Our May poker game was at Andy’s house, and while the wines he served were all poured double blind, it turned out to be a horizontal of 2008 Burgundies from Louis Jadot—which was quite interesting. They were mostly village wines--and though they shared a lot of qualities like medium-weight, crunchy acidity and fresh aromas—each one had its own interesting personality.
2008 Louis Jadot Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Folatieres. This wine gives off a pretty floral bouquet of dusty chalk, meadow herbs, canteloupe, pear and white flowers. In the mouth, it is fairly full and soft-textured, but with lots of juicy fruit and excellent push. Fuji apple, mixed citrus and melon flavors show fine length and some nice class, though this is more lush and gently tangy than chiseled or tight. It provides a really nice start to the afternoon.
2008 Louis Jadot Grand Cru Corton-Charlemagne. This one is a bit darker in color and sports a more obvious and larger-scaled nose—with aromas of oak, light honey, lime pith, wet chalk, flower petals, apple and sea salt. It has a big burst of flavor right off the bat, with lots of vanilla, barrel spices, apple, citrus and mineral salt flavors that are fleshy, textured and wide-framed. It carries the weight and richness well and is extremely likeable already.
2008 Louis Jadot Nuits St. Georges. The first red of the afternoon shows bright and crunchy berry aromas on the nose, along with some light herbal tones, toasted stems, dark earth and cocoa notes. In the mouth, it exhibits a solid vein of cherry and candied berry fruit but otherwise is fairly dominated by strong acidity all around the edges. It is crunchy, tangy and berry-driven all the way, but feels a bit jangly and jagged to me, so my advice would be to hold off on it awhile.
2008 Louis Jadot Chambolle-Musigny. The nose here is bolder, sexier, more complex and just generally a lot more appealing. It is full of exotic spice cabinet, smoldering campfire, baked fig, black cherry, sassafras and pencil shaving aromas that are big and alluring right from the get go. In the mouth, it is juicy and succulently mouth-watering, yet has a dry earthy element to go along with that. There are a lot of cherry flavors, soft spices and crunchy minerals here that have good length and persistence. Like the others, it is clearly young but there is a lot to like here, for sure. In fact, this was my favorite wine of the line-up.
2008 Louis Jadot Gevrey-Chambertin. This wine is a whole lot more autumnal in nature—with all sorts of root vegetable, sarsparilla, crunchy dried leaves, pencil shavings, tar and dried red fruit aromas in play. It is cool and darker-profiled in the mouth, with slinky black cherry fruit to go along with some bacon fat, tar and dark earth flavors supported by juicy but rounded acids. The finish is rather dry and taut, though, so while this has upside, it needs a bit of time.
2008 Louis Jadot Vosne-Romanee. This wine seems really creamy on the nose in comparison to many of the others—with creamed blue and black berries, pencil shavings, soft vanilla and dark toast aromas right up front. In the mouth, it again seems more modernly-styled than some of the others—with more glycerin, body and sappy fruit to carry it along on its palate journey. There’s a whole lot of concentrated berry flavor here, solid intensity, fine bursting vibrancy at times and very good length. This was my third-favorite wine of the day.
2008 Louis Jadot Volnay 1er Cru Clos de la Barre. This wine sports a pretty bouquet of red fruit and red flowers, focused around aromas of cherry paste and gentler red berry elements. It grows with air and gets better and better the longer you stay with it. In the mouth, it is very sappy and shows perhaps the most flesh and volume of any of the wines. It is also showing a good dose of tannin right now, too. And overall it just seems tighter, tauter and more tightly-coiled than the others, with a bit of a shifty quality to it, if that makes any sense. This seems like it will be the longest-lived of the reds here but it also shows that nice fleshy cherry and red berry fruit to solid effect right now and can be enjoyed early on, too, I would say. My runner-up for WOTN.
2008 Louis Jadot Pommard. This is by far the earthiest nose of the bunch, with sous bois foresty aromas supporting cherry, shaved wood and mineral notes. In the mouth, it is dark and sinewy and shows abundant cool earth character to go with aggressive acidity. Like just about every other one of these wines, it shows fresh berry character and lots of fresh, cutting acidity, though this is blacker-fruited.
Not blind:
2004 Chateau Pipeau St. Emilion. After all that, it was a bit of a shock to see the much darker color of this wine that was kindly brought along by Peter. Moreover, the wine seems fairly plush on the nose, with black raspberry, black currant, candied cherry, spice market and herbal aromas all bustling about. It is chewy and young on the palate, with a lot of savory earth and leaf notes going back and forth with the full-bodied black and purple fruit. For all that, it is not terribly tannic, just a bit sticky and rough-hewn--in need of the greater resolution that will surely come with a few more years in the cellar.
-Michael
