Thoreau Wine Society's blog

A Regal and Historical French Commune: Bourgeuil

Dear Friends of the Thoreau Wine Society,

As we come into this most aromatic time of year, we should be ready for heightened senses, authenticity, complexity and nuance. Where better to find these complements to our busy lives than within the most beautiful wines?

This past year the desire for authenticity has permeated all aspects of my life; and for a time, my existential explorations made it impossible for me to write anything that felt, well, authentic. Luckily, as you've been reading, Bob Millman has carried the flag for the Thoreau Wine Society. Bob is a great mentor to me, a brilliant soul, a teacher of philosophy, an artist and pianist--and, especially, a wine connoisseur I trust thoroughly.

I might mention that for 30 years he runs an incredible tasting group; unlike many others which frankly feel sophomoric, the Executive Wine Seminars is a great place to experience exemplary verticals of exceptional wines (such as an upcoming retrospective of Domaine du Pegau, wow). Please have a glance at the fall schedule: EwsWine.com.

I bring you, as my first offer in many months, a little Bourgeuil--a lovely romantic flower of feminity coupling with grip and depth--a true harmony of both masculine and feminine characteristics coming together to create a complete wine.

Bourgeuil is a commune located in the heart of the Loire Valley, not far from the more famous Chinon, with soils mostly comprised of "Tuff", which is chalky clay and alluvial limestone, ideal for Cabernet Franc. Bertrand Galbrun is a young man I met thanks to a connection with a brilliantly
deranged fellow who handles the vineyard work for a famous Vouvray estate. He absolutely had to show me what made his juices flow in terms of wine-making in the Loire Valley, and his gut lies with the young (i.e. not in years but in inspiration) visionary growers--those that seek, well, I've
said many times, to express 'terroir'; when you nose the glass an unexpected bouquet greets you,  and you think, "What is this all about? Tell me more." I loved Bertrand's wines--because they are part of that 10 percentile of wine at this price that transcends the 'wine-lake' and does something integral.

Bertrand works organically in the vineyards, and without any yeast or enzymes or chapitalization; he only grows the regal Cabernet Franc, resulting in a wine which truly sings a very elegant tune. This wine does every bit as much for lush, delicious, totally washing you over with perfumed red fruit, depth and intensity, as any other well-made wine. But there is more: There is a floral lavender meets nuance meets high romance meets structure, balance, sexy earthiness, meets ... well, you must taste it. Highly wonderful.

Bertrand Galbrun Bourgeuil "Chatrois" (from a parcel of 20-year-old vines)

$19 per bottle

A Sumptuous Beaujolais

Dear Friends of the Vine,

A few weeks ago I tasted a wonderfully delicious Beaujolais Villages from the incomparable 2009
vintage. Many of you probably know that 2009 was a stellar vintage in France for red wine--and nowhere more than in the beautiful villages and vineyards of Beaujolais. The fruit matured into an ideal ripeness, neither over- nor underripe. The wines have structure, fresh acidity and that happy, relaxed richness which exemplifies perfect vineyard conditions. Our suggestion is to buy,
buy, buy the better 2009 Beaujolais. They will drink beautifully for at least 2-3 years.

The wine Mary and I want to recommend is a Beaujolais Villages from a highly regarded estate called Ruet. The domaine dates back to 1926--a relative newcomer by French standards--and has only recently been imported into the USA. Jean-Paul Ruet, the current proprietor, is a stickler
for details both in managing his vineyards and in making the wine. Ruet owns about 52 acres spread among the crus: Morgon, Brouilly, and Regine and of course several of the small villages whose grapes are blended into his Beaujolais Villages. Ruet’s vineyards are mostly south-facing
slopes on granite-rich soils. His vineyard practice is what the French call "Lutte Raisonnée"--which literally means 'reasoned struggle' in French and perhaps best translates into 'sustainable agricultural practices' in English. It is a sort of common-sense organic manner of farming.

Of course, what counts for all of us, in the final analysis, is the experience of a wine. And we can assure you that your experience of this luscious Beaujolais will be as satisfying as was ours.
'Satisfying' is perhaps an under-appreciated term: It signifies both sensual and intellectual pleasure. The best French wines uniquely appeal both to our senses and to our intellect. This is true for relatively humble wines such as Cotes du Rhone or Beaujolais, up to the grandest of Grand Cru Burgundies and Bordeaux.

You will notice in Ruet’s Beaujolais Villages a lovely balance between deep rich fruit and an underlying calm minerality and fine acidity which give the wine its old-world character. Drink a glass all by itself or with a roasted chicken. At this price you might want to buy a case. Pour it blind to some friends. They will never guess that it sells for less than $20.

Bob Millman
Thoreau Wine Society

2009 Domaine Ruet Beaujolais Villages $18.65

The Quality of a Grand Cru White Burgundy at a Village Price

Dear Friends,

Sorry about the long title but I did want to convey what this brilliant white Burgundy will deliver to those who are wise enough to buy the wine. Six months ago or so, Mary wrote up an excellent
Bourgogne Blanc from a small negociant firm, JanotsBos, whose wines had just come to our shores. Mary told the story and I will just give some highlights: This is a partnership between Thierry Janots, a highly regarded vineyard and cellar manager in Meursault, and Richard Bos, a Dutchman who owned Holland’s best wine pub until 2005 when he sold it to come to the object of his vinous passion: Burgundy. Right from the start their goal was to concentrate on white wines. Janots’
many contacts and high reputation have allowed them to buy fruit from excellent growers, from Santenay in the south to Pernand-Vergelesses in the northern limit of the Cote de Beaune. I have now tasted their wines on three separate occasions. Is there a JanotsBos “style”? If that means a characteristic taste and structure evident in all the wines, the answer is no. Rather, each wine tastes of its location--the very point of Burgundy after all.

The wine I want to draw to your attention is the 2008 Pernand-Vergelesses. This is a charming hilly village located between Savigny Les Beaune and the hill of Corton. It boasts nine premier cru
vineyards of which Ile de Vergelesses is the best known. The best white Pernands bear a notable resemblance to the famous Corton Charlemagne vineyards--at one-third the price. The whites from these vineyards are closer in structure and flavor to fine Chablis than to the wine of Meursault and Puligny. The minerality is palpable and the acidity bracing in a properly made Pernand-Vergelesses. The JanotsBos version has these qualities in spades. But it has something else: a density and persistence which gives the wine the distinction of a much more expensive wine from the region. Indeed, the resemblance to a Corton Charlemagne--at $100+ per bottle--is striking. The clarity and purity of the 2008 vintage is captured perfectly. This is an exciting wine which will deliver pleasure for years. This is not a fat, round, rich, creamy Chardonnay. There are few areas in the world that can bring out the ability of Chardonnay to capture the soil in which it is grown. Pernand-Vergelesses is one of those places. You will not taste a better version than the JanotsBos.

Enjoy this brilliant wine with the freshest fish, lobster, scallops and steamed mussels. Throw a couple of ounces of the wine into the pot with mussels; add a knob of butter, minced shallots and sprigs of tarragon. Steam for 4 minutes and serve. You and your mouth will be happy.

Bob Millman

2008 JanotsBos Pernand-Vergelesses Blanc $34.65

A Masterpiece of Minerality

Dear Wine Lovers,

It is sweltering in New York as I write this, and I am still digesting my recent trip to Burgundy (concerning which we will send out a separate email in a week or so). I am thinking about a superb
Chardonnay that I tasted with Mary recently which bested many of the far more expensive whites I tasted during my trip.

The wine comes from one of France’s best white winemakers, Jean Rijckaert, who emigrated from Holland to the Macon in 1990 to work with the legendary, and famously difficult, Jean-Marie Guffens in running an outstanding negociant firm in the Macon called Verget. The best Verget Saint Verans and Pouilly Fuisses, along with Guffens’ own estate-bottled Macons, became the standard by which all other Maconnais wines in the 1990s were measured. It is no exaggeration to say that the best wine from Guffens and Verget quite rivaled all but the best Chardonnays from the Cote de Beaune.

Rijckaert left Verget in 1996 and began to buy vineyards in the Jura--that magical region located at the foot of the Alps, 70 miles due west of the vineyards of Puligny and Chassagne-Montrachet. As TWS readers know, many of the wines in the Jura are made in an oxidative style which has been the tradition there for several hundred years. Rijckaert does not belong to this sensibility. His approach to vineyard management, timing in picking grapes and fermentation reveals a clear understanding of both the fruit dimension of the grapes he works with--principally Chardonnay and Savagnin, the Jura’s indigenous white grape--and the specific mineral character of his several vineyards. A  coruscating acidity--like a current of liquid electricity--runs through his wines, keeping them fresh and vital for years. Rijckaert works with eight different vineyard sites in the Jura, whose complex blend of soils includes blue marne, clay, limestone and sandstone. This is, geologically, a very old region whose vineyards originate from the Jurassic era.

The wine I am recommending, with what amounts to boyish enthusiasm, is Rijckaert’s best Jura: the “En Paradis" Vieille Vignes. Yes, that means 'in paradise' and from old vines. As soon as you taste this fantastic Chardonnay you will experience the aptness of the name. The wine offers a delightful paradox to the senses: It is bone dry yet remarkably rich at the same time. The austerity of the wine's entry flavor is balanced by a density of chewy, ripe minerals which is as difficult to describe as it is engaging to experience. I could compare it to a fine Premier Cru Chablis except that the impression is more precise and refined. The hardest thing about a wine to describe is its
minerality. Fruity, floral, spicy, fungal and herbal essences are easy to put into words. Minerality is about depth and texture rather than specific flavors. The “En Paradis” is a quintessentially mineral
wine. All the fruit and acid serves to highlight that mineral core. One careful taste and you will see this--or should I say 'feel' this clearly. There is not a speck of new oak here. The wine is all about
texture and precision.

The price? Almost embarrassingly low for such quality. Drink the “En Paradis” with a wild fish such as halibut or striped bass. The interaction of sea and soil will make you a happy person. Buy 6 at
this price. This is a wine to be tasted numerous times.

Bob Millman, The Thoreau Wine Society

Domaine Rijckaert Chardonnay "En Paradis" Vieilles Vignes 2008 $23.99

A Barolo-like Cabernet from Piemonte

Dear Thoreauvians,

We offered a delicious Valpolicella from importer Jan D’Amore some months ago. D’Amore--so aptly named--hails from Rome, is tall, handsome, rarely shaven, runs around Italy finding wines he really likes and then sells them, mostly in New York, to thoughtful retailers and restaurants. He recently held a tasting of all his producers for the trade. The star of his admirable portfolio is an old-fashioned does-it-all-himself grower in the Monforte region of Barolo named Flavio Roddolo.

Roddolo assumed complete control of the family estate in the early 1990s. Prior to 1993, the Roddolos sold their grapes to the large negociant houses in Barolo. Flavio stopped that and, instead, estate-bottles all the wine produced at his old-fashioned winery. He is a man from the past who knows very well what he is doing in the present. His estate is all of 15 acres and produces less than 1,700 cases per vintage. Roddolo makes four wines: a Dolcetto; an intense Barbera; an awe-inspiring, uncompromising Barolo; and a tiny quantity--fewer than 1,900 bottles--of the finest Cabernet Sauvignon from Piemonte I have ever tasted. And that includes Angelo Gaja’s
excellent Langhe Cabernet, Darmagi, which sells for three times the price of the Roddolo Cabernet.

 

 

I was so taken by the Roddolo wines that I returned to them 20 minutes after first tasting them to check on my initial experience. Complete confirmation. His wines have great nobility, inner strength and complexity, without any of the excessive ripeness and extraction which have become the rage in so many contemporary Italian (and Spanish) wineries.

What I liked about the impressive Cabernet was that it managed to be faithful both to the inherent flavor and character of good Cabernet and to the essence of the Barolo district. There could be no question of either in the bouquet, flavor and texture of this stunning wine. Dark, leathery and dense, but supported by the ineffable elegance of Piemonte acidity and ripe tannins with not a trace of coarseness, this is the kind of Cabernet which could bring those who have turned away from the over-ripe Cabernet-based wines coming out of California, Washington State and parts of Bordeaux back to Cabernet. Roddolo, not so incidentally, has never used any chemical treatments on his vines
and neither filters nor fines them. All his wines are aged in neutral oak barrels. You can taste Piemonte and Roddolo’s seriousness in every bottle. His wines are clearly a labor of uncom-promising commitment to his precious vines.

Quality like this does not come at low prices. But given the depth and personality of his wines, they are worth every penny. Buy a few bottles. Try one soon and keep the others for 3-5 years. You will be very glad you did. For those of you with access to Robert Parkers’ website (erobertparker.com), there is a simply marvelous account by Antonio Galloni of his visit to Roddolo’s farmhouse during a winter storm.

Bob Millman

2004 Flavio Roddolo Bricco Appiani Cabernet Sauvignon        $69.67

Yves Gangloff Cote Rotie "La Barbarine" 2008

Dear Friends,

I thought to send a short note about the mysterious Yves Gangloff, since I have acquired a small allocation of his legendary wine.

As you drive from Lyon to the south, the first things you see after you cross the Rhone River on that beautiful stretch of autoroute are the looming towers of vineyards directly overhead. Cote Rotie is the home of the Syrah grape and some of the steepest vineyards in the world, at times requiring a harness to get to the bunches. (Maybe the Mosel in Germany is steeper, I have yet to measure). The sun beats down on the Syrah but the wind coming up from the south has a cooling effect so that the grapes stay in balance if picked at their ideal point of maturity. There are no machines here because of the steepness, so you tend to find winemakers of an intense sense of craft, true artisans making spiritual and historical wine. Why else would you brave such heights? I can't think of a Cote Rotie I don't like.

In January there is an excellent wine fair in the town of Ampuis called "Marche aux Vins". It is essentially a gymnasium in which every Condrieu and Cote Rotie producer sets up shop: Ogier, Jasmin, Gerin, everyone. It is a fabulously humble and festive affair. I had heard about Yves Gangloff but it was at this event where I understood just how much people are tuned in to his incredible wine-making: there was an interminable line for the Gangloff table, although he had no wine to sell.

Gangloff is a soulful man, wiry and intense; he is known for his romantic guitar playing, among other artistic ambitions. If you walk  into his atelier in the village of Condrieu, he is immersed in music, sculpture, art, wine--all things transcendental.

These stunning wines are completely etched and delineated--probably the purest and most musical Cote Rotie I've ever tasted. I figure if I'm going to devote my life to the wine business, it might as well be for wine like this:

Cote Rotie "La Barbarine" 2008
(7% Viognier, 93% Syrah - Cote Blonde Fruit) By Josh Raynolds
Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar, Jan/Feb 11
($85) Deep ruby. High-pitched, expressive aromas of cherry, black raspberry, spice cake and violet. Bright and perfumed in the mouth, with a supple texture and alluring flavors of dark berries and candied flowers. A classic cool-climate syrah, finishing with silky tannins and good verve. 90 points

$82 per bottle

Slainte,
Mary

A Superb St. Emilion

Dear Wine Lovers,

The prices of famous-name classified Bordeaux have reached levels which discourage most wine lovers from thinking about this region as a source of wine-drinking pleasure. The truth is that quite aside from the 100 or so highly rated classified Bordeaux from the Medoc, Pomerol and St. Emilion that retail for well in excess of $100 per bottle, there are hundreds of chateaux and small estates in Bordeaux which deliver the uniquely earthy, dark-toned and wonderfully sturdy flavors and chewy texture unique to Bordeaux at decidedly affordable prices.

I recently tasted one such example and decided to bring it to the attention of the astute palates among the TWS readership. The wine is from St. Emilion, by far the most charming town within the Bordeaux region. It is called Chateau Roylland and it is officially classified a Grand Cru. I will not bore you with the details of the French classification system in Bordeaux. Suffice it to say that there are two levels of Grand Cru that are applied to the many properties in St. Emilion: Grand Cru Classe (the very best estates) and Grand Cru (very good properties). Of course there are many properties in St. Emilion that are not ranked Grand Cru, let alone Grand Cru Classe. Be that as it may, the Chateau Roylland Grand Cru I tasted is one which I am recommending wholeheartedly.

Chateau Roylland is situated in the Anse de Mazerat, on the southwest slopes of St. Emilion. The estate has 15 acres of sandy clay soil under vine, resting on a vein of hard iron-rich sandstone; and another 12 acres on the limestone plateau in the commune of St. Christophe des Bardes, with chalky clay soil. The Chateau is surrounded by the vines of one of St. Emilion's most famous, expensive and extraordinary properties: Chateau Angelus. Like its 'mentor', so to speak, Roylland delivers a stunning fragrance of wild flowers and small berry fruits -- which alone make the wine worthy of purchase.

Roylland is 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc and is aged for 18 months in a mixture of 50% new and 50% used barrels. The density of the wine, in which terroir and dark plummy flavors intermingle, can easily handle the oak. I always want length and what I would call a meaty texture in a good Bordeaux. Roylland delivers on both counts. Had I tasted the wine blind and been asked to guess a retail price, I would have chosen a much higher number than the actual price. Highly recommended.

Bob Millman

2006 Chateau Roylland St. Emilion Grand Cru   $24.99
10% discount on cases of 12

The Best of the Cote du Py

Dear Friends,

I've come across a fairly ideal wine for this juncture in the changing weather patterns. We were able to get a small allocation of Jean-Marc Burgaud's Cote du Py Reserve 2008. How lucky we are to work with Burgaud who is arguably among the greatest of the Beaujolais Cru farmers. His vines
in the Cote du Py are upper to mid-slope and thereby in the best positions; he is quite frequently working the soil. I know everyone is in a tizzy over the 09 Beaujolais vintage, but there are some gorgeous surprises coming out of 2008. Jean-Marc's Reserve is aged for an extra year in mature tonneaux -- this depth of fruit is capable of wearing such a robe of more present though mellowed tannins -- I find the wine to be an elegantly lacy and floral red with an abundance of high-toned depth and complexity.

David Schildknecht's Wine Advocate review:

2008 Jean-Marc Burgaud Morgon Cote de Py Reserve
Wine Advocate # 190
Aug 2010        David Schildknecht
91 points

Smoked meat, marine minerality, and Szechuan pepper inflect the ripe but tart black fruits of Burgaud's 2008 Morgon Cote de Py Reserve, a juicy, vibrant bottling exhibiting an invigorating graininess rather than anything remotely resembling the remarkable polish of its 2009 counterpart. That said, this is a lovely wine that will be especially interesting to compare over the next 2-3 years with Burgaud's no less distinguished "regular" Cote de Py bottling.   If there were any doubt that Jean-Marc Burgaud's talents match his considerable ambitions, his 2009s should put them to rest, as few if any finer collections of Beaujolais are likely to have been rendered in this or any other vintage. "They tasted good on the vine, good in the fermenter, good before malo, good after malo, and, so far, good in the bottle. Good balance, fine acidity, perfect maturity, zero grams of unfermented sugar, and alcohol from 13% to 13.5% -- excellent but not excessive," is the way Burgaud laughingly litanizes his results, but the wines are far more colorful -- indeed, exciting -- than that summary suggests. Given their quality and distinctiveness, one has to forgive Burgaud his proliferation of cuvees -- indeed, anybody lucky enough to latch onto a share of his limited bottlings from this vintage will want to profusely thank him! Burgaud elected to give his early bottlings a light filtration -- and was contemplating the same approach for his ("regular") Cote du Py -- because he said he wanted to preserve their vivid fruit, whereas they would have had to stay in barrel through summer to clarify sufficiently on their own. (If there were any ill-effects of that filtration on his early bottlings, I clearly couldn't discern them.) Except for his three rarest cuvees -- aged entirely in demi-muids or barriques -- elevage of each Burgaud wine is spread between tank and demi-muids."

So, there you have it. I would highly recommend decanting this wonderfully wound-up wine, or simply opening the bottle several hours before serving. Will cellar for at least 12 years.

Jean-Marc Burgaud Morgon Cote du Py Reserve 2008
$23.50 per bottle
10% discount on cases of 12

Slainte,

Mary

 

Fait Accompli

Dear Friends,

I'm headed down to DC today to celebrate the accomplishments of my brother-in-law, who is receiving a 'Top-Cop' award for excellence in service as a Detroit police officer on the (oh-so-scary) overnight shift for the last ten years. While it should be a good party 'n all, what we're really celebrating is not only Sean Wall's incredible and selfless participation in the betterment of society, but also the fact that collectively we share in the gifts bestowed by individual strangers -- and most of the time it goes unrealized. I'm thrilled that tonight, for a change, we aren't going to take his and so many others' work for granted.

Segueing into the lovely wine I chose to write about this week ... I have found myself with a small allocation of a miraculous 2007 vintage in the southern Rhone valley -- in this case a slinky and beautiful Vacqueyras made by one of the most charming and selfless families in wine, so much so that their personage has not been 'celebritized' like so many others in wine (although they are directly responsible for advocating the AOC recognition of the appelations Gigondas and
Vacqueyras, which is no small accomplishment).

Roland Gaudin, who happens to be the mayor of Gigondas, while bringing a love of art and music to the people of this region, owns this exceptional independent Domaine, which suceeds mostly by selling wine to their friends and clients in France (whereas most estates sell the majority of their wines to foreign markets). We are therefore so lucky to get some of these wines to you, our friends in the US.

The Domaine du Terme, named after the vineyards there: the Clos du Terme, in the stunning Vaucluse valley, is a series of ancient parcels of Grenache and Syrah planted by our pals, the Romans. M. Gaudin and his daughter Anne-Marie and the winery staff produce everything by
hand, in small quantities. As the Gaudins say, their vineyards are nestled in the "dentelles" of the Montmirail mountain range. Ripe lovely fruit but not too rich and not flabby -- the mistral howls day and night through this part of the Rhone from Chateauneuf du Pape, keeping the grapes energized and cool, while the sun ripens the fruit, making for an energetic perfumed lavender-garrigue wine not lacking in depth, and expressing only the soils from underfoot; (there is no oak used in this cuvee).

 

A nice little write-up from Mr. Robert Parker: "While most of this estate’s holdings are in Gigondas, I tend to prefer their Vacqueyras offerings. The dense ruby/purple-tinged 2007 Vacqueyras (80% Grenache and 20% Syrah aged in neutral oak and tank) exhibits lots of peppery black currant and black raspberry fruit interwoven with notions of licorice and smoke. The beautiful, pure fruit builds incrementally to a full-bodied, rich, fleshy, juicy mouthfeel. There is enough Syrah to provide structure to the intensity of the Grenache. Drink it over the next 3-4 years." 90 points.

Slainte,
Mary

Domaine du Terme Vacqueyras 2007 $22 per bottle

A Fantastic White Burgundy

Dear Friends of Good Wine,

Recently Mary poured me a glass of an estate-bottled Pouilly Fuisse which was so wonderful that I had to re-taste it to make sure that I had not made an error in judgment. Fortunately I had not. I am sure that you all know that 'Pouilly Fuisse' had become one of the most over-consumed and over-produced wines from France in the 1970s and 80s and 90s. Standards were lowered and most of the PFs offered were little better than a Macon Villages. Blessedly, a dozen or so growers
would have nothing to do with this dumbing down of what is after all the best vineyard region within the Macon.

One of those producers is Marie-Pierre Manciat, whose 17-acre estate is located in one of the very best parts of Pouilly Fuisse, the tiny town of Chaintre. Ms. Manciat treats her Chardonnay grapes in the same way as the growers in Meursault and Puligny do: slow fermentation in small oak barrels (but very little new oak), occasional stirring of the lees (the lovely French word for this stirring of the pot is 'batonnage'), bottling only when ready. And it shows. Served blind I would have a hard time resisting the idea that this is a Cote de Beaune Premier Cru with the added note of sunny ripeness. All the flavors and textures we like in white Burgundy are present: white pepper, peach and apple scents interlaced with smoke, toasted brioche and grilled nuts and citrus overtones to balance the richness, and a palate-penetrating density of texture.

Some of the current Pouilly Fuisse growers have succumbed to the tendency to bottle very high-alcohol, rather clumsy--if tasty--wines. Not here. Marie-Pierre’s wines retain their acidity so that all those pleasing nuances are preserved. If I had tasted this gorgeous wine blind and was asked to guess the retail price, I would have said at least $40. And at $40 the wine would not be overpriced. When I saw the price, I had to blink. How does $24 for a superb white Burgundy sound? Almost too good to be true! At this price you can afford a case. You will not get bored with the wine. Drink it once a month for a year--if you can stop yourself from drinking up the case by the end of summer.

Bob Millman

2009 Pouilly Fuisse Les Petites Bruyeres Domaine Marie-Pierre Manciat           $23.85