Last month, our Burgundy tasting group got together at our usual dining haunt and drank several wines from Echezeaux with our dinner. We knew what bottles were in the line-up but not the order in which they would be served by our host. I must say, I thought I was doing pretty well with my guesses, but then there was a big surprise at the end!
Starter:
2006 Donnhoff Riesling Trocken Hermannshole Nahe. This wine has a strong bouquet full of petrol, meadow flowers, lemon peel, oranges and light honeysuckle aromas. It tastes nice and zesty--kind of tingly--with strong citrus, herb and tree fruit flavors that lead to a slightly bitter-tinged finish of prickle pear and slate. It has solid structure, with a slightly tough edge but lots of nice fruit and herb flavors to lend it a bit of charm.
The main tasting:
2003 Daniel Bocquenet Grand Cru Echezeaux. This wine comes across as very dark, bold and mysterious on the exotically spiced nose—which is absolutely packed with spiced fig, black raspberry, pencil shaving and fruitcake aromas. It is not a wine of finesse or subtlety, but rather of sex appeal, broodingly dark fruit and rich bass notes. In the mouth, it is thick-textured, sort of chewy and rich--with muscled flavors of black fruit, mulling spices, damson and dark soil that are surprisingly cool-toned but broader than they are deep. There are some chewy tannins in play, but they don't bother me at all, as they are pretty much in keeping with the rest of the wine's personality. The wine packs in a lot of nice flavor with no sense of heat from the vintage, but overall it’s a wine for those who like it showy and dense rather than elegant and refined.
1995 Domaine Mugneret-Gibourg Grand Cru Echezeaux. In contrast, this wine is quite reserved on the nose, with coiled aromas of dark cherries and berries, foresty plants, ash, lead pencil and a faint bit of musky sweat. In the mouth, it is among the lighter-bodied wines in the line-up, with a gentle framing to the blue and black berry fruit flavors. It still sports some pasty tannin and hits the palate with a strong burst of acidity that makes the wine feel a tad lean and over-stretched at times. However, it should be noted that it takes on weight a bit as the night goes on and the fruit gets a tad meatier, so I might be inclined to hold off a few years on this to see if it fleshes out and improves.
1996 Domaine Mugneret-Gibourg Grand Cru Echezeaux. This wine shows off very nice aromas of tobacco, leather, earth, toasted orange peel, black cherry and musky sweat that I like a good deal. In the mouth, it is richer-fruited and more densely-packed than the 1995, coming across as grippy and sappy-textured. The dark red fruit turns a tad chunky on the finish, though, and a strong metallic streak of acidity reduces the charm level incrementally as the evening wears on. There are plenty of likeable elements here, to be sure, but I do worry a bit about the acidity over the coming years.
1997 Domaine Mugneret-Gibourg Grand Cru Echezeaux. To begin, I love the bouquet of this wine, which features lots of compelling notes of pasty red fruits, earthy funk, mace and other soft baking spices. Over the course of the evening, it just keeps getting better and better, seeming to add sexier notes and fleshing out the whole way. In the mouth, it is generous and giving right from the start. It may not be the most complex wine, but it offers plenty of slightly sweet red fruit, light spices and fresh acidity in a deliciously-flavored and fleshy-textured package that shows very good balance and lively push. It was easily my and the group’s Wine of the Night.
2004 Domaine de la Romanee-Conti Grand Cru Echezeaux. This wine offers up super-sweet aromas of red licorice rope, cocoa powder, raspberries and brambly mountain berries to go with some toasted bread and funk aromas. In the mouth, it is very fruit-forward, leading with a ton of super-sweet blue and purple fruit, dusty cocoa and soft oaky vanilla flavors that immediately put one of the mind that this could pass for a California ringer. It is extremely polished and buffed in texture, with a boatload of glycerol thickness and really no tannins to speak of whatsoever. The finish is clean and silky, but without a whole lot of character. After the wines were revealed, not a single person at the table would believe this was the ’04 DRC. Seriously, it is much closer to a new wave Cali pinot than to what one might expect from this producer. We even went so far as to make sure there was no mix-up with the decanters by tasting the wine still left in the bottom of each bottle—and sure enough, there was no mix-up. All in all, this was just a shocking and rather perplexing performance for this wine.
1995 Domaine Robert Arnoux Grand Cru Echezeaux. I was absolutely certain that this wine was the DRC. Completely certain. Without any doubt whatsoever… First off, the wine smells not one iota like any other wine on the table. It offers up loads of sassafras, toasted grape stem, fireplace ash, birch beer, and green herbal aromas riding atop a deep well of sweet cherry fruit in a layered and fascinating mix. It is not exactly my preferred aromatic profile for Pinot, but I can appreciate the intensity and distinctiveness. In the mouth, it is full of similar notes as on the nose—with all kinds of toasted stem, sarsaparilla and new oak flavors playing out across a super-smooth and silky-textured mid-palate. The finish is the wine’s strongest suit, showing fantastic length and very impressive persistence in spite of a bit too much oak showing there for my tastes. All in all, it comes across as an impressive but rather young wine—albeit not in a flavor profile I care all that much for. And just for the record, some part of me still thinks this is the ’04 DRC!
-Michael
