14.5% Beaune, why did I buy this

[Rahsaan]

2020 JC Rateau Beaune Les Bressandes
I very much enjoyed the 2017 Rateau Bressandes earlier this year, so then I decided to buy a few bottles of the 2020. Upon leaving the store, I noticed these 2020 Bressandes are 14.5% alcohol, and I immediately became suspicious!

The initial tastes support that suspicion, as the fruit is dark and veers towards roasted. The texture is super elegant seductive and silky. Very precise. At least that is redeeming. But those flavors! That heat!

With enough air, it starts to get more palatable, and always very elegant. Still, it does not remind me of Burgundy, and blind I might think it was an elegant interpretation of the Rhone.

On general principle, I'll see how this ages, and maybe it improves. But not rushing out to buy more 2020, and will focus on other vintages.

 

[Claude Kolm]

Like 2018, there is a real lack of homogeneity: good wines and bad ones. I won't buy a wine from either vintage unless I have tasted it before and know and like what I'm getting.

2017, OTOH, is a wonderfully fresh, precise vintage, highly underrated.

 

[Oswaldo Costa]

originally posted by Rahsaan:
14.5% Beaune, why did I buy this2020 JC Rateau Beaune Les Bressandes
I very much enjoyed the 2017 Rateau Bressandes earlier this year, so then I decided to buy a few bottles of the 2020. Upon leaving the store, I noticed these 2020 Bressandes are 14.5% alcohol, and I immediately became suspicious!

The initial tastes support that suspicion, as the fruit is dark and veers towards roasted. The texture is super elegant seductive and silky. Very precise. At least that is redeeming. But those flavors! That heat!

With enough air, it starts to get more palatable, and always very elegant. Still, it does not remind me of Burgundy, and blind I might think it was an elegant interpretation of the Rhone.

On general principle, I'll see how this ages, and maybe it improves. But not rushing out to buy more 2020, and will focus on other vintages.

I felt similarly with a recent 2020 Anglore Chemin de la Brune 14.5%. It did not remind me of Anglore. Blind, I would have guessed it to be an elegant interpretation of the Rhone.

The fact that it WAS from the Rhone, as some of you sticklers might take joy in pointing out, is beside the point. The point being that high alcohol is a homogenizer. Together with oak and, dare I say it, carbonic maceration (contradicting my expectation that Anglore taste like Anglore). And flaws. And tertiaries, perhaps.

 

[Rahsaan]

originally posted by Claude Kolm:
Like 2018, there is a real lack of homogeneity: good wines and bad ones. I won't buy a wine from either vintage unless I have tasted it before and know and like what I'm getting.

Agreed. 2018 and 2020 do make me cautious in general with red Burgundy (and some other regions). Although, to be clear, I wasn't saying I won't buy any 2020. I just meant no more of this 2020 Rateau Bressandes.

 

[MLipton]

It’s a bitter irony that when I began buying wine, it was only the occasional vintage in France that was warm enough that producers didn’t have to chaptalize and now it’s only the occasional vintage that’s cool enough to keep alcohol levels down.

Mark Lipton

 

[Marc D]

originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
The point being that high alcohol is a homogenizer. Together with oak and, dare I say it, carbonic maceration (contradicting my expectation that Anglore taste like Anglore). And flaws. And tertiaries, perhaps.

Would you include skin contact white (orange) wines in the homogenizer category?
I think they obscure place most of the time for me.

 

[Oswaldo Costa]

originally posted by Marc D:

originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
The point being that high alcohol is a homogenizer. Together with oak and, dare I say it, carbonic maceration (contradicting my expectation that Anglore taste like Anglore). And flaws. And tertiaries, perhaps.

Would you include skin contact white (orange) wines in the homogenizer category?
I think they obscure place most of the time for me.

Indeed. Even though orange wines vary a lot, the aromas are almost always maceration-related (secondary?) aromas.

 

[Keith Levenberg]

I liked this wine and didn't notice any heat or roasted flavors on it. I would not assume the 14.5% on the label is necessarily accurate. It could have been put there for tariff reasons or it could just be the general shot in the dark that's on their label template every year. Either way, 14.5% is on the high side, but still the high side of normal parameters - there is a lot of Burgundy that reaches that level without being overripe.

 

[Rahsaan]

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
I liked this wine and didn't notice any heat or roasted flavors on it.

Well not roasted in the full-on cooked stewed jammy fruit sense. But inching in that direction!

I do appreciate your optimism and will hope for better things in the future.

 

[Rahsaan]

Opened another bottle of the 2020 Rateau Beaune Bressandes and it was more enjoyable than the bottle from last summer. I like many things about the silky layered texture and the flavors are not as dark, which is good.

But, it is still packing more high-octane punch than I would like and the profile is a bit more extreme than my core Burgundy preferences. Not sure if it will ever age into something different, but my experience of mixed reactions to Rateau continues!