Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
In recent days, I have had two different white burgundies. One let me down, relative to my first impressions of it; the other was a cool, weird experience.
2006 Pacalet Saint-Aubin 1er Cru "Murgers de Dents de Chien" - had this a month or so ago and found it truly outstanding; pure, precise detailing; flippant use of a bit of old oak and low sulfur; lush lemon curdiness over a hard mineral frame. Flash forward to a couple of days ago and I'm shaking my head as this wine in my glass is so... flabby, imprecise, with some residual sugar and just too much opulence.
2004 J.-Cl. Rateau Bourgogne blanc - get a load of that color; it looks almost like forty-year-old chenin. Deep yellow verging on amber. But the nose shows nothing of the oxidation it looks like it should herald. In fact, the wine has just become a deeper, more complexified thing, with lots of great biscuit, citrus, walnut, and butter, with maybe a wilted white flower or two. I've had this four times in the past year and a half, and this was not the least experience. It's clearly heading fast for the cliff-edge, but I seem to have caught it on the fly and not the fall, which is pretty gratifying.
2006 Pacalet Saint-Aubin 1er Cru "Murgers de Dents de Chien" - had this a month or so ago and found it truly outstanding; pure, precise detailing; flippant use of a bit of old oak and low sulfur; lush lemon curdiness over a hard mineral frame. Flash forward to a couple of days ago and I'm shaking my head as this wine in my glass is so... flabby, imprecise, with some residual sugar and just too much opulence.
2004 J.-Cl. Rateau Bourgogne blanc - get a load of that color; it looks almost like forty-year-old chenin. Deep yellow verging on amber. But the nose shows nothing of the oxidation it looks like it should herald. In fact, the wine has just become a deeper, more complexified thing, with lots of great biscuit, citrus, walnut, and butter, with maybe a wilted white flower or two. I've had this four times in the past year and a half, and this was not the least experience. It's clearly heading fast for the cliff-edge, but I seem to have caught it on the fly and not the fall, which is pretty gratifying.