Will Anyone Else be Attending the Allen Meadows Vosne-Romane Master Class this Summer?

J

Joe Dressner

Joe Dressner
Alice Feiring's blog recommended this five day seminar in Burgundy and I'm signing right up.

Anyone else going?

Vosne-Romane Master Class

Yes, the wines from Vosne have become expensive but at their best they are among the most exquisite wines of the world. How can you really know them without going there, meeting the growers and seeing the vines?

This is just such an opportunity.
 
i would be there with you, but the robb report is having a 'there is no recession, cigars and caviar with rush limbaugh' week that i simply must attend...
 
According to the Inflation Calculator (at WestEgg.com), that meal would cost over $15,000 in Year 2007 dollars. That is a lot of ortolans.

Anyway, about the BH event... I say, "Bully!" for the people who spend their $35,000 doing a little self-education. There are, in fact, worse ways to spend it.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
According to the Inflation Calculator (at WestEgg.com), that meal would cost over $15,000 in Year 2007 dollars. That is a lot of ortolans.

Anyway, about the BH event... I say, "Bully!" for the people who spend their $35,000 doing a little self-education. There are, in fact, worse ways to spend it.
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In defense of Clairborne, he only paid $300 for both his and Frenay's meal. According to the Inflation Calculator at WestEgg.com that's $1,144.23.

They had 10 courses and nine wines. So, it was still a reasonable deal in comparison with the Vosne festival.

I'm also for self-education. The New School comes in a lot cheaper.
 
I'd love to attend Allan's Vosne seminar but it falls on the same weekend that the town of Nuits-St-Georges is staging their biennial caged freestyle, no-holds-barred wrestling match between the Gouges and Chevillon families to decide which is the dominant producer in the appellation. The smart money this year is on Gouges to triumph, partly as an hommage to Pierre Gouges (who retired at the completion of the 2008 vintage and his long tenure as president of the local vigneron's group) but because he's been working out a lot lately and will be in better shape to lead the Gouges family forces into attack against the marginally younger Chevillon clan.

It's been my experience that the fact that Nuits lacks a Grand Cru vineyard tends to make its citizens fiercer wrestlers, as if they have something to prove. Further fuel was heaped onto the fire when word got back to the town elders of Allen Meadow's recent statement: "Les St George is certainly worthy of Grand Cru status, inasmuch as its grapes produce wines that are at least as good as most second-tier Clos Vougeot." So (I interject), just where would that leave Vaucrains? "Even the worst Vaucrains is still better than pretty high level Fixin"? And what of Les Cailles? "Cailles is usually darker than Marsannay." I fear that this line of thought could go on until the lesser Cru are being compared to Beaujolais vineyards or Central Otago pinot noir.

It was difficult securing a ticket to watch the battle for Nuits supremacy (I know someone with tenuous connections at Lupe-Cholet) and as much as I'd like to learn about Vosne-Romane from Allen, I think that the hierarchy there has already been decided, whereas in Nuits-St-Georges there's an opportunity to witness history being made.

-Eden (besides, it's usually easier to find a parking space in NSG than it is in VR, given the relative size of the towns)
 
originally posted by Eden Mylunsch:
I'd love to attend Allan's Vosne seminar but it falls on the same weekend that the town of Nuits-St-Georges is staging their biennial caged freestyle, no-holds-barred wrestling match between the Gouges and Chevillon families to decide which is the dominant producer in the appellation.
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You should tape the thing for later theatrical release. A working title could be "Friday Nuits Lights."

Mark Lipton
(Anything for a quick buck)
 
I'll be attending the Sacramento Tent City Thunderbird Tasting that same week. You think the community could schedule these things better.
 
originally posted by maureen:
so, edenhas was the gouges tasting?
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I attended the Sunday tasting and Allen spent most of the time dealing with the history of the domaine, viticultural practices, and the history of the AOC system in Burgundy. He just sort of let us work through the wines without any guidance or commentary (I heard that he was much more focussed on the wines during the Saturday seminar).

Standouts were the 1970 Pruliers that looked like old Barolo in the glass and seemed fragile when first poured but picked up weight and power as it aired out. This surprised everyone (particularly Meadows), given that it was from a non-legendary vintage. There was some bottle variation between the three that were opened but it wasn't a large difference.

The 2003 NSG Blanc La Perrier was magnificent. It was a little sweeter than the wine usually is but it was served at an appropriate temperature and showed a lot of complex stone fruit 'n' cinnamon flavors. Pierre Gouges recommends aging the blanc for about ten years.

We had two from the '90s, a 1993 NSG Les St Georges and a 1999 Vaucrains. The former was the "better" wine, but the latter was more fun to drink last weekend. Both have a lot of years ahead of them, although if you have any in the cellar and are thirsty, you could do a lot worse. The 2002s were quite tight, the 2001 Les St Georges was elegant but might be categorized as "stereotypical Gouges" in that it's not very evolved right now. The 2005s poured over the weekend showed much better than I'd expected. Not sure if it was due to phases of the moon being in the right place or what, but they were great but oh so young. Same thing with the 2006s- once again, Les St Georges was the star of the lineup but they're still very primary and kind of grainy.

The consistent note through all of these wines was the sense of iron on the palate. This is likely due to a combination of soil and the massal selections in the various vineyards they farm more than any particular winemaking style. The other thing that became apparent is that the Gouges wines are not particularly good choices for people who like to make snapshot assessments of a wine - all changed perceptively in the glass over the two hours of the seminar, offering different faces at different times.

-Eden (and don't get me started about the 1990 Clos de Porrets-St Georges Blanc we had with dinner at Campanile the other night)
 
originally posted by Eden Mylunsch: The consistent note through all of these wines was the sense of iron on the palate. This is likely due to a combination of soil and the massal selections in the various vineyards they farm more than any particular winemaking style.
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I've certainly enjoyed that profile from the Gouges wines I've tasted.

If it's not winemaking style, how would you compare it to other Nuits producers? Do they have less iron because of different soil?
 
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