Henrik Möbitz is in town for a biochemistry conference, but we're not about to let him get away without a wine seminar. Besides, someone has to uphold Boston's reputation as a world class culinary destination, and the conference caterer sure ain't going to.
Laval Cumieres 1er Extra Brut 09
First Laval I've had that didn't have its shoulders up around its ears. It goes too quickly, I look at the dregs of the glass regretting that this was all perfume and no tension and I'm fairly sure I'm wrong, that I was misled by that first sigh of pleasure and my own thirst, and that time and quiet would have made the nerves more prominent.
Möbitz Weissburgunder Kanzel 2014
We poured this blind, but Herr Möbitz sticks his nose in and says, "I think I smell something I know." Incredibly, deceptively good. Texture, clearly a lot of barrel and oxygen, but also something utterly obdurate, something pure of heart. The table is split between white burgundy and "I don't know," but unanimous about this being fine indeed. 24 hours of skin contact after an exacting triage, so exacting it didn't really feel like skin contact at all, and also "maybe I was cleaning the barrels a bit too thoroughly back then."
Dom. du Collier Saumur Blanc La Charpentrie 2015
Guiberteau Saumur Blanc Brézé 2017
Poured together, blind.
The Charpentrie was dark, oxidative, clearly chenin. I don't have a lot of experience with these, but this felt maybe prematurely aged, from the color and the readiness to loll on the floor. The structure was still there, but everything on it sagged more than I'd have guessed for a 9 year old wine.
The Brézé was all lift and linearity, clearly concentrated but somehow more pointed than the Kanzel, stabby rather than poised, but a good kind of stabby, the kind you want to get poked with every day. Clearly young but not angry.
A confounding pairing. Next to the Charpentrie the Brézé tastes like it was raised in steel, which of course it isn't.
Möbitz Spätburgunder Koepfle 2010
Hudelot-Noellat Vosne 1er Suchots 2009
These made me very, very happy. Apparently the Koepfle, (like all of Möbitz's spätburgunder?) was made with a strain of pinot noir with tiny berries and tiny bunches, much smaller than the predominant clones in Burgundy. It's tightly woven and exuberant and has that inquisitive little lift at the end that I always get from Spätburgunder and I wish I could get this by the case but I can't. Beaune in the Baden.
The Suchots is darker and the 09 sweetness is integrated and there's a fistful of loam and it's not trying to impress me the way many Nuits burgundies seem to want to do, which is exactly the right approach. It just stands there in its muddy boots with blackberry juice running down its chin. On the basis of this and the last H-N, I'd start rooting around for every 09 burg in the cellar.
Togni Cab Sauv 2005
The last time I smelled something like this from California it might have been a Bedrock Zin, and the time before that was probably Forlorn Hope Suspiro del Moro. Floral floral floral, not like a perfumier's, more like a florist's after Valentine's, when they've been walking on petals all day. Deep purple, not primary but not that secondary, clearly a bruiser but not ungainly, all that flesh and alcohol holding together reasonably well.
Laval Cumieres 1er Extra Brut 09
First Laval I've had that didn't have its shoulders up around its ears. It goes too quickly, I look at the dregs of the glass regretting that this was all perfume and no tension and I'm fairly sure I'm wrong, that I was misled by that first sigh of pleasure and my own thirst, and that time and quiet would have made the nerves more prominent.
Möbitz Weissburgunder Kanzel 2014
We poured this blind, but Herr Möbitz sticks his nose in and says, "I think I smell something I know." Incredibly, deceptively good. Texture, clearly a lot of barrel and oxygen, but also something utterly obdurate, something pure of heart. The table is split between white burgundy and "I don't know," but unanimous about this being fine indeed. 24 hours of skin contact after an exacting triage, so exacting it didn't really feel like skin contact at all, and also "maybe I was cleaning the barrels a bit too thoroughly back then."
Dom. du Collier Saumur Blanc La Charpentrie 2015
Guiberteau Saumur Blanc Brézé 2017
Poured together, blind.
The Charpentrie was dark, oxidative, clearly chenin. I don't have a lot of experience with these, but this felt maybe prematurely aged, from the color and the readiness to loll on the floor. The structure was still there, but everything on it sagged more than I'd have guessed for a 9 year old wine.
The Brézé was all lift and linearity, clearly concentrated but somehow more pointed than the Kanzel, stabby rather than poised, but a good kind of stabby, the kind you want to get poked with every day. Clearly young but not angry.
A confounding pairing. Next to the Charpentrie the Brézé tastes like it was raised in steel, which of course it isn't.
Möbitz Spätburgunder Koepfle 2010
Hudelot-Noellat Vosne 1er Suchots 2009
These made me very, very happy. Apparently the Koepfle, (like all of Möbitz's spätburgunder?) was made with a strain of pinot noir with tiny berries and tiny bunches, much smaller than the predominant clones in Burgundy. It's tightly woven and exuberant and has that inquisitive little lift at the end that I always get from Spätburgunder and I wish I could get this by the case but I can't. Beaune in the Baden.
The Suchots is darker and the 09 sweetness is integrated and there's a fistful of loam and it's not trying to impress me the way many Nuits burgundies seem to want to do, which is exactly the right approach. It just stands there in its muddy boots with blackberry juice running down its chin. On the basis of this and the last H-N, I'd start rooting around for every 09 burg in the cellar.
Togni Cab Sauv 2005
The last time I smelled something like this from California it might have been a Bedrock Zin, and the time before that was probably Forlorn Hope Suspiro del Moro. Floral floral floral, not like a perfumier's, more like a florist's after Valentine's, when they've been walking on petals all day. Deep purple, not primary but not that secondary, clearly a bruiser but not ungainly, all that flesh and alcohol holding together reasonably well.
