The first event was organized at American Club in Singapore with venue and menu being kindly organized by our friend Melisa. It is not obvious to cater food for an all-whites dinner but the Second Floor restaurant pulled it off by serving us a varied menu that paired well with these chardonnays. The wine service did a great job in managing the tightly orchestrated flights.
From left to right: creamy forest mushroom bisque, grilled sea bass glazed with fennel puree, pumpkin ravioli with buttered sage cream sauce, lobster thermidor and macadamia & hazelnut encrusted spatchcock with chestnuts.
Before jumping into the outcomes of the various flights, the overall idea was to check in on the 2007 white burgundy vintage at the age of 8 years. The flights were designed around specific 1er plots complemented with some other wines. All wines were served blind and participants had to rate the bottle condition and their preferences through an on-line voting application (SurveyMonkey) without talking to their neighbours.
Flight 1: Perrières
Main idea behind this flight was to compare Louis Carillon's Puligny Perrières with Henri Boillot's Clos de la Mouchère which is effectively a 4 hectare monopole within the Puligny Perrières climat. Secondly, it would be interesting to see how a Ramonet village level wine would compare to these 1er crus. And then there was a generous participant who would bring a Perrières ringer. It was nothing less than Roulot's Meursault Perrières, a highly sought after wine from the finest plot in Meursault.
Flight 1 - Voting results
Participants were also asked to answer the following questions before the flight was revealed:
1. Which of the wines is the Meursault Perrières?
Only 4 out of 12 guessed the Meursault correctly whereas the 8 others thought it was the Clos de la Mouchère. For me the pointer was the tangerine and orange zest nose that I find more in Meursault Perrières than in Puligny.
2. Which is the village level wine?
A solid score with 8 out of 12 people pointing out the Ramonet correctly, the clue was the lesser mid-palate concentration than the other ones.
Summary of this flight:
It would be fair to say that Henri Boillot knocked it out of the park with his Clos de la Mouchère in 2007. In past vintages I sometimes found the oak a touch too heavy for the leaner mid-palate but here things were in great balance. Unfortunately the comparison with the Carillon Perrières didn't work out since that bottle was slightly corked. As for Ramonet's Puligny Montrachet Enseigneres, despite its high quality for a village level wine, it couldn't really compete with the bigger brothers on show here. The Roulot Meursault Perrières was very different from the others so hard to compare but a treat nonetheless.
Flight 2: Les Pucelles
The main thought behind this flight was to compare a Pucelles 1er cru with a Bienvenues-Batard Montrachet grand cru from the same maker. Typically I would include Domaine Leflaive in a Pucelles flight but my experiences with their 2007s have been bad to the point of avoiding any of their 2007s. There are actually not many Pucelles reference bottlings out there so I wanted to highlight Paul Pernot, a traditional winemaker with over 11 hectares in Puligny.
Flight 2: Voting results
Participants were also asked to answer the following questions before the flight was revealed:
1. Is this a flight with Les Referts, Les Pucelles or Combettes?
Here it gets interesting: only 2 people nailed the Les Pucelles correctly. Seven out of twelve (myself included) guessed this to be the Les Referts flight. It might have been the strong first flight of Perrieres and we probably expected that a Pucelles flight should hit higher highs.
2. Which of the three wines is the grand cru?
Here there were eight people correct in their guesses and the clue often lies in the more prominent oak as grand crus typically get a higher proportion of new oak compared to the 1er crus.
3. Which two of the three wines come from the same estate?
Four people got this one correct but most guessed that the Boillot BMM and the Pernot Pucelles came from the same maker.
4. What is your Wine Of The Night (WOTN) after the first two flights?
Quite an amazing performance for Henri Boillot taking the top three positions at this point in the dinner.
- Domaine Henri Boillot - Clos de la Mouchère 2007: 5 votes
- Domaine Henri Boillot - Les Pucelles 2007: 4 votes
- Henri Boillot - Bienvenues-Batard Montrachet 2007: 2 votes
- Domaine Roulot - Meursault Perrières 2006: 1 vote
Summary of this flight:
The Domaine Henri Boillot wines were clearly on song tonight with two flights convincingly going their way. The beauty of blind tasting proved again to be interesting as the Boillot's 1er cru Pucelles outbested the BBM grand cru. Without any intent to defend the grand cru, I think two comments are in order. Firstly, there is a difference between Domaine Henri Boillot and (Maison) Henri Boillot. The Clos de la Mouchère and the Pucelles are domaine bottlings, whereas the BBM (and all his other grand crus) come from their négociant business that purchases grapes. Secondly, grand crus typically tend to need more time to show well for the higher level of new oak to integrate. Pernot was decent but clearly a number three. In summary, all credits should go the fairly priced Boillot Pucelles which I'd love to match up against a Leflaive Pucelles in one of the upcoming vintage dinners.
Flight 3: Les Referts
This flight is quite close to my heart, as I adore Carillon's Les Referts and BBM and consider them both to be the benchmark bottlings of these plots. Jean-Philippe Fichet might be better known for his brilliant village level Meursaults but his Puligny Referts (which is nowadays the only 1er cru in the entire stable) is rightfully regarded as his flagship. It would be interesting to see how Carillon's Les Referts and Bienvenues-Batard would compare as Burghound noted their quality level was closer in 2007 than is usually the case.
Flight 3: Voting Results
Participants were also asked to answer the following questions before the flight was revealed:
1. Is this a flight with Les Referts or Les Combettes?
Ten out of twelve guessed it correctly to be Les Referts as the expectation was for Combettes to have more weight.
2. Which of the three wines is the grand cru?
Here there were eight people correct in their guesses. This time it was not just the oak profile but also the intensity and length gave a good hint although the Referts was frankly quite close.
3. Which two of the three wines come from the same estate?
A solid score here with eight out of twelve people picking out blind the pair of Carillons.
4. What is your Wine Of The Night (WOTN) after the first three flights?
- Domaine Henri Boillot - Clos de la Mouchere 2007: 4 votes
- Louis Carillon - Bienvenues-Batard Montrachet 2007: 3 votes
- Domaine Henri Boillot - Les Pucelles 2007: 2 votes
- Henri Boillot - Bienvenues-Batard Montrachet 2007: 2 votes
- Domaine Roulot - Meursault Perrieres 2006: 1 vote
Summary of this flight:
A solid performance for both Carillons but in all fairness they were not able to outperform Boillot, which was a bit of a surprise to me. Although the quality difference between BBM and Referts was small, the difference in pricing and availability is huge. The Carillon BBM is a rare two barrel production (600 or less bottles per year) and is nearly four times more expensive. Truth being told I rank Carillon's BBM as one of the finest white burgs out there but the best ones I had were from the late 80's so it might all just be a matter of patience. A pity that Fichet's Referts was advanced as I was quite keen to showcase this producer. Although the nose was quite off, the palate was only partially impacted and did show underlying class and intensity. I hope this was a random off-bottle and this certainly deserves a second chance.
Flight 4: Les Combettes
Etienne Sauzet's Les Combettes is one of those true benchmark Puligny 1er crus that can't be left out on a tasting like thise. A second angle to this flight is vine age as Carillon replanted the Combettes vineyard in the early 90s whereas both both Sauzet bottling are old vines: 50+ years for the Combettes whereas the rare BBM has the oldest vines of the entire estate (planted in 1939).
Flight 4 - Voting results
Participants were also asked to answer the following questions before the flight was revealed:
1. Which of the three wines is the grand cru?
Seven out of twelve correctly singled out the Sauzet BBM as the grand cru. Somewhat to my surprise the other five guesses went to the younger vine Louis Carillon's Combettes.
2. Which two of the three wines come from the same estate?
Only two people guessed the pair of Sauzets correctly. Seven people (myself included) thought the Sauzet Bienvenues and Carillon's Combettes came from the same maker.
3. Which of the four flights was the strongest one?
An overwhelming vote of confidence for the Combettes flight that was rated by ten out of twelve people to be the strongest flight. There was one vote each for Perrieres and Referts. Zero for Les Pucelles...
4. What is your Wine Of The Night (WOTN)?
- Etienne Sauzet - Bienvenues Batard Montrachet 2007: 6 votes
- Louis Carillon - Puligny Montrachet Les Combettes 2007: 2 votes
- Domaine Henri Boillot - Les Pucelles 2007: 1 vote
- Henri Boillot - Bienvenues-Batard Montrachet 2007: 1 vote
- Domaine Roulot - Meursault Perrieres 2006: 1 vote
- Etienne Sauzet - Puligny Montrachet Les Combettes: 1 vote
Summary and Conclusions
Summary of results:
The Wine Of The Night (WOTN) was clearly Etienne Sauzet's Bienvenues-Batard Montrachet, chosen by half of the group (including myself) as their favourite wine. Old vines rarely disappoint and these 68 year old vines created an amazing intensity that you would neither expect for a Bienvenues nor a 2007. Silver and bronze would go to Carillon Bienvenues-Batard Montrachet and Henri Boillot's Clos de la Mouchère.
Vintage assessment:
I was always a fan of the classic 2007 vintage with their somewhat elevated acidity. After tasting about 25 samples of 2007 white burg in the last month, I must admit that the vintage turned out a bit leaner than the initial impression. Acidity seems to become more prominent and the vintage I would compare it to now would be 2004. Based on some recently tasted Louis Carillon 1er crus from similar higher acid vintages like 1991 and 1993, they do benefit from aging which also tends to soften the acidity.
Premox assessment:
The good news is that only 1 out of 13 bottles was advanced but drinkable (8%), 1 bottle was slightly corked (8%) and the remaining wines were considered either to be showing young (48%) or within their ideal drinking window (36%). With these bottles all hitting the 8-year mark, it is an encouraging sign from a premox perspective. It will be interesting though to see how riper vintages like 2008 and 2009 will perform in this regard.
Producer assessment:
Domaine Henri Boillot deserves applause for their very good Clos de la Mouchère and Pucelles bottlings in 2007. Louis Carillon was in decent shape again but being a long time fan of this estate, I was somehow expecting more. Alan Meadows was right: in 2007 the Les Referts is surprisingly close to the Bienvenues. As for Sauzet we only tasted two bottles where the BBM was epic but for me the Combettes didn't live up to its usual gold standard.
Plot assessment:
It was an overwhelming victory for Les Combettes as the strongest climat in 2007, voted by 10 out of 12 people. It is naturally a richer style and those tend to outperform the 'leaner' plots, especially in higher acid vintages. I was not surpised as I am often more impressed by Les Combettes than by Les Pucelles, the latter's fame seems to be heavily derived from the expensive Domaine Leflaive's version.
Value assessment:
From a value perspective there are three bottles I would highly recommend: Henri Boillot's Les Pucelles, Henri Boillot's Clos de la Mouchère and Louis Carillon's Les Referts. The premium paid in 2007 for Carillon's BBM feels very high compared to the well performing Les Referts. As for Boillot, their grand cru was outperformed by the 1er crus so that doesn't exactly make it a good buy at 3 to 4 times the price.