The third quarterly vintage tasting was again held at the American Club in Singapore with venue and menu being kindly organized by our friend Melisa. The food was lovely with the salted egg yolk lobster and frog leg tempure being the highlights. The wine service was faultless and it is always a joy to have sufficient and good quality stemware for such occasions.
Top row: Wok-fried Maine lobster with salted egg yolk and shellfish emulsion, roasted chicken with five spice and basil
Bottom row: Live shucked oyster duo with Champagne sabayon, frog legs tempura with togarashi spice, squid ink paella
Introduction
Compared to earlier editions a few changes were made to the structure of the flights. In previous tastings the flights were typically made up of two 1er crus stacked up against a grand cru. Results have shown that the participants were able to identify blind which was the grand cru which also was consistently voted to be the best wine of the flight. I felt the downside of this method was that the 1er crus were overshadowed by their more intense and complex grand cru counterparts. For that reason I decided for the 2009 tasting to move three grand crus to the last fight to facilitate comparison and allowing more room for the 1er crus to shine.
Following this change, one of the 1er cru flights had to be eliminated as I don’t want to move away from the format of four flights of three wines. Despite its reputation it was fairly easy to take out Les Pucelles. A lot of the plot's fame can be attributed to Domaine Leflaive who made a brilliant cuvee in the old days. Sadly, their last superb Pucelles dates back to the 1999 vintage and more recent vintages don't always merit their steep pricing. I consider Domaine Henri Boillot to be the modern day flagbearer of this plot but there are not so many other worthwhile bottlings out there. Paul Pernot makes a nice and affordable old school buttery wine whereas I find Jadot a bit overoaked. Producers that deserve a closer look are Antoine Guyon, Jean Chartron and Marc Morey.
Concludingly the format for the first three flights was to feature two 1er crus from the same plot (Perrières, Combettes or Referts) and one outlier which could either be a another 1er cru, a grand cru or something else. The sommelier was asked to randomize the sequence of the first three flights so we didn't know what we were drinking. All wines were served blind and people had to vote through Surveymonkey without talking to their neighbours.
Flight 1: Les Combettes
Although I am a loyal buyer of nearly all Louis Carillon bottlings, I consider Combettes to be their weakest Puligny 1er cru. Reason being they replanted the vines in the early nineties but I am very curious to follow the evolution. Secondly, Etienne Sauzet’s Combettes is one of those flagship 1er crus that seems an appropriate benchmark for such an event. The third wine was a ringer, one that over the years has consistently led even the most experienced tasters to believe it was from Burgundy. This is Gantenbein Chardonnay, from the Bundner Herrschaft in the eastern part of Switzerland. It comes from a 1 hectare plot and this estate is obsessed with creating a Burgundian wine that can rival their Cote-de-Beaune counterparts. As with most things Swiss, good ain’t usually cheap so once this hits the secondary market the prices easily hit the 150 USD mark... assuming you can find it.
Flight 1: Voting Results
Goodness me.... A landslide victory for Switzerland, with an astounding 10 out of 12 votes for best wine. As Gantenbein passionately mimics the top burgundy estates down to the exact grape clones and oak regimes (DRC being their role model when it comes to barrels), I often find them a bit too oaky in their youth. Having tasted back to the 2005 vintage it seems that somewhere between 5 and 8 years of bottle age they come together. As a sidenote, my first experience with Gantenbein was in early 2012 where it was stacked up in a blind tasting with Jacques Prieur Montrachet and Peter Michael Ma Belle Cote, all from the 2007 vintage. Unanimous votes for Gantenbein as white wine of the night. An impressive performance with a tiny footnote of Jacques Prieur not being my personal Monty of choice. Over the years I have been bringing Gantenbein as a ringer to many occasions and it always works to the point of tonight where I didn't even recognize it myself.
Talking about the other wines in this flight almost feels unimportant. Although the consensus vote gave the edge to Carillon’s Combettes for second place, I personally found this the weakest Carillon in recent memory. It was quite fat, oaky and lacking definition, totally unlike the Puligny-esque house style I so much adore. May be the hot vintage created additional challenges for younger vines? Finally, Etienne Sauzet’s Combettes was decent enought but for the third tasting in a row not bringing the thunder. It comes at a significant premium compared to many other 1er crus and rarely seems to justify that. According to people in the know Sauzet started to come back in the zone in 2010 (after struggling to find his style while battllingwith significant pre-mox issues that plagued the estate), so hopefully next time we’ll have a more rewarding experience. The interesting thing to note for Sauzet is that the grand crus always seem a massive step up in quality yet pricing is fair (within the context of white burgundy grand crus). Their Bienvenues-Batard and the Batard Montrachet did very well in the 2007 and 2008 tastings.
As part of the voting of each flight everyone had to guess the 1er cru plot and the outlier (meaning the wine not part of the pair of 1er crus from the same plot). Only two out of twelve people guessed correctly this was the Combettes flight. Guesses around the outlier were more solid as 9 out of 12 thought the Gantenbein was the odd one out. Out of those nine there were five that thought the Swiss chardonnay was a burgundy grand cru.
Flight 2: Les Perrières
The two usual suspects at every Perrières flight are Carillon Les Perrières and Domaine Henri Boillot’s Clos de la Mouchère (which is effectively a 4 hectare monopole within the 8 hectare climat of Les Perrières). Now that Pucelles does not have its own flight anymore, I still wanted to feature Henri Boillot’s Pucelles. It would be interesting to see which of the two Boillot cuvees would prevail. In my experience it often boils down to vintage where in hotter Pucelles outperforms whereas in cooler years the Clos de la Mouchère seems to have the edge.
Burghound was spot on with recommending 2009 chez Boillot and they came out on top. It was their Pucelles that was voted the wine of the flight with 7 votes for best wine, followed by 3 votes for the Clos de la Mouchère. Although I often seem to correlate strongly with the consensus vote, I was in the Clos de la Mouchère camp.
It had that edgy nervous character with a sour apple bite, a touch of dryness and quinine towards the back end. Definitely not a crowdpleaser but in my view closer to the essence of Puligny than many other bigger and rounded wines. Contrary to some other opinions on the table, I do think this can age as this type of acidity typically needs age to soften. Someone interestingly compared it to young Krug that also has this outspoken acidity but we all know the beauty that emerges when the acidity softens a decade down the line.
I can’t say a bad word about Boillot’s Pucelles though, I actually found it to be a very close call. It was drinking at its glorious peak with a lovely roundness and balance. Carillon’s Perrières was a step up compared to the Combettes but it lacked their signature minerality and lightness of touch.
Participants had to guess again the plot and the outlier. For plot the choice was between Perrières and Referts and a small majority of 7 people got it correctly. The outlier was always going to be hard as there were effectively two pairs (a pair from the same producer and a pair from the same plot). Only three guessed Pucelles correctly and the largest vote of six went to the Clos de la Mouchère. What was interesting is that 9 out of 12 rightfully guessed the outlier to be another Puligny 1er cru. That does make sense as these wines somehow felt quite similar. A final statistic is that eight out of twelve people considered this flight stronger than the first one.
I attach a lot of value to truly blind voting so instead of asking for Wine Of The Night (WOTN) at the end of the night, I progressively ask people to vote at the end of each flight what is their WOTN at that point in time. After the second flight there were 9 votes for Gantenbein, 2 for Boillot Pucelles and 1 for Sauzet Combettes.
Flight 3: Les Referts
Although Les Referts is not the most famous vineyard in Puligny, it often overperforms and is already for years on my buying list. It is typically Carillon’s best 1er cru but the best rendition of this vineyard is arguably from Arnaud Ente, a tiny cuvee that is expensive and hard to find. Another bottle that I like is J.P. Fichet, the only 1er cru in his stable which is dominated by overperforming village-level wines. In previous tastings the Carillon Referts was truly overperforming and giving even Carillon’s BBM a good run for the money. For that reason I wanted to see how it would do against a Bienvenues Batard Montrachet from a slightly less famous producer. Although Faiveley is generally not my go-to négociant for whites (that honour would go to Bouchard with an excellent range of Meursault 1ers and grand crus), I was impressed with their Corton Charlemagne before.
Flight 3 - Voting results
Similar to previous editions the grand cru stood out and Faiveley’s Bienvenues Batard got six votes for the best wine of the flight, followed by Carillon (4 votes) and Fichet (2 votes). It is worth mentioning that Fichet got 7 votes for second favourite wine whereas Carillon only got two votes for that. It would be fair to call it a tie for second place.
Bienvenues Batard is often considered the relative lightweight of the five grand crus from the Montrachet area. In terms of consistency I would agree as it typically takes a top wine maker like Carillon, Leflaive or Sauzet to bring it to another level. This Faiveley was certainly decent with more layering and complexity than the 1er crus that preceded but only my a modest margin. This was confirmed by the participants, of which 9 out of 12 correctly guessed the BBM to be the outlier. Only 3 out of the 9 guessed it to be a grand cru and the others thought it was another Puligny 1er cru.
For me the highlight in this flight was Fichet that produced a remarkable Referts in 2009. I was truly pleased with Fichet doing so well as they didn’t perform so great in the 2007 and 2008 tastings. It was superbly balanced and showed a lot of Puligny typicity with spiced yellow pear, sweet lime and white flowers. It must have been the first (and hopefully last) time that I ranked Carillon’s Referts as the last in a flight. It was again his best 1er cru and a perfectly decent wine but somewhat lacked in the elegance department.
Although this flight was only considered by 3 out of 12 to be the strongest flight, it did materially impact the leaderboard for Wine Of The Night. At this point in time there were 4 votes for Gantenbein, 4 votes for Faiveley Bienvenues Batard Montrachet, 3 votes for Henri Boillot Puligny Pucelles and 1 vote for Fichet’s Puligny Referts.
Flight 4: The Grand Crus
I believe comparative tastings are most interesting when you try to level the playing ground as much as possible. As Burgundy is all about terroir, I wanted to showcase grand crus from different plots. In this case I went for Carillon’s Bienvenues Batard Montrachet (for me the benchmark BBM producer), Domaine Leflaive’s Batard Montrachet and a Chevalier Montrachet from Bouchard. For me Chevalier is undoubtedly the finest plot on show here (often more consistent and better than (Le) Montrachet itself). The key underlying question was how a negotiant bottling of the better plot would hold up against two prestigious domains?
Flight 4: Voting results
Yes, you read the table correctly: nine out of twelve votes for Bouchard’s Chevalier Montrachet. And three (including my own) for Carillon’s BBM. Domaine Leflaive had to put up with 6 votes for second favourite wine of the flight, an unthinkable outcome in the old days.
The Chevalier was simply irresistible: pure intense fruit, fully absorbed oak with tons of drive and energy yet well behaved and never brash. I did find a bit more nuance and subtle complexity in the Carillon which needed some time in the glass to evolve. A quiet yet profound wine and one of the very few wines tonight that did not yet reach their peak. For Domaine Leflaive it was only one year since the new winemaker Eric Remy came on board so I will reserve final judgement until tasting some of the more recent vintages. It was well proportioned and not the colossal Batard you might expect in a hot year like this. Still, I was not totally seduced by it and the descriptor that came to mind was ‘correct’.
Everyone had to guess for the three wines which grand cru plot it came from. Chevalier turned out to be the easiest to nail with 8 correct votes. Given Leflaive’s fairly restrained Batard, many mixed up the guesses for the Batard and the Bienvenues.
Overall summary and conclusions:
Summary of results:
Overall Wine Of The Night (WOTN) went clearly to Bouchard’s Chevalier Montrachet with seven votes for wine of the night, followed by Carillon’s BBM (3 votes) and Faiveley’s BBM (2 votes). The list of second favourite wines yielded 4 votes for Bouchard Chevalier, 3 votes for Gantenbein, 3 votes for Leflaive Batard Montrachet and a single vote each for Boillot Pucelles and Carrilon BBM.
However you want to look at it, white burgundy grand cru is consistently able to hold the fortress. Plot certainly matters and it is somehow not a surprise to see both Chevalier and Bienvenues Batard (both 100% located on the Puligny side) do so well.
Vintage assessment:
I always ask people to rate the quality of the vintage on a scale from 0-5 stars. Average score was 4.28 which is significantly higher than you’d expect from reading the critics. I would personnaly rank it slightly lower but it heavily boils down to your preference. If you like your wines more round and forward this is really a vintage to look out for that comes with the huge benefit of peak drinkability. For me only two wines (Boillot’s Clos de la Mouchère and Carillon’s BBM) seemed to need more ageing to reach their apogee.
Interestingly enough, in the initial review of the vintage by Burghound (Issue 43) he compared the ’09 vintage with 1992 after tasting 2000 samples. That was a vintage that was initially underrated but aged surprisingly well and to the very day gives tons of of drinking pleasure. I start to see the logic behind that. My take is that most 2009 vintage assessments online are too conservative portraying it as a low-acid, overripe and early-drinking vintage. For me it is a significant step up compared to the difficult 2003s, the generally overrated 2005s and the often heavy 2006s.
Premox assessment:
Great news: none of the bottles were showing advanced which is an encouraging sign, especially for a riper vintage.
Producer assessment:
Compared to the 2008s the tables have turned again. Whereas Louis Carillon owned the 2008 tasting they were not as impressive in 2009. I hope this is caused by vintage and not because of distractions related to the separation of the estate that was happening around this time. Henri Boillot came back strongly after a slightly underwhelming 2008 vintage with his Pucelles being voted the most popular 1er cru of the night. The other producers only featured one bottle each so it would be tough to generalize.
Plot assessment:
For the 1er crus the majority thought the Perrières flight was the strongest. I concur and would rank Referts second with an unusual last place for Combettes where I got a sense of heaviness and overripeness. The grand crus all raised their game and were more reserved, quiet and balanced. Contrary to what you might expect for a hot vintage, they were actually not so big and had an airy quality to them. Chevalier once again confirmed its reputation for quality and consistency across producers.
Value assessment:
From a value perspective most praise should go to Fichet for his remarkable Puligny Referts. Secondly, I would nominate Bouchard’s Chevalier Montrachet which is 40% cheaper than the Leflaive and Carillon BBM. Boillot once again delivered solid 1er crus at a sensible price point. On the downside: the premiums you pay for Sauzet and Leflaive are not easy to justify.
Format assessment:
Looking back, I am pleased with the decision of moving the grand crus to a separate flight at the end. This is something I would repeat although for the 2010s (an exceptional vintage), I might limit the entire line-up to villages and 1er crus as the grand crus probably need more time to hit their sweet spot.
Finally, a big thank you to all the participants of this dinner. I truly appreciate your support for this initiative and your patience in putting up with me by complying to the elaborate and rigid voting routine.