Recent drinking round up! - whites

G has been making a good stab at keeping the Premier Cru Project going, so over the past few weeks we've notched up a few more.

This St Aubin 1er cru le Champlot 2014 from Sylvain Langoureau was a nice pale gold colour and had a classic St Aubin nose, lemony with a hint of toast. It had a nice weight and was refreshing with good acidity. The finish improved as time went on and developed a tingle of its own, reminiscent of gooseberry. We had it with a Thai chicken and mushroom stir fry which worked well. Described as entirely satisfactory, we gave it a solid 8. 

 

On to two Puligny 1er crus, both 2014s, both from Drouhin. A few days ago I made my trademark Parmesan crisps (wonderfully easy recipe - put teaspoons of grated parmesan on a baking sheet, bake for 5 minutes at 200C) to go with the Clos de la Garenne, a very small vineyard near Folatieres. This was a beautiful colour, with that Puligny mushroom thing going on on the nose, and rich and full on the palate. Our favourable first impression gradually receded somewhat as we failed to detect any great complexity which was surprising for a wine at this level. Other commentators had given it very good reviews but we assume they must have drunk it young, so maybe it hadn't lived up to its early promise. It did go well with our fish soup and in the end it managed an 8 but I think we'd hoped for more.

 

We had this 1er cru Champ Gain from the same producer and the same year back in July. In the absence of a notebook I made brief notes on my phone, but it's interesting to compare with the other one. It had the mushroomy thing again and a certain waxiness on the nose. On the palate, it had a lovely weight and was crisp and typique, elegant and polished with a great finish. G detected lemon peel but felt that the oak was slightly intrusive and thus it was awarded a 9. This vineyard is a bigger one up towards Blagny, which may explain why we liked it.

And finally, to Chablis where I've been getting through supplies of this 1er cru Montmains 2011 from La Maison Romane. This has been a real pleasure to drink. It looked amazing in the glass, and on the nose G detected lemon verbena while I got a hint of lemon curd. On the palate, it was dry yet rich and fully mature, with a nutty note on the finish. It reminded us of a premier cru Chassagne rather than a Chablis, and became more honeyed over time. We gave this a high 9 and made a note to drink my one remaining bottle in the near future. 

Stuff out of storage

One of the drawbacks of living in a postage stamp-sized studio flat boutique penthouse in zone 1 is that there's not much space for one's personal wine cellar. Some get round this by storing their wine at the rural parental residence, but I find it easier to use the storage facility at Locke-King Vaults. My wine lives in a WWII air raid shelter until I decide that the joyous day has come and it can be taken out of storage.

It all runs very smoothly right up to the point where the delivery man encounters the porter of my building who 99.9% of the time makes a giant fuss about doing his job i.e. taking in parcels. Fortunately, last Friday I had a random day off work so when the porter decided to ring me at 7.45 a.m. I was able to don a hasty dressing gown and take delivery of my three boxes.

First up was a case of this Morgon 2009 from Domaine Boulon. 2009 was a very good year for Beaujolais and this certainly hit the spot. Drinking now but with no rush, it was top notch Morgon and went very well with our Breakfast Pig sausages from Turner and George. It will see me comfortably through the winter, and at £90 in bond equates to a fully-paid up bottle price of £11.40 plus storage and delivery costs, making it excellent value. I'm looking forward to trying the very special Cuvee Pauline from the same producer, but based on this, I should probably wait a couple of years.

Then there was a six-pack of this white St-Aubin 1er cru Les Frionnes from Latour-Labille. This cost £120 for six, so worked out at £26.40 a bottle all paid up, not including storage and delivery. It was pale gold in colour and looked very nice in the glass. I got lemon and vanilla on the nose and G found that it reminded him of Leflaive Bourgogne Blanc, praise indeed. On the palate it was precise and classy, with enough grip to work well with G's signature lamb biryani. Again it was drinking now but there's no rush, although I doubt it will hang around. All in all, I was delighted with it and we thought it was probably about as good a St-Aubin as you're likely to find. We gave it a 9 on the Premier Cru Project scale.

The third wine was this Volnay 2005 from Comte Armand which I'd been looking forward to getting my hands on. I believe this came from Berry Bros back in the day. I bought a case, but on the stock sheet it turned out to be two six-packs, so I was able to get one of them out and leave the other in. We decanted it for 2 hours. It certainly looked the part, both the bottle and the wine which was a dark purple colour and very glossy. On the palate, it was very polished and we thought it was competing in the premier cru league. My case cost £180 in bond making it £20.40 a bottle all paid-up (excluding storage and delivery) but this was certainly £30 if not £40 wine.

However, if I'm honest, I found it a little on the "international" side rather than reflecting Burgundian terroir. Perhaps I've been spoiled by drinking far more expressive Volnays from Vincent Perrin. I found this wine quite hard-going, one of those wines where one glass would be enough. Still, we heroically persisted, and as we approached the end of the bottle it seemed to improve, and developed notes of black cherry. Perhaps it just went better with cheese. I think I'll tuck it away for a while and give it 3 hours in the decanter in future. At least the other six pack is still in storage and it can stay there for a few more years!

Saint-Aubin 1er cru La Chateniere 2007, Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey

Talk about a double-barrelled title!

I brought this back from Burgundy a couple of years ago and the trusty premier cru project spreadsheet informs me that I got it from the fabulous Mon Millesime for 26 euros. It then went to G's cellar in Rutland to be put out of the way for a while. We decided it was time to give it a whirl a few nights ago. It was in a big heavy bottle which seems to be one of these newfangled things that are made of special UV-resistant glass. It also had a wax seal, usually a good sign.

It was a lovely light gold colour and fresh and lemony on the nose = code for being too cold, as it was just out of the fridge. The palate had good body and elements of honeysuckle, elderflower and lemon sorbet. All in all, it was very precise and delightful and ranked 9/10.

I did some homework afterwards to find out more about M. Colin-Morey and see that Jancis has written him up in the past. He makes wines right up to the top level, so this seems to be confirmation of the rule that the lower wines of good producers can be excellent value.

St-Aubin 1er cru Sur Gamay 2006, Francois d'Allaines

After a couple of interesting St-Aubins a few months ago which made me think this might be a village I could get into, sadly this one was a disappointment.

We decanted it half an hour before drinking, and it looked nice enough. On the nose it was not very exciting and on the palate I have said "quite nice, pleasant but undistinguished". There was nothing wrong with it, but it just didn't do much for us and G felt that it lacked definition. We gave it a 7. At one point G suggested downgrading it to a 6 but I felt that would be unfair.

It came from the Wine Society and cost £23. Ouch. Consulting the trusty spreadsheet, I see that back in 2008 we had a 2004 St-Aubin En Remilly from the same producer, which also received a 7 and received the comment "should be £15 not £20!" I don't think I'll be rushing to buy any more wines from this domaine in future.

St-Aubin 1er cru Le Charmois 2005

On Sunday I discovered a St-Aubin 1er cru Le Charmois 2005 lurking on my wine rack, which we thought might go well with the pork rillettes/terrine thing we were having for dinner.

It was made by Michel Picard and came from the Wine Society, part of their "Exhibition" range. We decanted it just before we drank it and you can see what a beautiful golden colour it was. The nose had a lot of honey, and the palate was rich and nutty, like a village Meursault, a style I like very much. This was interesting because the previous St-Aubin we had, the Derriere Chez Edouard, was more Puligny in style. I don't know if the difference is due to village, producer or vineyard - clearly further research is necessary!

We felt this was drinking at its peak now and wouldn't improve with age. We toyed with giving it a 9 but in the end settled for a high 8. I'm not sure how much it cost, but the 2006 is £19 so I expect this was similar. I'm getting the impression that St-Aubin is offering wines at around the £20 mark which would cost more like £30 if they came from Meursault or Puligny. Filing all this away for future reference...

St-Aubin 1er cru Derriere Chez Edouard 2007

I picked up this St-Aubin by Domaine Sylvain Langoureau from the shop in Puligny back in September 2008 and it had been lurking on my wine rack ever since, causing me great anxiety since conditions in my flat are not ideal for long-term storage.

G and I decided it was time to put it out of its misery so we had it with some roast chicken last night. Or rather, I had it with some roast chicken, as it turned out that G had been mindlessly snacking downstairs and wasn't very hungry. Tchah.

It was a beautiful pale gold colour, with hints of green. Although very cold, the nose was citrussy. The palate was a real shock - it was a seriously classy, elegant wine, the sort of wine that makes me wonder why I don't drink more white Burgundy. It was close to a Puligny in style, only to be expected as when we got the map out we saw that St Aubin is just up the hill from Puligny. I used to get St Aubin confused with St Romain, but am now vowing to mend my ways. In fact the wine it reminded us most of was the Domaine Leflaive Bourgogne Blanc 2002 - high praise indeed. We gave it 9 out of 10 for premier cru project purposes.

Best of all: it cost 19 euros, so an absolute steal. I'll be looking out for it again next time I'm in Puligny...