TN: Pernot, Krug, Olga Raffault

J

Jayson Cohen

Jayson Cohen
Had a few nice wines out at dinner last night.

1993 Paul Pernot Puligny-Montrachet Folatieres. Whiskey barrel and tight at first. Needs a good amount of air (probably should have decanted) but starts rocking after an hour. A great young bottle. My only one. Orangey creme brûlée, airy lemon curd, a whiff of mint and anise seed. Rich but precise and fresh nose. A wine packed with extract from end-to-end, still highly structured with a long acidic minerally tail. A Premier Cru white Burg that really delivers. So good.

1996 Krug. Pours generously served gratis by the restaurant. Rye toast aromas. Another packed but precise wine on the palate. It’s drinking. Long lemony finish. Surprisingly elegant. Seriously great champagne.

1989 Olga Raffault Chinon Picasses. A great bottle of this fabulous Chinon. Really strong varietal nose can only be from one place but mellows slightly with air. And underneath is intense cherry creamy flavors echoed in the mouth, rich and juicy and long. Keeps you coming back for more. Terrific with red meat. Although the nose gives it away, from the mouthfeel and flavors, and the fruit of the 1989 vintage, this could easily be mistaken blind for a traditionally made Right Bank star, and for me that’s unique to this vintage for Olga Picasses. Still a long life ahead but wow.

1978 La Lagune. Corked. Got worse with air but at first in the midpalate and finish I get strong cherry tobacco flavors. Looking forward to tasting an intact bottle sometime soon from a friend who has more.
 
WD is back!

I've always really loved the 1993 vintage for white Burgundy. Haven't had any Pernot that I can recall, but my other (limited) experiences have been uniformly positive.

I stopped buying Raffault and focused my Chinon buying on Baudry. I did that with most producers in my cellar. My top 5 producers account for 37% of my cellar (one of whom is Baudry). I guess you kind of have to go one way or another and lately I've been buying from vignerons that weren't represented previously so that 37% isn't the same density as before. I've found it really rewarding to follow wines over the vintages and those vintages over the years, so I bought depth rather than breadth. Do others follow my strategy or do you find a less focused approach more rewarding?
 
originally posted by Jayson Cohen:

1993 Paul Pernot Puligny-Montrachet Folatieres. A great young bottle.
Click to expand...

I know wines can age for many decades, but is 24 really young for white Burgundy these days? I thought premox was a ticking time bomb from the moment they are bottled.

originally posted by VLM:
I've found it really rewarding to follow wines over the vintages and those vintages over the years, so I bought depth rather than breadth. Do others follow my strategy or do you find a less focused approach more rewarding?
Click to expand...

Moving to your hinterland region of the world forced me out of the over-abundant choice I had become accustomed to in the big cities. And one positive side effect is that it encouraged me to narrow my range of producers, which I find infinitely more rewarding. Every glass/bottle is a snapshot and it's much harder to appreciate when you have a limited view.
 
I’m pretty much done buying wine, full stop, but like you, I focus when I dabble. On Baudry in Chinon. Not every year. A few 2014s. Other examples are Juge in N. Rhône (resisting Benetiere somehow) and the affordable MSR stars you know and love. Another category is old Bordeaux at auction - cherry picks.

Where I lose focus is things that are “new” to me when I can’t resist. Or maybe it’s just a new focus. This year, a bit of Rollin and Falkenstein. But I recently resisted Lafouge, also a potential new source for me. Resistance is not futile when you have kids, and your 10-year old wants an iPhone on his birthday (today).
 
originally posted by VLM:
WD is back!

I've always really loved the 1993 vintage for white Burgundy. Haven't had any Pernot that I can recall, but my other (limited) experiences have been uniformly positive.

I stopped buying Raffault and focused my Chinon buying on Baudry. I did that with most producers in my cellar. My top 5 producers account for 37% of my cellar (one of whom is Baudry). I guess you kind of have to go one way or another and lately I've been buying from vignerons that weren't represented previously so that 37% isn't the same density as before. I've found it really rewarding to follow wines over the vintages and those vintages over the years, so I bought depth rather than breadth. Do others follow my strategy or do you find a less focused approach more rewarding?
Click to expand...

I take a bifurcated approach. For producers and regions I know well, I'll buy deeply (for me), but I also continue to explore new (for me) producers and regions by buying widely and shallowly. So, my Beaujolais purchases are clustered around a few key producers, as also my Loire and N Rhone purchases are. In Germany and Burgundy I continue to explore by buying limited quantities of a number of different producers and then try to sort them out for my tastes.

Mark Lipton
(who continues to buy both Baudry and Raffault but who no longer buys Clos Rougeard)
 
By young I mean still in an upswing but drinking. Maybe it’s better to say adolescent. But as a middle aged man, I consider adolescence young.

No premox that I know about in 1993. 1993s are turning out to be classic wines. Lots of stuffing and nuance. And fresh.
 
originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
By young I mean still in an upswing but drinking...
No premox that I know about in 1993. 1993s are turning out to be classic wines. Lots of stuffing and nuance. And fresh.
Click to expand...

Fair enough.

I don't follow all the twists and turns of premox. I just used it as further justification to pay even less attention to white Burgundy than before.

But the wines can be delicious and this sounds great.
 
Yep. 1993.

Although lots of ink has spilled on premox conjecture, I hope the astute vignerons have dug out / rebuilt / restored gran pere’s old press or had one made in that style, and are looking to abandon, or at least run the side by side chemical analysis to test, the “gentle” pneumatic presses that are ubiquitous and became so popular in the mid-90s. Back to basics. Jury will be out for a long time, and prices for that crap shoot are ridiculous and don’t seem to reflect any market pressure based on ageability, which maybe is not so surprising. But I’m preaching to the choir....
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by VLM:
WD is back!

I've always really loved the 1993 vintage for white Burgundy. Haven't had any Pernot that I can recall, but my other (limited) experiences have been uniformly positive.

I stopped buying Raffault and focused my Chinon buying on Baudry. I did that with most producers in my cellar. My top 5 producers account for 37% of my cellar (one of whom is Baudry). I guess you kind of have to go one way or another and lately I've been buying from vignerons that weren't represented previously so that 37% isn't the same density as before. I've found it really rewarding to follow wines over the vintages and those vintages over the years, so I bought depth rather than breadth. Do others follow my strategy or do you find a less focused approach more rewarding?
Click to expand...

I take a bifurcated approach. For producers and regions I know well, I'll buy deeply (for me), but I also continue to explore new (for me) producers and regions by buying widely and shallowly. So, my Beaujolais purchases are clustered around a few key producers, as also my Loire and N Rhone purchases are. In Germany and Burgundy I continue to explore by buying limited quantities of a number of different producers and then try to sort them out for my tastes.

Mark Lipton
(who continues to buy both Baudry and Raffault but who no longer buys Clos Rougeard)
Click to expand...

I guess I take the same thing. 90%+ of the cellar is dedicated to wines I'm aging and the rest holds "everyday" stuff, but also stuff I've bought to try. I guess the issue is that what I'm aging is limited in terms of the producers and wines so I'm not experimenting with wines at the nexus of their aging curve.
 
originally posted by VLM:
I've found it really rewarding to follow wines over the vintages and those vintages over the years, so I bought depth rather than breadth. Do others follow my strategy or do you find a less focused approach more rewarding?
Click to expand...
I'm a thrill-seeker and not independently wealthy so I cannot resist buying widely (and, therefore, shallowly). I recognize that I am losing the pleasure of really fully understanding a given maker and place by following a wine's development over time.

I offer myself the following consolations:

[1] Wine varies by the bottle and by the moment so it isn't really plausible to chortle to oneself that 'I have 14 more of these!' because one may not.

[2] There will always be more good wine. If I can't drink the '90 Foo again then I'll also be happy with the '93 Bar.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by VLM:
I've found it really rewarding to follow wines over the vintages and those vintages over the years, so I bought depth rather than breadth. Do others follow my strategy or do you find a less focused approach more rewarding?
Click to expand...
I'm a thrill-seeker and not independently wealthy so I cannot resist buying widely (and, therefore, shallowly). I recognize that I am losing the pleasure of really fully understanding a given maker and place by following a wine's development over time.

I offer myself the following consolations:

[1] Wine varies by the bottle and by the moment so it isn't really plausible to chortle to oneself that 'I have 14 more of these!' because one may not.

[2] There will always be more good wine. If I can't drink the '90 Foo again then I'll also be happy with the '93 Bar.
Click to expand...

Seconded. Faithful in love, but randy in wine.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by VLM:
I've found it really rewarding to follow wines over the vintages and those vintages over the years, so I bought depth rather than breadth. Do others follow my strategy or do you find a less focused approach more rewarding?
Click to expand...
I'm a thrill-seeker and not independently wealthy so I cannot resist buying widely (and, therefore, shallowly). I recognize that I am losing the pleasure of really fully understanding a given maker and place by following a wine's development over time.

I offer myself the following consolations:

[1] Wine varies by the bottle and by the moment so it isn't really plausible to chortle to oneself that 'I have 14 more of these!' because one may not.

[2] There will always be more good wine. If I can't drink the '90 Foo again then I'll also be happy with the '93 Bar.
Click to expand...

Seconded. Faithful in love, but randy in wine.
Click to expand...

There will always be more good wine, but many of the wines I love are thinly traded (there isn't a secondary market for Baudry or Texier, so if you want well aged, you have to do it yourself). If I simply drank Bordeaux and similar wines, there wouldn't be the same issue.

What I've been doing the last few years is that I try order wines in restaurants that I don't know, don't cellar or haven't had in ages. This has been really fun.
 
Having moved to Europe only a year ago, I feel like I'm in a perpetual toy store, since I can order almost anything from within the EU customs-free. And there are dozens of previously unknown (to me) naturally-inclined producers that I see people posting about in Raisin and hipsta Instagram feeds that fall outside what we're exposed to here in WDland. Plus, to my ever renovated surprise, some of the French producers that have near-deity status in the US (Clos Roche Blanche, Baudry, Puffeney, Pepière) are far less hallowed in French wine geek circles, and the reciprocal seems true as well. So, while every time I find something I love, I try to order half a dozen or a dozen bottles to ensure future pleasure, whenever I go down to the storage room to pick the evening's wine, I nearly always find myself preferring the bottles I haven't tried yet to the ones I just know I'll love. While I am also cellaring a few vintages of selected wines (e.g., Mugnier Maréchale) as a bow to the perhaps more selectively discriminating approach of following a favorite producer over several vintages, I still always seem to spring for the excitement of the unknown. Curiosity's slave.
 
There will always be more good wine, but many of the wines I love are thinly traded (there isn't a secondary market for Baudry or Texier, so if you want well aged, you have to do it yourself).
Click to expand...

Of course, you could send an appeal to this bored and we could keep you well supplied. Think of it as your floating warehouse!
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Plus, to my ever renovated surprise, some of the French producers that have near-deity status in the US (Clos Roche Blanche, Baudry, Puffeney, Pepière) are far less hallowed in French wine geek circles, and the reciprocal seems true as well.
Click to expand...

I've always been fascinated by this as well. I first noticed it back in the 90s with Barthod wines. No one knew them or seemed to care which I found perplexing. The French really don't care about Pepiere or Baudry which is CRAZY to me. They prefer inferior wines with different stories and I think that's really the key.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top