Last week, I met with Blair, Peter, Philip and Karl to taste through a few bottles from the Les Boudots premier Cru of Nuits St. Georges. The wines all showed well and went very well with the food at our favorite local wine mecca, where we’ve taken up residence for this series of semi-regular explorations of specific Burgundy vineyards. We all knew the wines that were going to be served but opted in the end to try them single-blind.
N.V. L. Aubry Fils Champagne Brut 1er Cru. We started out with a bottle of Champagne provided by Peter before diving into the Burgundies. I didn’t warm up to this bottle right off the bat, but it comes on strong as it stretches out its legs, beginning with a nice but controlled bouquet of caramel and nuttiness allied to ginger ale and peach pit aromas. It the mouth is where it mainly struts its stuff, featuring a healthy dose of poached apple, pear, marzipan and nutty nougat flavors that have a very nice mouth-filling and pillowy-edged character to them. There is a nice freshness to it, as well, despite that sort of poached fruit and nutty flavor profile. It finishes with a nice airy, ethereal quality that is gentle and pleasing. Nice start.
1998 Domaine Jean Tardy et Fils Nuits St. Georges 1er Cru Les Boudots. The first wine turned out to be the bottle that I brought. I thought it would be interesting to pair this up with the 1998 and other Meo-Camuzet bottlings in this line-up, as Jean Tardy farms these vines en metayage for Meo-Camuzet. I was curious to see if this wine, at half the price, showed any similarities to its relative. Indeed, my notes directly draw similarities between the bouquets of those two wines in particular, though I think this wine on the palate actually shows a bit more similarity to the 1998 Tardy Vosne-Romanee Les Chaumes than to the 1998 Meo NSG Les Boudots. In any event, the wine offers up a really beautiful bouquet, especially earlier in the evening before it begins to tighten up some. It is immediately appealing—full of sweet cherry, candy-coated apple, creosote, cinnamon stick and light caramel aromas surrounded by a fascinatingly weedy, fuzzy sous bois undergrowth element. That aromatic combination of the sweet core and the mulchy earthen notes is really quite striking, pulling me back to this wine on a regular basis. On the palate, it is soft and luscious, with a languid and draped feel over the tongue up front and through the middle. However, toward the back and on the finish, it pinches in and dries out as the young and intrusive tannins take hold. That harsher finish does start to smooth out much later in the evening, but the wine still comes across as one of the younger wines and perhaps in need of the most time in the cellar.
1999 Louis Jadot Nuits St. Georges 1er Cru Les Boudots. The nose here is more overtly spiced and veers over toward black cherry and brambly mixed berry fruit aromas. It doesn’t unfold in layers quite the way the previous wine’s bouquet does, but otherwise it definitely has its own appeal. On the palate, it comes across early on as more four-square, structured and boxy than any of the other wines in the tasting. Still, the flavors and solid acidity levels are quite pleasing, and a bit more complexity does begin to emerge over time in the glass. Still, one gets the impression that the structure is in control right now and that the needed layering of flavors and textures will hopefully come with more time in the bottle. Overall, my least favorite of the night, but a wine I would still gladly drink.
1999 Domaine Méo-Camuzet Nuits St. Georges Les Boudots. This wine possesses the darkest bouquet of the five, with a good deal of plum and black cherry fruit, Asian spices, ripe stems and plum sauce aromas that feel deep and densely-textured and give the wine a real sense of gravitas. As the night progresses, the stemmy notes integrate nicely and are replaced by distinct pencil shaving and charred campfire wood aromas that add more dimensions to it. In the mouth, the first thing I notice is how well it hangs together and how much tension one senses between the full-bodied nature of the fruit, the large-framed structure and the easy yet driven acidity. It turns increasingly exotic over time without ever losing that significant bass note density and rich character. It is velvety, cohesive and grippy and seems an easy candidate for further cellaring.
1998 Domaine Méo-Camuzet Nuits St. Georges Les Boudots. The bouquet of this wine is a bit slower to impress than the Tardy from the same year, but as the evening wears on, my notes specifically state that it reminds me more and more of that wine the longer I stay with it. It features very nice aromas of high-toned cherry and strawberry goodness, accented by a bit of pencil shavings and soft floral notes. On the palate, it shows off its fine structure and a significantly more obvious and high-toned acidic character than any other wine in the line-up. It does not show the exoticism, richness or layering of the two wines on either side of it, instead opting for a very clean, fresh, lively and fine-honed type of sensibility characterized by the wine’s driving acidity. It has plenty of mouth-filling and juicy strawberry and maraschino cherry flavors that lead to a fine finish accented by smoke and wood spices. The wine improves all night long and shows a great staying power with that acidic backbone and bright red fruit.
2000 Domaine Méo-Camuzet Nuits St. Georges Les Boudots. This wine features my favorite bouquet of the evening. I love how boisterous yet enveloping it is, with fantastic aromas of sweet black raspberry, crunchier cranberry, graphite, dark forest plants, campfire embers, light chocolate and cool menthol. In the mouth, it is by far the most luxuriant wine, with an absolutely caressing mouth-feel to the cherry and fine earth flavors. It is fuller-bodied, cohesively-knit and yet expansive across the palate. It feels very creamy but never loses the sense of underlying grip, either. Very gentle tannins and finely-rounded acidity frame the fine finish that shows outstanding length and depth of character. This is a complete wine to my tastes and my WOTN.
2001 Calera Pinot Noir Reed Vineyard Mount Harlan. Served from 375ml double-blind by Karl. The bouquet is immediate and effusive, if a bit obvious and sweet after all of these fine Burgs—featuring notes of cherry and raspberry, sassafras and hay. In the mouth, it is a big mouthful of Pinot berries that seems a bit light on the entry but punches harder through the mid-palate. It has a fairly sweet profile and seems a bit warm at times, though manages to feel lively and tingly on the berry-laden finish. It has some fun stuff going on, but doesn’t feel particularly memorable, probably suffering from its placement here at the end of the evening.
Overall, I managed just one correct guess, as I was really leaning toward Wine D as the Jadot and Wine B as the Tardy. My favorites in order were 2000 Meo, 1999 Meo, 1998 Meo, 1998 Tardy and 1999 Jadot. The Tardy represents a solid drinking return on investment, but the Meo-Camuzets showed their strength across the board. And the 2001 version three of us drank last autumn is just an outstanding wine that I think may outdistance even the 2000 that I liked so much this night.
-Michael
that Burgs like this that are 10 - 12 years old are still quite young! Try again in 5 - 10 years! 