WTN: Raphet and Drouhin Bourgognes

We decided to taste the old and new world pinots of equivalent cost (~$50 Can) to see which was the more interesting.

2015 Gérard Raphet Bourgogne – light garnet colour, a very nice nose with red fruit and spice, good fruit on palate with medium weight and elegant medium length finish. Delightful. Comes from the Lieu-dit 'Les Grands Champs' located in the southwest of Gevrey Chambertin.

2016 Domaine Drouhin Dundee Hills Pinot Noir – this basic DD wine showed a riper heavier nose and a bit darker colour, was sweet ad a tad simple on palate, very decent. Lacked the spice in the finish.

Raphet, which I had feared might be on the light side, won out over the very decent Drouhin.

Thanks for the notes on this interesting comparison. I've been loving OR pinots lately and perhaps forgetting that sometimes you can find burgundy for a similar price.

[David M. Bueker]

I buy a moderate amount of lower priced Burgundy (e.g. $40 or less, sometimes much less), and it often makes me wonder why I pay for the “good stuff” from California and Oregon. Hudelot-Noellat Bourgogne runs about $30 for me all in, and it’s as good or better than most $50 California Pinots.

Harder to come by, and more expensive, is the Mugneret-Gibourg. It’s $50-$60 these days, but beats down almost anything from the West Coast.

There are some West Coast Pinots that I really like, and want to have, but I am questioning future buying, forgetting the potential tariff issues.

[Jenise]

Not surprised by this result. First of all, though I believe you gave the Drouhin a fair shake, your palate is so predisposed to European style wines period it would be hard to imagine any American pinot that could beat Raphet. The sweetness that's virtually unavoidable is always going to be a pox.

Not so!

The sweetness in many US PNs is a tip off of origin in blind tastings, certainly, but I am not predisposed toward Burgundies. In fact I have been quite impressed with some of the American PNs you have opened for me.

What fails to impress me is lack of flavour interest (if all you get is generic sweet fruit and not much else it can be boring), and that's what I have seen in some US Pinots..

And the control to our experiment was Mr Cooper, who brought the Drouhin and likes American Pinot. We debated our way through an entire large block (well, puddle perhaps) of Langres cheese and came to agreement on our conclusions. He allowed as how he hadn't thought that there was much chance that a plain Bourgogne would be able to surpass a $50 American Pinot and the result surprised both of us. I had been thinking, going in, that the fresh fruit I expected from the Drouhin might well trump the more subtle - some would say absent - concentration I figured that the Burg might show.

[Jenise]

Okay, but generally, you don't buy/own American pinot best I can tell so all your exposure is really thru friends, right? But anyway, I stick with my original statement. Didn't say you don't like or appreciate Americans, but I do think it's pretty impossible that you wouldn't choose a Burgundy every time as long as both wines were on their game. It's possible, btw, that I wouldn't either.

I had extensive experience with American Pinots back in the day - recall 68 and 69 Hanzells with great pleasure, for instance, and when I was down there buying wine in the early 1980s I collected quite a bit of it. Many of those early Pinots had the same sort of sense of place and complexity that I like about Burgundies, but many made today have been affected by Parkerism - big points=big sales=riper sweet wines.

Like Cabernet, though, there are still people that make Pinot in a style that appeals to me. They just aren't available up here so I have lost touch with more current US production and am always pleased when you show up with one. There is a lot to like there.

Interesting observations on all fronts.

With some of the better 'simple' Bourgognes, if I drink them alone, as opposed to a tasting with Bourgognes higher up the food chain, I find it hard to calibrate my senses and decide exactly how much they over-perform . But they often do.

I'm not a die-hard terriorist, but I think the thing that Bourgogne rouge from the Cote d'Or has going for it that US West Coast pinot noir doesn't is the marlstone subsoil. There is layer of chalk and limestone deposits in Western Europe that runs from southeast England, through France, then into the Iberian peninsula. The white cliffs of Dover are an exposed part of this geologic formation. In several places this layer is very near the surface and a major subsoil component, and those are all famous wine regions:

o The "champs agnes" (white fields) of Champagne
o Burgundy's Cote d'Or
o Grande Champagne and Petite Champagne in Cognac
o The albarizas (white soil) of Jerez de la Frontera

The Romans had vineyards in southeast England that were famous for the quality of their wines. Thanks to global warming, some very impressive sparkling wines are being made there now.

Gruet was producing some sparkling wines that punched well above their weight from pinot noir and chardonnay grown on limestone hillsides in New Mexico. Alas, the family has sold out and most of the raw material for Gruet comes from Oregon these days, and it lacks that special quality from the limestone.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Bill, got around to buying and opening a '16 Drouhin Oregon Pinot last night. Quoting another reviewer on CT (most notes were very positive and presumably from people with lower expectations) who nailed my impressions exactly: "Not a particularly expressive nose, but some cherry and spice comes forward late. Pretty simple wine with some red fruit mid palate. Nicely made and easy drinking, but a bit disappointing given the producer." I'll add to that: sweet, simple in a very new world way without a trace of the Burgundian elements I remember from random past vintages.

[David M. Bueker]

I'm not a die-hard terriorist, but I think the thing that Bourgogne rouge from the Cote d'Or has going for it that US West Coast pinot noir doesn't is the marlstone subsoil. There is layer of chalk and limestone deposits in Western Europe that runs from southeast England, through France, then into the Iberian peninsula. The white cliffs of Dover are an exposed part of this geologic formation. In several places this layer is very near the surface and a major subsoil component, and those are all famous wine regions:

o The "champs agnes" (white fields) of Champagne
o Burgundy's Cote d'Or
o Grande Champagne and Petite Champagne in Cognac
o The albarizas (white soil) of Jerez de la Frontera

The Romans had vineyards in southeast England that were famous for the quality of their wines. Thanks to global warming, some very impressive sparkling wines are being made there now.

Gruet was producing some sparkling wines that punched well above their weight from pinot noir and chardonnay grown on limestone hillsides in New Mexico. Alas, the family has sold out and most of the raw material for Gruet comes from Oregon these days, and it lacks that special quality from the limestone.

-Paul W.

There is some limestone in the Chalone AVA. It shows in the Pinots.