A local DC retailer hosted this wine event tasting the 2006 whites and 2005 reds from Louis Latour along with some sparklers and Chablis from Simonnet-Febvre, who Latour purchased in 2003. My impressions of the wines are below.
The caveats - I used this event to continue my education on wines from Burgundy. Hence, I’m no expert—especially on how wines develop over time. In addition the white were bottled just weeks ago, so a number of them have not come into their own as of yet. Just a snapshot of where they are for me at the moment.
Reflections on the event overall – I have never done a big organized tasting like this before (I am very mildly agoraphobic), but I think all in all it went pretty well. The one downer on the event was that they ran out of the 2005 Louis Latour Grand Cru Corton-Grancey before I got a chance to try it. I estimate that means that from one quarter to one-third of the people who paid to be at the tasting did not get a chance to taste that wine. Unless there were some pretty unique circumstances, I find that completely unacceptable.
There were 26 wines in all which means that a good number of them were served by service staff provided by the hotel. They had a number of folks from the retailer, importer, and Latour sprinkled about to answer questions, but overhearing the basic questions (and the sometimes uninformative answers) of my fellow participants, I think organizers would do well to consider including a quickie two minute overview of the village-1er Cru-Grand Cru system in Burgundy, broad differences among villages, and the development of the wines over time. There was a good number of people there thirsty for knowledge, but they had to kind of revert to the tried-and-true like/don’t like dichotomy as their curiosity about the context in which these wines should be placed was something very difficult to address with everyone asking the same basic questions and getting slightly helpful answers. Instead of the short speech they had by Louis Fabrice Latour with the usual empty corporate bromides about a banner year, yadda yadda, they could have offered a short template and reference point for understanding these wines—it seems to me they would sell more wines if people had a better context for what they were tasting.
But, for my personal quest of educating myself, I did find Louis Fabrice Latour a very helpful guide to my numerous questions and did get a bit of context for myself. Doing that and then writing up these notes afterwards helps me a lot, because it helps me better understand what I want to learn and what context I want to gain (no doubt now I would ask better questions of him now that I have written up what I did learn).
And, finally, I will note that I am six feet tall but I felt like a midget at this tasting. Latour is a tall guy, but there must have been at least half a dozen folks who were six inches taller than me in the room. Is there some sort of correlation between height and interest in Burgundy?
Without further ado, the wines (prices are regular/pre-sell by retailer):
Simonnet-Febvre sparkling wines and white wines
NV Simonnet-Febvre Crémant de Bourgogne Brut [60 percent Chardonnay and 40 percent Pinot Noir] – grapey nose, very decent mousse, some rounded fruit, nice crispy finish, but lacks content. $20/$17
NV Simonnet-Febvre Crémant de Bourgogne Pinot Noir Brut [100 percent Pinot Noir] – funkier cheesier nose than the Brut, rounded but more soda-like bubbles, quite boring for me. $20/$17
NV Simonnet-Febvre Crémant de Bourgogne Rosé [100 percent Pinot Noir] – blunt nose of rose petals, very simple and very pleasant, touch of sweetness in mouth but dominant tart notes, flavors on the rougher more rustic side, which is doable. $20/$17
My take: mousse doing well here for my palate, with the exception of the pinot noir brut; my impression of the rosé was rustic yet pleasant, the brut and pinot noir brut did not impress.
2006 Simonnet-Febvre Chablis – smell grapey white cranberry juice nose, thick, heavy and disjointed right now, unpleasant. $23/$19
2006 Simonnet-Febvre Chablis 1er Cru Vaillons – lighter more delicate nose, taste lots of crazy tropical fruit, still bit heavy for me, and finish struck me wrong. $30/$25
2006 Simonnet-Febvre Chablis Grand Cru Les Preuses – quiet nose right now, but nice, more vibrant in mouth with odd cornered fruits, I think I liked this wine, but it was not all that expressive. $76/$60
2006 Simonnet-Febvre Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos – light yet full nose, soft and rounded in mouth, not too tightly bound right now with rich and expressive spicy tropical notes, the minerals I thought I tasted were tightly bound within, I think I’d like them more when they come out to play. $76/$60
Vinification differences among these wines:
Chablis – stainless steel fermentation followed by 8 months aging in tank sur lies
Chablis 1er Cru Vaillons – stainless steel fermentation followed by 12 months aging in tank sur lies
Chablis Grand Cru Les Preuses – 50 percent barrel fermented, 50 percent stainless steel followed by 12 months aging in tank sur lies
Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos – barrel fermented, followed by 12 months aging sur lies in oak and stainless steel
The expectations – So the story is supposed to be that the Vaillons is accessible earlier then wines coming from the opposite bank of the Sereine and tend to be powerful wines. Les Preuses gets lots of sun and hence is often more based on luxurious amounts of fruit while Les Clos is supposed to be about minerality and precision.
My take – I have nothing good to say about the village Chablis, perhaps the most unpleasant wine of the night and the Vaillons leaned too far in the blockbuster direction to capture my fancy. The Les Preuses and Les Clos were far more interesting, but the Les Preuses was not very expressive as of yet while the Les Clos was very expressive but perhaps actually needs to calm down a bit before showing how it will all come together. I liked the understated simplicity of the Les Preuses right now, but I have the feeling down the line I might prefer where the Les Clos is going more.
2006 Louis Latour white wines
2006 Louis Latour Beaune – my first experience with this wine was more pleasant, butter with perhaps a touch too much grape skin, but when I returned to it at the end of the night it was a hot tangy mess, I tried hard to get some sense of this wine, but right now it was undecipherable. $29/$24
2006 Louis Latour Meursault – bit more reserved on the nose, but good fruit expression, vibrant, open for business right now, not my style, but pleasant and easy to drink. $44/$38
2006 Louis Latour Puligny-Montrachet – more focused nose, and again great focus and intensity in mouth, stone fruit, this wine is intense, which made a big impression, but I’m not really sure I could handle more than a couple of mouthfuls of this wine, where it is right now, it’s a bit too much in the Hummer on a winding country road stage. $65/$54
2006 Louis Latour Chassagne-Montrachet – ding, ding, we have a winner, light ethereal nose, airy and very appealing, salty upfront with some mineral and crisp delicious fruit, great grip on this wine. $53/$44
The expectations – I don’t have a good background and failed to ask what the typical characteristics of a Beaune village wine are. Meursault edges toward the fruiter, rounded, accessible while Puligny-Montrachet veers into concentration, steely, and racy with Chassagne-Montrachet occupying some sort of muddled middle ground, but actually just resting on the uniqueness of what they bring to the table rather than some sort of median voter wine.
My take – The Beaune was a mess right now and that’s all I have to say about that. The Meursault was accessible and open for business but there was nothing really exciting about it (caveat that Meursault is not my preferred style of wine). The Puligny-Montrachet could really hurt somebody, it is over-the-top powerful to the degree I don’t know how someone is supposed to taste it. Even if it does calm down, I’d be worried about the china. The Chassagne-Montrachet is just a wonderful thing, if it goes to even more interesting places after this, so much the better.
2006 Louis Latour Meursault-Blagny 1er Cru Château de Blagny – rather silent nose, though there are some wet stones in there, very background in mouth, this moved back and forth from slight suggestive interesting notes with great promise to an alcoholic mess, I could not get a sense of it. $62/$52
2006 Louis Latour Meursault 1er Cru Charmes – great battery acid nose, great focus in mouth, full flavor, intense, layers of nearly delicious butter and acid. $106/$88
The expectations – I was told that the Blagny tends to reflect more mineral characteristics with some fatty fruits that really requires some time to come into its own, while the Charmes can be a bit more austere and a bit more acidic.
My take – There seemed to be a pattern among the Latour wines that wines that are typically mineral really did not show minerality or much of anything. Perhaps they came off the oak too recently to allow the mineral characteristics to shine through. The Blagny was kind of a weird wine, could be something interesting in there—very hard to tell. I loved the accessible acid of the Charmes, but I am less convinced that it has interesting places that it could go, and it isn’t so enjoyable now—so I don’t know what to do with that wine, but drinking buttery battery acid was kind of cool for a glass.
2006 Louis Latour Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Folatières – denser, heavier, less impressive nose, in mouth touch lighter and more delicate but with some complexity, superb light touch, in mouth this wine was precisely what I want. $120/$100
2006 Louis Latour Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Truffières – hot affected nose, unbalanced and weird honeyed mess in mouth, no thanks. $106/$88
The expectations – The Folatières evidently gets a lot of sun and thus tends to be more ripe and more rich, while Les Truffières is high up on the slope with more acidity and a punch of power.
My take - The Folatières was much more delicate and poised than ripe as the description of the site would have indicated—it was simply delicious, delicate, and graceful, I was mighty impressed. Les Truffières had lots of fans in the room raving about it, so I went back and kept retasting it to try and capture what others were raving about. I could never figure out what they were tasting, it was honey—and I mean the commercial stuff that comes in the plastic bears, sickly sweet without interest. For my palate, I can’t see this wine going anywhere interesting, but I suppose the evolution of wine can have some crazy turns.
2006 Louis Latour Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Morgeot – for some reason the nose on the two Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Crus reminded me precisely of the nose on Olivier Leflaive’s wines that I tasted last year, no good descriptors but kind of a cheesy tangerine thing, funny how instantly it brought me back to that experience, taste intensity and richness, toward butter, intense spicy fruit that is a bit over the top. $95/$80
2006 Louis Latour Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Caillerets – similar nose to the last, if a bit more open, taste softer easier fruit, very apricot, the spice here is well integrated. $106/$88
The expectations – Morgeot tends to go more tropical, richer, and intense while Cailleret also gets quite ripe it adds some minerality to the mix.
My take – For drinking right now, there is no doubt the village Chassagne-Montrachet was more to my taste than the 1er Crus. The Caillerets was a very interesting wine and if the apricot tones down a little over time, I feel like there are some interesting things that could come together. Whatever minerality there is in the Morgeot, I could not taste and it just struck me as completely over-the-top, too much richness, too much fat, not sure how much structure lies beneath to support it.
2006 Louis Latour Grand Cru Corton-Charlemagne – this was a candied pineapple with lots of oomph and some depth, interesting but I would want to know how deep the depth is. $188/$156
2006 Louis Latour Grand Cru Bâtard-Montrachet – heavy pear nose, taste rounded fruit, mineral peeking through (!), intense and focused, this was very nice stuff. $413/$340
The expectations – the Corton-Charlemagne gets lots of sun and goes tropical and needs 4-5 years to open and can age for 20, while the Bâtard-Montrachet comes from a gravelly soil that tends toward concentrated, powerful and restrained and can age for over 15 years.
My take – Well, the Corton-Charlemagne certainly is tropical, but I’m not sure how much more it can open up than to become a slightly less obnoxious pineapple—not my style here, but if there is some depth there could be great promise for some, just nearly impossible for me to tell from the pass-to-pineappledom it is right now. The Bâtard-Montrachet was clearly a wow wine to me, if it develops more (which I think it will), so much the better, but at that price, you’ll have to ask Sean ‘Who’s your Diddy?’ Combes or Sean Connery, ‘cause I won’t be encountering this wine ever again.
2005 Louis Latour red wines
2005 Louis Latour Santenay – musty, mushroomy and bit of burn on nose, taste simple abrasive red fruit, intense spice, quite overpowering right now. $24/$20
2005 Louis Latour Chassagne-Montrachet – softer more delicate nose, still focused and quite pointed, taste rich velvet fruit, but just fruit right now, more approachable but not much depth at the moment, great drying finish. $27/$22
2005 Louis Latour Pommard – pretty generic nose, rich bubbly and expressive in mouth, simple, quite pleasant, a wine I would gladly return to. $44/$37
The expectations – I actually didn’t get a great rundown on the differences among these villages. Pommard goes concentrated, perfumed with lighter tannins, while Chassagne-Montrachet goes with fuller fruit on the lighter side and Santenay depends on rigorous pruning keeping the wines lively and fruity.
My take – The Santenay was a bit of a mess. The Chassagne-Montrachet had approachable well-balanced fruit, it was more unique, while the Pommard had much less individual character, it was a pleasant simple country-style wine which would sing with food.
2005 Louis Latour Aloxe-Corton 1er Cru Les Chaillots – smell distinctly of grape kool-aid and not much else, taste big full and heavy with some promise, fruit and spice right now, a nice big wine. $53/$44
2005 Louis Latour Beaune 1er Cru Vignes Franches – finally a more recessed and more tender nose, cooler yet more tropical taste, bit too sweet with candied raspberries, nice finish, but this wine does not reach. $50/$40
2005 Louis Latour Beaune 1er Cru Perrières – focused nose but more rounded and softer, taste fruit at multiple levels, herbal finish with perhaps some mineral, nice simple wine. $58/$48
The expectations – All of the wines are said to need some years to show themselves, at least six.
My take – I see big promise in the Perrières, but, hey, I like herbs and I like minerals. The Aloxe-Corton was hard for me to read, it is a heavier monster, could be good, could be something else. Wherever the Vignes Franches is going, I don’t think it is my style.