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Peter Creasey

Peter Creasey
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. . . . . Pete
 
Wow, special occasion? Seems like you kicked it up a notch, or two or three. Post some impressions on the La Tache. I feel these are drunk so rarely nowadays, at least by those who might appreciate them as more than a Veblen good, that there is almost a responsibility to record what they're like for posterity's sake.
 
Keith, the La Tache was my wine-of-the-night...one of the few selections I felt comfortable getting a repour of (given how many wines there were). Perfectly in its drinking zone with no discernible drawbacks. Great now or well down the road. Perrine Fenal was on hand presenting this trophy.

My favoritism for La Tache only won by a gnats eyelash over both Batards.

. . . . . Pete
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Wow, special occasion? Seems like you kicked it up a notch, or two or three. Post some impressions on the La Tache. I feel these are drunk so rarely nowadays, at least by those who might appreciate them as more than a Veblen good, that there is almost a responsibility to record what they're like for posterity's sake.
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I remember I got into a discussion with someone on the other board that Dujac Malconsort was a comparable equivalent to La Tache because Dujac uses 100% new oak, uses whole clusters, and its plots were close enough to La Tache.

I'm slightly skeptical at that take (my only experience with La Tache was just another level to most of my red wine drinking experience, but I really don't have enough experience with either to confirm or deny that take).

FWIW, a friend of mine had 2010 (and 2009) La Tache a couple of months ago and he said he preferred it a great deal more than a 1996 La Tache he had over the holidays last year. He didn't go into great detail with me, though I got an impression he doesn't really love very high acid vintages like '96 and '08, so it may be a palate preference on his part.
 
originally posted by Yule Kim:

I remember I got into a discussion with someone on the other board that Dujac Malconsort was a comparable equivalent to La Tache because Dujac uses 100% new oak, uses whole clusters, and its plots were close enough to La Tache.
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There's a lot more than just looking at a two-dimensional map. La T“che is really very different overall than the plots Dujac owns when one looks at/walks the vineyards, not to mention differences in vegetal material and other aspects.
 
"Equivalent" might be overstating things but Dujac Malconsorts is dynamite wine and probably my favorite of the numerous contenders in the "La Tache neighbor" beauty pageant. Certainly better than all the various Gaudichots, and more consistent than Montille Christiane. For less $$, though not the steal it used to be, Grivot Boudots often pulls off a similar effect.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
"Equivalent" might be overstating things but Dujac Malconsorts is dynamite wine and probably my favorite of the numerous contenders in the "La Tache neighbor" beauty pageant. Certainly better than all the various Gaudichots, and more consistent than Montille Christiane. For less $$, though not the steal it used to be, Grivot Boudots often pulls off a similar effect.
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You'll get no argument from me on the quality of Dujac's Malconsorts. But it's Malconsorts, a terroir that is very different from what people think of as Vosne, and more like what they think of as Nuits in its tannic structure. Malconsorts is one of the slowest climats to reach full maturity and often can be closed when young. In contrast, La T“che is notable, along with Grands-Echézeaux, as one of the two DRC red grand crus that are most forward when young. La T“che also is notable for its spiciness which is not a feature of Malconsorts.

As for Boudots, it is the inverse of Malconsorts with a tannic structure that resembles what people think of as Vosne rather than Nuits and also often a "Vosne spiciness" that one doesn't find in Malconsorts. Some years ago, we did a blind tasting of a number of Malconsorts and an equal number of Boudots, and it was quite easy to tell the two apart.
 
originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:
is it true that la tache remains consistently 100% new oak/whole cluster, whereas malconsorts is variable with respect to both?
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Yes and yes. The variation in amount of whole cluster and new oak is across the board at Dujac from one vintage to the next, although the range of variability isn't all that large. But it's not like Jacques's time when all the wines were pretty much all whole cluster and all new oak (although not high toast -- he used all new oak to assure sanitary conditions, not for taste).
 
Malconsorts indeed has the most rugged tannin in Vosne, but that doesn't make it Nuits-like - there are, after all, many Nuits with super-refined tannin. The best Malconsorts (once given enough time, or, conversely, caught early enough) have the spice character in spades. I vividly remember managing to snag the '05 Christiane off a restaurant list and the aroma from 10 feet away as the somm was decanting was like someone had just opened a Cinnabon franchise and we spent the whole dinner noses buried in the very ample Reidel Sommelier glasses. Anyway, IMHO I find Boudots in general far more like Vosne than Malconsorts is like Nuits, but it does admittedly vary wine by wine.

And of course being like Vosne isn't the same as being like La Tache. It takes a special alignment of the stars to pull off the latter. But I'd probably put my chips on the Dujac before anything else. (Maybe Christiane - my experience with more recent vintages after the already-high price doubled is spotty.) I've got a lot of bottles behind me (including a whole lot of mediocre Gaudichots) running these experiments as it was an obsession of mine for a number of years - probably a stupid experiment in retrospect as I could have scored a few bottles of La Tache for what I paid searching for half-convincing imposters.

Reminds me I do still have some promising candidates cellared though. Maybe worth a dinner at some point. Sadly I have no LT.
 
I'd be interested in your impressions of the Arlaud wines,Pete-plenty of people like them but over the last twenty years or more I have found the wines just too sweet and easy for my taste. I am guessing that the 93 Bouchard Corton was quite the opposite of that!
 
originally posted by Tom Blach: I'd be interested in your impressions of the Arlaud wines,Pete-plenty of people like them but over the last twenty years or more I have found the wines just too sweet and easy for my taste. I am guessing that the 93 Bouchard Corton was quite the opposite of that!
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Tom, I didn't take notes so, as you can imagine, some of the less impressive wines (to me, at least, comparatively) don't stand out in detail in my mind. However, having said that, the Arlaud Clos de la Roche '15 was memorable in a general way -- preferable to me over the Clos St Denis '16. Impressively showing its grand cru colors, delicious, refined backbone, good for some more years of development. Maybe "easy" works but I don't recall any "sweet" nuances.

And, yes, the Bouchard Corton '93 was quite enjoyable...my pour was a level of enjoyment above the '17. Surprisingly, the '93 was noticeably darker than the '17 so I wonder if my '17 pour was representative. As you suggest, the Bouchard Cortons (the '93 at least) showed more firmness in structure and body than the Arlauds.

I would be quite pleased to have more of the Arlauds and the Bouchards anytime.

. . . . . Pete
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Malconsorts indeed has the most rugged tannin in Vosne, but that doesn't make it Nuits-like - there are, after all, many Nuits with super-refined tannin. The best Malconsorts (once given enough time, or, conversely, caught early enough) have the spice character in spades. I vividly remember managing to snag the '05 Christiane off a restaurant list and the aroma from 10 feet away as the somm was decanting was like someone had just opened a Cinnabon franchise and we spent the whole dinner noses buried in the very ample Reidel Sommelier glasses. Anyway, IMHO I find Boudots in general far more like Vosne than Malconsorts is like Nuits, but it does admittedly vary wine by wine.

And of course being like Vosne isn't the same as being like La Tache. It takes a special alignment of the stars to pull off the latter. But I'd probably put my chips on the Dujac before anything else. (Maybe Christiane - my experience with more recent vintages after the already-high price doubled is spotty.) I've got a lot of bottles behind me (including a whole lot of mediocre Gaudichots) running these experiments as it was an obsession of mine for a number of years - probably a stupid experiment in retrospect as I could have scored a few bottles of La Tache for what I paid searching for half-convincing imposters.

Reminds me I do still have some promising candidates cellared though. Maybe worth a dinner at some point. Sadly I have no LT.
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2005 was the first year for de Montille with the Christiane. I suspect the cinnamon that you got was the fancy oak treatment. But even so, Christiane comes from a plot of Malconsorts that is an enclave in La T“che and so arguably different from the rest of Malconsorts.

I did not say that Malconsorts was like Nuits -- for me that is a ridiculous statement because Nuits is so diverse, dividing into three major regions. What I said is "what [most people] think of as Nuits" -- because they have a simplified and thus misleading impression of what Nuits wines are, especially for wines on the northern slope.
 
originally posted by Tom Blach:
I'd be interested in your impressions of the Arlaud wines,Pete-plenty of people like them but over the last twenty years or more I have found the wines just too sweet and easy for my taste. I am guessing that the 93 Bouchard Corton was quite the opposite of that!
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Arlaud leaves me cold, too, but there are people whose palates I respect who think highly of the wines.
 
originally posted by Peter Creasey:

originally posted by Tom Blach: I'd be interested in your impressions of the Arlaud wines,Pete-plenty of people like them but over the last twenty years or more I have found the wines just too sweet and easy for my taste. I am guessing that the 93 Bouchard Corton was quite the opposite of that!
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Tom, I didn't take notes so, as you can imagine, some of the less impressive wines (to me, at least, comparatively) don't stand out in detail in my mind. However, having said that, the Arlaud Clos de la Roche '15 was memorable in a general way -- preferable to me over the Clos St Denis '16. Impressively showing its grand cru colors, delicious, refined backbone, good for some more years of development. Maybe "easy" works but I don't recall any "sweet" nuances.

And, yes, the Bouchard Corton '93 was quite enjoyable...my pour was a level of enjoyment above the '17. Surprisingly, the '93 was noticeably darker than the '17 so I wonder if my '17 pour was representative. As you suggest, the Bouchard Cortons (the '93 at least) showed more firmness in structure and body than the Arlauds.

I would be quite pleased to have more of the Arlauds and the Bouchards anytime.

. . . . . Pete
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Relying on my memory and not on my notes, 1993 Bouchard Corton was impressive from early on. The 1993s are dark because the skins were so thick that vintage, which is what saved the wines from the rain at harvest, to the surprise of producers such as Hubert de Montille and Jacques d'Angerville who told me in October 1993 that they were thinking of selling everything in 1993 off to negociants (and they wound up making spectacular wines).

Also without checking my notes, it's possible that there were some whole clusters in the 2017 Corton and none in the 1993; the whole clusters would lighten the color.
 
Interesting, Claude. And consistent with my recollection of not detecting any problems in the aroma/taste profile of the 2017.

Thanks for good info.

. . . . . Pete
 
funny, i've always associated cinnamon with stems rather than oak in red burgundy

that said, i am sure that oak treatment-induced cinnamon exists and that i have in fact tasted it - except in such cases i'd expect to be achieving escape velocity on a radial trajectory away from stemware [likely passed by keith in the process]
 
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