Tag Archives: white Burgundy

Expensive wine 34: J.M. Boillot Puligny-Montrachet Premier Cru Les Referts 2003

10190135One of the myths about the wine business is that wine needs to age. Most wine doesn't, of course. Buy it and drink it and neither the drinker nor the wine will be worse off. That's something that most people, and even those who drink a lot of wine, are often confused about.

Hence it's always a treat to taste wine where aging is part of the wine's makeup. Generally, these are expensive, Old World wines; California high-end producers have a love-hate relationship with aging wine, though there are certainly some California wines that age well and producers who care about it.

The Boillot ($30, purchased) is a good example of how aging works (and comes from a solid, if lesser known, producer in Burgundy). It's chardonnay that is ready to drink now, and doesn't seem tight or jumbled the way younger wines that are made to age sometimes do. In other words, you can taste all the flavors — they're distinct and one doesn't dominate the mix. In this case, that means pears and some apples, even a little honey, and the minerality that is so crucial to these wines. There was a little more oak than I expected, but it still had all of Puligny's rich and lush fruit and character.

The other thing about aging? Wines can fade, and get worse, not better. The Boillot is ready to drink now. Hold it for much longer, and the fruit will go away and the wine will, literally, lose flavor. Now, though? A great gift or something to serve for a fancy holiday dinner where you pull out all of the stops. Cream sauce, even.

Wine of the week: Joseph Drouhin Macon-Villages 2009

image from cache.wine.com The Wine Curmudgeon's guilty secret is white Burgundy — chardonnay from the Burgundy region of France. Why guilty secret? Because white Burgundy is not cheap, and has not been so for years. It's not unusual for a very ordinary bottle that's worth $8 or $10 to cost $15 or $20; unless I get a sample (or splurge on a $60 bottle for a special occasion), I don't drink much white Burgundy any more.

So you can imagine my excitement when this wine, along with several other white Burgundies, arrived at the house. Joseph Drouhin is a respected negociant, and its wines are almost always well made. I figured, if nothing else, I could get an expensive wine of the month out of the shipment. And a couple of the bottles do fit that category.

But several weren't expensive, including the Macon ($13, sample). Macon wines are not complicated, don't get much oak (if any), and are made to drink now. In other words, they are Wine Curmudgeon wines. In the long ago days of the strong dollar and more sensible French export policies, there were half a dozen or so quality Macon-Villages wines for $10 or so, but the ones that still cost $10 are usually disappointing and the others aren't $10 any more.

Which makes the Drouhin all that more wonderful. It's one of the best values I've tasted in white Burgundy in years, and my tasting notes show that the producer actually cut the price this year. This is a very traditional wine, with hardly any fruit at all (lime zest?), no oak, and lots of minerality. So, no, it doesn't taste like came from California, but it's not supposed to. In this, it's a hint of what the 2009 vintage will ultimately deliver in Burgundy. Drink this chilled with roast chicken, any kind of shellfish, or on its own.

Wine of the week: Cave de Lugny Macon-Villages 2009

Wine of the week: Cave de Lugny Macon-Villages 2009The French may have many faults as a wine-producing nation, be it genuflecting in Robert Parker’s direction or refusing to acknowledge the 21st century. But they still make the world’s best chardonnay — even grocery store chardonnay.

The Cave de Lugny ($11, purchased) is just such a wine. It’s almost unoaked, with some green apple and citrus at the front. If the mineral finish is a bit thin, it’s not unpleasant like so many California grocery store chardonnays, which reek of fake oak and other winemaker manipulation. I stumbled across this while looking for something to have on hand in case Icepocalypse: The Sequel kept me from wine shopping, and snapped it up. Cave de Lugny has a fine reputation as a grocery-store Burgundy producer (I especially like the Les Charmes, though it’s not $11 any more), and one could do a lot worse than this wine. Which, sadly, I have.

Drink this chilled on its own, with leftovers if you’re cleaning out the refrigerator after the power goes out, or for Chinese takeout. Assuming you can get to the restaurant for takeout in between the winter storms.