1985 Vintage Burgundy Tasting at Wine Watch

1985 Vintage Burgundy Tasting at Wine Watch

Thursday, October 13th

7pm

1985 Krug Vintage Brut Champagne

Price: $825.00    Sale Price: $695.00

Quantity in Stock: 13

(97 points)  Animated and fresh, this is exotic on the nose and palate, with a finely woven tapestry of ground ginger, chamomile, pineapple pâte de fruit, grilled nut and biscuit flavors. Refined in texture and persistent on the long, truffle-laced finish. (12/2014) Wine Spectator

1985 Domaine Terregelesses Aloxe Corton Clos de la Boulotte

Price: $95.00    Sale Price: $75.00

Quantity in Stock: 7

1985 Domaine Marquis d'Angerville Champans Volnay Premier Cru

Price: $365.00    Sale Price: $295.00

Quantity in Stock: 6

1985 Jaboulet Vercherre Pommard Clos de la Commarain Premier Cru

Price: $145.00    Sale Price: $110.00

Quantity in Stock: 5

1985 Domaine Courcel Pommard Grand Clos des Epenots

Price: $209.00    Sale Price: $175.00

Quantity in Stock: 3

1985 Domaine Albert Morot Beaune les Cent Vignes Premier Cru

 Price: $95.00    Sale Price: $75.00

Quantity in Stock: 7

1985 Bouchard Pere et Fils Beune Greves L'Enfant Jesus

Price: $175.00    Your Price: $140.00

Quantity in Stock: 3

1985 Domaine Guyon Vosne-Romanee

Price: $95.00    Sale Price: $75.00

Quantity in Stock: 2

1985 Maison Leroy Nuits St. Georges La Richemone

 Price: $325.00    Your Price: $286

Quantity in Stock: 1

1985 Faiveley Clos Vougeot Grand Cru

Price: $195.00    Your Price: $171.60

Quantity in Stock: 1

Menu

Selection of Cheese: Epoisses, Chevre and Triple Crème Brie

Beef Bourguignon

There are only 14 seats available for this tasting; the fee is $175 per person + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463.  Please let us know when you make your reservation if you don’t eat beef and we are happy to accommodate you.

1985 Red Burgundy Vintage Report by Clive Coats:

The 1985 vintage represents a watershed in the vinous history of Burgundy. Prior to this date, by and large, growers made wine, merchants bought it, assembled several parcels, where appropriate, and sold it. Subsequently, more and more domaines started to mature, bottle and market the wines themselves. Meanwhile many merchants had seized the opportunity to increase their own estates, so that, particularly at the top end, they were more or less self-sufficient. Back in the 1970s, and earlier, there were barely a couple of dozen growers or so – one thinks of Rousseau, Dujac, the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Gouges, Lafarge and Leflaive - who did not sell in bulk. Many of today's super-stars only bottled a token quantity, and were unknown even to the most perspicacious merchant or journalist.

The emergence of these new domaines transformed Burgundy. Within a very short space of time almost everyone who had grand cru and many who had good premier cru was bottling as much as they could themselves. There was the question of cash-flow of course. If you sold to a merchant you were paid in full by the time of the subsequent vintage. If you sold in bottle you did not receive the money until some two and a half years later, after bottling 18 months after the harvest and eventual shipping in the winter after that. So one could not, unless otherwise financed, move from selling in bulk to selling in bottle over-night. I remember the late, lamented Philippe Engel explaining to me that the transformation chez lui had taken ten years.

The process was encouraged by the locals on the spot. Burgundy is a generous wine region. Most growers are on very good terms with their neighbours and only too happy to help out if there is a problem. Naturally, the very best have a queue of potential buyers waiting to step in if one of the regular customers falls by the way-side. What could be more natural for the much-solicited important domaine proprietor than to recommend a hitherto unknown young neighbour who was looking for business. If he or she was a cousin or an in-law so much the better.

Moreover, quality was improving, and by leaps and bounds. The best growers had been to the Viti in Beaune and subsequently to the University at Dijon. Many went off to do a stage in California or Australia, or somewhere else in France. Tasting each others' wines with your neighbours became common-place. Firstly the fact of selling your wine under your own label compelled you not to cut corners, which you might have been tempted to do if you were merely selling off in bulk. Tasting your wine alongside those of your friends and reading a critique of it in some wine review would soon teach you if you were producing top quality or not. Secondly techniques of viticulture and viniculture had become more and more sophisticated. There was a return to ploughing and the elimination of herbicides and pesticides. There was rather more consideration to the size of the crop. And lastly the introduction of the sorting table: the greatest contribution to the rise of quality of all. Today everyone has aa sorting table. The first I saw was a the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti when I was making a video in 1987. Finally, after a disappointing run of vintages in the 1970s and early 1980s, 1985 ushered in a series of high quality years which has continued to this day. Burgundy has not had a bad vintage since 1984. Thirty years.

The consequence of all this is that it is increasingly difficult for everyone, not just the outside journalist, to keep pace. Every year there are new domaines, worthy of investigation, and waiting to be discovered. In 1985 I visited some six domaines in Gevry, four in Morey and Chambolle and perhaps eight in Vosne. Today I'd have to visit 25 in Gevrey, and so on. A marathon I no longer have the energy for. I am very lucky to have been on the spot at the time and to have lived through what was an exciting time in Burgundy. Now, with some relief, I am more or less retired.

But back to 1985. The 1985 growing season began with a bout of really savage frost. Fears were raised, particularly in Chablis, that the crop would be negligible as a result. Happily these proved groundless (in fact Chablis produced more in 1985 than in 1984). There was nevertheless some damage, and in Gevrey and other villages of the Côte d'Or as well as in Chablis, ensuring that in some cases several premiers crus would eventually have to be vinified together as there was not enough potential wine for them to be attended to separately.

Following the cold winter the spring and early summer passed without mishap. The flowering was a little late, but on those vines not affected by the frost a perfectly satisfactory crop of flowers set into fruit. May, June and july were avearge, but then from the beginning of August a perfect fin de saison set in. August and September were almost entirely dry, and if the earlier month was only averagely warm, the latter month was really quite hot. This transformed the vintage from something uneven, behind-hand and unpromising to something ripe, uniform, healthy and concentrated.

The collection of the fruit began in the last week of September. It was an easy harvest: no rain, no vinification problems, and no lack, it seemed, of either bunches of fruit or juice. At the Domaine Armand Rousseau in Gevrey-Chambertin 25 pickers were employed for six days. In 1986 it would requite 50 for 12.

Despite the fears at the beginning of the year, the size of the crop turned out quite substantial: 220,000 hectolitres in the Côte d'Or (excluding generics); similar to 1983, less than the prolific 1982, but much more than the short 1984.

Tasting the 1985s during the course of 1986 was a pleasurable and not too exhausting experience. The wines had good colour, there was plenty of volume without any aggressive tannins, and engaging fruit, finely balanced by the acidity. I enjoyed myself.

But as my tasting sessions continued one doubt started to nag at the back of my mind. Were the wines too easy? Was there enough backbone to ensure that they would last? It was obvious that in some cases there had been an excess crop. And as a result these wines lacked concentration. But these were rarities. It was the overall picture which raised the question of how well the 1985s would hold up.

However, as time went on, and I sampled the 1985s in bottle – at three years old and at my ten year on tasting, particularly - it became clear that the majority of the best 1985s, especially at premier, let alone at grand cru level, were equal to the demand that they should last. One professional colleague, prior to the ten year on stint, said that in his view the worst had cracked up already and the best were by no means ready. This was indeed the case, but the more forward examples, village wines for the most part, were delicious nevertheless.

Today the vintage is thirty years old. It would be unfair to demand that they had all held up. But on the basis on the tasting whose notes follow, a surprising number still show a lot of vigour. And, moreover, the quality is very high. I would not suggest you looking for these wines at auction, for in most cases one has no idea how they have been stored. But should you be fortunate to still have some bottles – or if you have generous and well-endowed friends – you are in for a treat.

Take from Clive Coates Web page:

http://www.clive-coates.com/tastings/vintage/1985-burgundy-red