WTN: 2002 D' Angerville Clos Des Ducs Volnay

Color: Ruby red.

Nose: Cherry, plum, earth. Not nearly as interesting as I had hoped for. Just sort of laid their. Didn't wake up after 45 minutes in the decanter.

Taste: Moisture sucking tannins all round. Seemed like a mouth full of saw dust. Not much behind it in the way of fruit either. Got a bit of cherry and not much else. Very one dimensional and closed down. No real hint to me that it will offer a great deal with age either, but I do think that we uncorked it a bit early.

This continues my run of very disappointing red Burg experiences. It seems like one stinker after another here recently. All the worse in contrast to the magnificent 1997 Chassagne-Montrachet by Blain-Gagnard that we had at the same dinner. A perfectly balanced, powerfully elegant white Burg. I will post a note on it when I have a chance to consult my superlative thesaurus.

Yikes.

I'd say ten years too young, but great wine really should make no excuses for itself.

Common refrain in many notes, the '02s seem to be shut down hard. One of the biggest challenges with Burgundy is hitting the sweet spot.

Infanticide to be sure. This is a wine could potentially outlive most of us.

Kevin

The good news is that I have two bottles of the '02 Clos Des Ducs left. I will tuck them away to enjoy in my old age, or for my children to enjoy in their old age. It seems that I have opened every red Burg either too early, or too late here in the last eight months.

Sam, do you use CellarTracker? I know some of the notes can be inane, but I do find it an invaluable source for checking on drinking windows. The last three notes for the '02 Duc all mention that this wine is closed down tight at the moment. The '02 Voillot Pommard that I opened a few months ago convinced me to stay away from the rest of my '02s for at least 2 years.

I have not a doubt that it will eventually emerge in all its glory. Vintage plus 10 is often a safe guess. If you are concerned, let me know and I'll take them off your hands. I only have the '02 Champans and Taillepieds.

Dan,

No, I didn't do as much homework as I should have. I was acting on the advice of a single person who drank the '02 Clos des Ducs back in May. He said that with about 45 minutes in the decanter it opened up nicely. Not the case with my bottle. I drank the '98 Taillepieds in 2004 and it was wonderful. I erroneously extrapolated from that experience in hope that my Clos des Ducs would be good to go. Shucks!

Here's hoping that my red Burg luck changes, and that I start making better decisions here in the near future. I will keep my fingers crossed that you are right about the '02 Ducs coming around with time.

Thanks,

If you're looking for young red Burgs currently drinking well, you might consider '01 Rouge. Of course this is an over generalization, but I've had a fair number of village - premier cru wines that are enjoyable to drink right now. I bought heavily in '01, mostly CdN. They had such attractive pricing then, even better if you consider the '05 pricing. The '98s are showing well now, but the higher tiered wines will take longer to mature due to the structure.

My take on many '02 Burgs from 1er cru - GC is don't touch for a while. The '02 d'Angerville CdD is an especially long lived wine that may not begin to enter maturity for a long time. I marking it down for inspection in 2015.

I've got 3 bottles of the '02 d'Angerville Ducs, not planning on touching till at least 2012. Most '02s seem shut tight.

I agree some '01 village level wines seem to have never really shut down. Overall a much better vintage in CdN than CdB, though Savignys seems to do well as a group.

Savigny is much further north than Volnay and didn't see the hail as much. Even within the Volnay, some vineyards did better than others in '01...can't recall which ones though.

Supposedly Lafon Santenots survived the '01 hail, but I haven't tried mine yet. I'll have to sample some '01 villages soon, although mostly I'm targeting '95s and '00s for the next few months.