nose as well. This is something I often associate with Nuits wines. So whilst the rest of the nose is doing that elegant Volnay thing, this green hint would be your blind-tasting wild card as guessing the correct origin.
Indeed, there is one arse-load of things going on with this nose, all of which are nicer than arses. It is bashing about your nasal passages with its complexity whilst you are charmed by so much that is ‘just tits out for the boys’-attractive – I get the feeling I am sniffing and snorting greatness.
Oh yes, I am! The palate is incredibly involute in structure. It is not very tannic, but those ripe, silky tannins coupled with present but far from scary acidity levels. The structure is just perfectly poised.
Then you add to that the hedonistically charming, but not over-stated beauty of the fruit, and you know you have a cracker on you hands; well, in your mouth, ideally. It is simply fantastic and shows why we drink and treasure red Burgundy as a special, almost magical, bevvie.
Now it may be the fact that I am ragingly psychotic, but this wine feels like a living entity to me. It is, of course! It has changed in our glasses and in the bottle over the two hours we’ve been slowly sipping this. Moreover, it will evolve, change, and improve if you keep it in your cellar. I would suggest 10 years as a starting point, and where to end? My chum Tom says wines like this age forever – and he is bloody well right.
2012 is a vintage I have a fondness for – the wines do not seem to have closed down, and I would wager they never will. So you win on two counts if you have some I your cellar: you and age it as long as you like and it will always be showing well.
The view of greatness and pleasure this wine have shown to me make both incredibly happy to drink a truly great Burgundy and also deeply sad that fine wines like this move further and further out of the price bracket I can afford. And no, I am not interested in drinking the largely shit, cheaper appellations, I demand greatness. The question is, how do I get it? Buggered if I know…
An immensely thirst provoking note, David, and this wine is only very expensive rather than the current norm for decent appellations of obscenely unaffordable.
If we both survive another forty years we should have a crack at some of my Thomas-Moillard bottles from this vineyard but it seems to me extremely unlikely that they will be ready.
I accept your invitation! I’ll only be 82 in 40 years time so I think some mature, beautiful Nuits would be just what I need!
I rather think if someone were to ask me for a recommendation for a bottle of Burgundy that was not outrageously expensive, that was still very good, and would age well, I think I would doing them such an incredible service recommending this it would be worthy of recompense!
By arse, this was truly incredible, delicious now but with a long and glorious future ahead of it. And, as you say, merely expensive rather than obscenely over-priced.