2006 Pavelot Pernand-Vergelesses Les Vergelesses

So, intrigued by the wood and color of the 06 Vergelesses, I picked up a bottle of the 08 Savingy Villages. Maybe it benefited from reduced expectations, but it was more satisfying:

2008 Jean-Marc Pavelot Savigny-les-Beaune 13.0%
Still too dark for (my conception of) PN. Attractive metallic cherry aroma. Zippy acidity, no trace of wood, light tannins. More pinosity than the 06 Vergelesses. Despite the color, not overly concentrated. Very pleasant; bottle downed with alacrity. Not as pleasing as a recent 07 Jean-Marc Boillot Bourgogne, but still a very good drink.
 
Oswaldo, perhaps it is a vintage characteristic, rather than a maker characteristic, that you do not like? Have you had any other 2006 Burgundies?
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
In honor of my planned city friends, met and unmet, tonight we opened a bottle of 2006 Jean-Marc Pavelot Pernand Vergelesses 1er Cru Vergelesses 13.0%. Locally sourced, to my faction, both stupe and satis.

Deep and lovely cherry. Nothing more, but who needs it, when one true thing delivers like a hole in one. Fine balance, clear acidity, pleasantly bitter finish. But, lurking in the cracks, a light oaky note. Lactic, like Foradori yogurt. Alas, these lipids increased with temperature.

Your scribe must be going through a biodynamically heightened quercophobic misalignment, because that smidgen of oak was sufficient to impede full agreement with the above encomiums. That and the color, dark, redolent of modernity’s evil intent. Perhaps a decade will bring out its true colors - a lighter shade of pale - and show its way to be less milky. But tonight the excellence seemed planned, and the demise smelled of L'Enfanticide. But you are not to trust me, since Maureen has forgotten more about Burgundy than I have ever remembered.
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Perhaps you should consider the context in which I drank the wine (in which case the fact that I was more pleased with it than you were and didn't find intruding oak notes might be more understandable):

1. I was participating in a service where one was repeatedly called upon to praise the fruit of the vine and drink a glass; and

2. The Pavelot wine was preceded by a Mortet wine.
 
Indeed, Maureen, context is everything...

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Oswaldo, perhaps it is a vintage characteristic, rather than a maker characteristic, that you do not like? Have you had any other 2006 Burgundies?
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I was under the impression that 06 was more variable than most, with less obvious vintage characteristics than 05, 04 (perhaps) and 03. True that a recent 06 Henri Boillot Volnay 1er Cru Les Chevrets had some of the same "problems" (but with less qualities). A year and a half ago, a Moillard Beaune Epenottes 1er Cru and Vosne-Romanée Beaux Monts 1er Cru were still too tight to judge.

Have a solitary bottle of 06 Denis Bachelet Bourgogne, maybe I should put that to the test.

ps: 06 Lafarge Chenes from barrel was the highlight of a 2008 trip to Burgundy, when I tasted many 06s from barrel, but that's too early...
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
I was under the impression that 06 was more variable than most, with less obvious vintage characteristics than 05, 04 (perhaps) and 03. True that a recent 06 Henri Boillot Volnay 1er Cru Les Chevrets had some of the same "problems" (but with less qualities). A year and a half ago, a Moillard Beaune Epenottes 1er Cru and Vosne-Romanée Beaux Monts 1er Cru were still too tight to judge.

Have a solitary bottle of 06 Denis Bachelet Bourgogne, maybe I should put that to the test.

ps: 06 Lafarge Chenes from barrel was the highlight of a 2008 trip to Burgundy, when I tasted many 06s from barrel, but that's too early...
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Yes, '06 for me was a year of great variability, even within one stable of wines. I've tended to like the lighter-bodied wines from that year, but a Pavelot SlB should fit the bill quite nicely.

Mark Lipton
 
I've had a few 06s from Savigny and Auxey, and they have been hard and charmless in a similar, consistent way - though in Bize and Lafouge - at least - I could see the prospect of something interesting down the road.

Claude has written, iirc, that he found 06 often superior to 05 in some of the Cote de Nuits.
 
Thanks for the response, Oswaldo. It sounds like maybe there is something to it.

originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Have a solitary bottle of 06 Denis Bachelet Bourgogne, maybe I should put that to the test.
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I liked one a few months ago.
 
originally posted by MLipton:

Yes, '06 for me was a year of great variability, even within one stable of wines.
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It was ? Where ?

sure you don't have that last digit in the vintage upside down by chance ? ~)
 
So, egged on by Jeff's fine experience, we took home a pair of bavettes and played a minuet with our bottle of 2006 Denis Bachelet Bourgogne 12.5%. It smelled of little round red fruits and smoked meat. Delicious acidity, good balance, but the finish was awkwardly marred by OTT astringency. Marcia said it tasted like stems were heavily included in the recipe. And so it seemed, rather heavy handed, in our bottle. The bavette paired very well and, while it lasted, absorbed the astringency. Perhaps most important, from the data gathering pov, there was no sense of the wood or excessive concentration that I didn't love in the Pavelot and Henri Boillot. As far as these parameters, quite a different animal.

Speculation corner: perhaps the degree of stem inclusion was an attempt to make up for something missing in 06, and that attempt, so difficult to gauge precisely, backfired. But Burghound quotes Bachelet as saying that 06 was an easy vintage for him, with "good sugars at between 12 and 12.5%, which means that there was almost no chaptalization as I never want alcohols much above that." What, the guy chaptalizes? And "we" still support him? Shame on us! What, a lot of people that "we" support also chaptalize? What, if we stopped supporting everyone that chaptalizes, there would be few producers left to drink? What?
 
originally posted by Jay Miller:
originally posted by .sasha:
originally posted by MLipton:

Yes, '06 for me was a year of great variability, even within one stable of wines.
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It was ? Where ?

sure you don't have that last digit in the vintage upside down by chance ? ~)
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d'Angerville for one.
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I have no doubt. But you really think the vintage has anything to do with that? Certainly wasn't my impression.
 
I don't think Denis Bachelet includes stems; at least not in the 2006.

I'm sure you know this - chapitalization in Burgundy is common (depending on the vintage of course) and not offensive, per se.
 
originally posted by maureen:
I don't think Denis Bachelet includes stems; at least not in the 2006.

I'm sure you know this - chapitalization in Burgundy is common (depending on the vintage of course) and not offensive, per se.
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Yes, unfortunately it's common wherever the climate is cooler, just as acidification is common wherever the climate is warmer. But I'd rather find enjoyable wines that avoid both, so I don't like reading about an attitude to the practice as cavalier as Bachelet's. Though at least he's honest about it.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by maureen:
I don't think Denis Bachelet includes stems; at least not in the 2006.

I'm sure you know this - chapitalization in Burgundy is common (depending on the vintage of course) and not offensive, per se.
Click to expand...

Yes, unfortunately it's common wherever the climate is cooler, just as acidification is common wherever the climate is warmer. But I'd rather find enjoyable wines that avoid both, so I don't like reading about an attitude to the practice as cavalier as Bachelet's. Though at least he's honest about it.
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There are about 5 people in Burgundy that never chapitalize.

So don't drink Burgundy.
 
originally posted by VLM:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by maureen:
I don't think Denis Bachelet includes stems; at least not in the 2006.

I'm sure you know this - chapitalization in Burgundy is common (depending on the vintage of course) and not offensive, per se.
Click to expand...

Yes, unfortunately it's common wherever the climate is cooler, just as acidification is common wherever the climate is warmer. But I'd rather find enjoyable wines that avoid both, so I don't like reading about an attitude to the practice as cavalier as Bachelet's. Though at least he's honest about it.
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There are about 5 people in Burgundy that never chapitalize.

So don't drink Burgundy.
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Hmm, give me the list and I'll give them preference.
 
Chave.jpg
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by maureen:
I don't think Denis Bachelet includes stems; at least not in the 2006.

I'm sure you know this - chapitalization in Burgundy is common (depending on the vintage of course) and not offensive, per se.
Click to expand...

Yes, unfortunately it's common wherever the climate is cooler, just as acidification is common wherever the climate is warmer. But I'd rather find enjoyable wines that avoid both, so I don't like reading about an attitude to the practice as cavalier as Bachelet's. Though at least he's honest about it.
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you know, they mostly do it to get the additional complexity from extending fermentation, not to achieve an abv number.

but consider that the potential for complexity is there, chaptalization does not create it, obviously
 
I'm pretty sure Kermit, in his section on Burgundy, refers to chaptilization without undue expressions of dismay (but maybe I'm thinking of Beaujolais). Isn't the climate in Burgundy historically less sunny than in the Rhone valley, so it's typically been harder to rely on harvest timing year-in and year-out to ensure adequate body for the wine?

Anyway, personally, I would trust Bachelet to approach the matter with discretion and respect.
 
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