Vintage Red Burgundy Tasting at Wine Watch

Thoughts on the matter: “I like all paintings. I always look at the paintings, good or bad, in barbershops, furniture stores, provincial hotels. I’m like a drinker who needs wine. As long as it is wine, it doesn’t matter which wine.”

Pablo Picasso

Painter

Echezeaux VS Vosnee Romanee AND Richebourg

Vintage Red Burgundy Tasting at Wine Watch

Friday, January 30, 2015

7:00 PM

This Epic Burgundy Battle will take place on January 30th 2015 at Wine Watch and this is one of our “Once in a Lifetime” series of tastings as we have nothing to sell this evening- this is serious research we are doing on vintage wines from Burgundy particularly the villages of Flagny Echezeaux and Vosnee Romanee.

Grand Cru is the highest level in the vineyard classification of Burgundy. There are a total of 550 hectares (1,400 acres) of Grand Cru vineyards - approximately 2% of Burgundy's 28,000 hectares (69,000 acres) of vineyards (excluding Beaujolais) - of which 356 hectares (880 acres) produce red wine and 194 hectares (480 acres) produce white wine. In 2010, 18,670 hectoliters of Burgundy Grand Cru wine was produced, corresponding to 2.5 million bottles, or just over 1.3% of the total wine production of Burgundy.

Tonight we will focus on two of the Villages and two of Grand Cru wines Richebourg  and Echezeaux.  Join us as we experience these two epic wines from legendary vineyards.

Tasting Line-up:

Échezeaux is located within the commune of Flagey-Echézeaux, on a strip of land between the territory of the communes Vosne-Romanée, Vougeot and Chambolle-Musigny. Échezeaux borders on the Clos de Vougeot and its wall as well as Grands Échezeaux in the east, on Chambolle-Musigny vineyards in the north, some Vosne-Romanée vineyards in the west and on the Vosne-Romanée Premier Cru vineyard Les Suchots in the south. The AOC was created in 1937.

Domaine Perdrix Echezeaux Grand Cru 1996

(93-95 Points)  If the wine I tasted out of barrel is bottled without losing its extraordinary fruit and precision (i.e. little fining or filtration), it will be a blockbuster. Dark ruby-colored and exhibiting copious quantities of sweet dark fruits, violets, and traces of minerals, this wine is magnificently defined, elegant, and feminine. An intense, juicy, and fabulously pure core of candied cherries, plums, blueberries, and flowers can be found in this full-bodied, velvety, and admirably long wine. Projected maturity: 2003-2009+. Bravo!   Wine Advocate #118, Aug 1998

Domaine Laurent Echezeaux Grand Cru 1996

(91-95 points) Excellent deep color. Tangy red fruit and spice nose. Intensely flavored and minerally, but quite firm and backward today. A spicy, juicy wine of great class. This may still have a bit of malic acidity. Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar(3/ 1998)

Domaine Dujac Echezeaux Grand Cru 1995

(91 Points)  Dujac's light-colored wines are a testament to how much punch a deceptively shallow-looking Pinot Noir can deliver. The medium ruby-colored Echezeaux displays sweet, plummy fruits in the nose and an extremely refined, silky-textured, violet and cherry-filled, beautifully intense flavor profile. Elegant, this delicate gem should be at its best between 2004-2012. This note is the result of tastings I did in Burgundy between January 7 and January 29.  Wine Advocate #111, Jun 1997

Domaine Dujac Echezeaux Grand Cru 1985

(90 Points) Ascending the ladder of quality, one starts with the light and elegant Echezeaux. This is a great wine, particularly in view of the fact that the vines were only 5 years old at the time of this vintage. Ripe, rich aromas of strawberry and cherry fruit jump from the glass. It is medium bodied with super finesse. This is the earliest maturing wine of the Dujac stable.

This is one of the finest estates in Burgundy. Unfortunately, not everyone in America understands these wines, particularly those restaurants and lazy merchants who are at a loss to explain the positive quality of wines with sandy sediment in the bottle. Seysses will not filter his wines, and after six months to several years, depending on the vintage, a fine sediment will form-a natural occurrence in handmade wines. Such wines are also very vulnerable to heat prostration because they are alive. Perhaps America's fanatical obsession with squeaky-clean, crystal-clear bottles of wines that have had much of their flavor eviscerated by numerous sterile filtrations is why Seysses now only sells 20% of his crop to America. What a tragedy! His 1985s are the finest wines he has made in an already illustrious career, greater even than his glorious 1978s.

One can make no mistake with Dujac's 1985s, provided the importers ship them properly. The trek to the West Coast through the Panama Canal offers great danger for unfiltered wines unless the importers use temperature controlled "reefer" containers.  Burgundy Book, Jan 1990

In his book Cote d'Or published in 1997 Clive Coates writes "Richebourg is undisputably the best of the non-monopoly grands crus of Vosne.  it is fuller fatter, richer, more intense and generous, but more masculine and long-lasting than Tomanee-Saint-Vivant.  At its best it can offer an explosion of flavours; coffee and chocolate when young, violets when mature; all within a cornucopia of ssmall black and red fruits.  I count some Richbourgs among the greatest Burgundies I have ever tasted.  Sumptuous and Camille Rodier more than sixty years ago.  how I agree!

A & F Gros Richebourg Grand Cru 1996

The 8 ha of the Richebourg cru are divided between 10 growers, including Domaine Leroy, Domaine de la Romanée Conti and of course the A & F Gros and Grivot.   Its wines are often described as "voluptuous".

A & F Gros Richebourg Grand Cru 1995

Richebourg is situated within the commune of Vosne-Romanée, and borders La Romanée and Romanée-Conti in the south, Romanée-Saint-Vivant in the east and Vosne-Romanée Premier Cru vineyards in the north and west. The AOC was created in 1936.

Domaine Grivot Richebourg Grand Cru 1988

This plot was acquired by my father, Jean, in 1984 and produces rich, powerful, complex wines with good length on the palate and very good cellaring potential.  it is one of the best plots in Vosne Romanee and Burgundy.

Confuron Vosne Romanee Suchot 1er Cru 1990

Fifty-eight hectares of this village is premier cru, and there are 11 of these. Five of them lie just above the grands crus, six on the same altitude or a little further down the slope.

Les Suchots occupies a flattenned egg sort of mound between Richebourg and Romanée-Saint-Vivant, and Echézeaux, and is the largest of the Vosne-Romanée premiers crus.There are just over 13 hectares. This is the most noble of all the first growths. In the best hands we really do get grand cru quality.

Menu

Selection of Cheese: Goat Cheese, Epoisses, Brie

Strawberry BBQ Grouper with tropical fruit salsa

Beef Bourguignon with epoisses cheese toast points

The fee for this tasting is $295 + Tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463.