The DC branch of the French Wine Society offered a comparative tasting of burgundies produced by Louis Latour. My take is below. It’s a long slog for only 10 wines, but if anyone has any guidance on the flash pasteurization issue (see flight 3), I’d appreciate any perspectives more informed than my own.
The setting: The event was held in a small conference room in the Sofitel. It was a nice small and intimate event (evidently they had problems selling tickets) and there were approximately 14 guests in the room. The representative from Latour had a well-designed powerpoint presentation about the Burgundy region—there were some great maps in his presentation that were hard to decipher (powerpoint presentations on a screen offering very poor resolution of information to square inch). It would have been better if folks had been offered photocopies of his presentation to follow along with—especially as there was useful text there that he did not really discuss. The representative was not a strong lecturer/presenter, but the intimate setting and his openness to questions allowed the guests to redirect his otherwise meandering style. The Sofitel put out a bread and cheese platter—bread was excellent, cheese was an embarrassment. The whites were served far too chilled and it took a couple of minutes with me cupping my hands around the glasses to get any aromatics.
My overall take: I thought it was odd when I finished that they offered a vertical of the Meursault Blanc and a horizontal of the red villages. If anything, I would have done the reverse to give the guests (potential consumers, presumably) a chance to see how the pinot noirs change between release, initial opening and subsequent development. The village whites, to me, are pretty accessible at release and thus a comparison of how they change over time is less critical of a comparison. But that’s just one opinion—I am glad they did a vertical of a 1er Cru of whatever color.
Flight 1 – Vertical of Meursault
2005 Louis Latour Meursault – smell just a bit of cheese complexity, some greenness, grains, fresh round nose, taste sweet rounded faint spice, greenness but open and available, more toward candy here, finish fleeting
2002 Louis Latour Meursault – smell more hay and much more bready than 2005, bit of beauty on nose, but it is really a pow! nose again and again, nice spicy fruit, firmly bound, great integration of spice, crunchy, spicier
1997 Louis Latour Meursault – smell stripped pear core, stripped pressed fruit with a bit of grape jolly rancher, firm excellent texture, odd duck taste, sandwich with cheese, hints of that sherry element (well not sherry exactly, but my wine vocab fails me) slowly approaching, feels like leftover apple
The expectations: The Latour representative told us that the 2005 and 2002 vintages were very similar growing seasons for Meursault, with the 2005 being a bit more toward opulence and the 2002 a bit toward elegance. He told us the 1997 vintage was different, but not how, exactly.
My take: It actually took a repour to convince me that I hadn’t gotten the 2005 and 2002 mixed up. I thought at first that the evident spice of the 2002 and the faint and fleeting spice of the 2005 might have come from the oak (which is why I thought I got them mixed up—the 2005 having more recently come off of the oak) until I decided that the spice I was tasting was from the grape skins not from the French oak. I also tasted more of the greenness in the 2005 as it started to open up The 2005 and 2002 were distinct from each other but still birds of a feather. The 1997 was very reminiscent of the experiment I did a week ago with a poorly stored 1995 Bourgogne—a fascinating look at the substructure of the wine and its beautiful texture as the curtains start to fall of the rods. The 2002 was my pick of the bunch, but I didn’t love any of the three.
Flight 2 – Vertical of Meursault-Blagny 1er Cru
2005 Louis Latour Meursault-Blagny 1er Cru Château de Blagny – probably the palest wine of the night and quite a contrast next to the 1999, smell lots of depth on nose, cheese with green apples, delicious dessert with some brown sugar elements as it warms, nice inviting nose, superb comforting texture, taste rich sweet faint hints beautifully done, great snappy finish of peach and almonds, rocking spiced peach party on the finish, this is nice
1999 Louis Latour Meursault-Blagny 1er Cru Château de Blagny – darker than 2005, the nose is funky!, sweat and funk, chicken stock!, hugely reminds me of soup but actually this is a nose really hard to put a finger on, almost like the wonderful smell of stuff rotting along the seashore, don’t know what it is, but I kind of like it, taste is funky as well, not so endearing in mouth, one of those weird wines I might enjoy just because they are weird
The expectations: The conversation had actually shifted, so I was not able to get in a question about whether the funkiness of the 1999 was somehow a function of the vintage.
My take: The 2005 was certainly my wine of the night—not a whole lot of complexity but balanced and poised and a fantastic rocking finish. The contrast between the 2005 village Meursault and the 2005 1er Cru was also interesting. The texture always seems to be the first thing I notice with the difference between village wines and 1er Crus. But here there was also certainly greater concentration of flavor in this particular 1er Cru and more precision definition along the fruit front. The 1999 was fascinating in an intellectual sense, can’t see myself wanting to purchase more than a single glass.
Flight 3 – Reds of Santenay and Marsannay
2005 Louis Latour Santenay – all of the reds here were similar in color, rich red but still pale crimson, smell bare perfume rich with slight depth, lots of cherry fruit, taste rich cherry, getting close to cough syrup while still good, dry drying finish, faint tar or spice lurking, rich, all too rich
2005 Louis Latour Marsannay – smell tar, dirt, earth with raspberry jam on top, taste great entry dark plump plums, dark dry elegance on finish, beautiful fade
The expectations: Santenay being at the southern tip of the Côte de Beaune is generally rounder, softer, and fleshier and tend to be more rustic while Marsannay at the northern tip of the Côte de Nuits tend to be lighter and more elegant while still remaining a bit fruity. And, not really relevant, but Marsannay is the only village with appellation for white, red and rosé wines.
My take: There was a bit of debate in the room over whether the Santenay or the Marsannay offered more structure. I sided with the Louis Latour rep that the Marsannay had more structure—I thought the tannins on the finish of the Santenay were more obvious, but in terms of structure throughout, I felt that the Marsannay was much more about a finely tuned structure with minimal but sufficient amounts of fruit while the Santenay was a blustier fruit explosion, unrestrained. Both of these had a superficial initial appeal—and the topic of flash pasteurization came up. The Louis Latour rep admitted that they do flash pasteurize their reds (and claimed that there are others in Burgundy who do so but don’t publicly admit it) and noted that Louis Latour has performed numerous studies and feels confident that it makes the wines more stable and does not harm them or their ability to age. This topic is beyond my expertise, but it would be interesting to learn more about it. In any case, I found the Marsannay far more interesting than the Santenay, but I have too little experience to have any idea about where these wines are heading when they start to open up and develop in a few years. Right now they were nothing special to me, but perhaps in a few years at least the Marsannay would be?
Flight 4 – Red village, 1er Cru and Grand Cru from Aloxe-Corton
2005 Louis Latour Aloxe-Corton Domaine Latour – smell faint perfume, nothing much complex on nose, taste soft delicate, faint tarred cherry, but spice that is in there is quite harsh, not well bound together, sour cherries, odd duck, as it opens up it is a bit better, but still not impressed
2005 Louis Latour Aloxe-Corton 1er Cru Les Chaillots – cherried raspberry nose, bit more depth here, only hint of tar, taste much better bound yet still simple package, pleasant, but doesn’t communicate more than that, right now a bit too rich and the depth that it has doesn’t go anywhere
2005 Louis Latour Corton-Grancey Grand Cru – radically different nose, first stages of complexity here, some raisins, some alcohol, hard to read, but some promise on nose, taste texture more silky more tender, nice, taste right now is basic raisins, if there is more here, it needs time to develop. Grancey is evidently a proprietary name that Louis Latour uses that was grandfathered into the labeling regs—it is actually a blend of 5 different lieu-dits from the Corton Grand Cru vineyard.
The expectations: I asked a question about what are the typical qualities of the Les Chaillots 1er Cru and the Corton-Grancey, but the Louis Latour rep seemed to shy away from making a generalization akin to those that typify the general qualities found in each village wine. This made it hard for me to form an expectation about what to expect in this 1er Cru and Grand Cru and the distinctions between them. Certainly the general maxim about the Grand Crus having a better place on the slope for prime development and all that applies, but I also thought that the idea of ‘terroir’ in Burgundy produces wines that are not only ‘better’ or produce qualities more sought by the bulk of wine drinkers, but are also distinctive, such that the fact that all of these little plots of land are named are not only a reflection of history but also a reflection of the fractured environmental conditions that produce wines that are distinct though grown only a few meters away. Without an expectation, it is hard for me to put what I tasted here into any sort of context. Yes these three wines were distinct from one another, but I also wonder how they relate to the stream of vintages that have preceded them. Alas, here I feel without guidance.
My take: And beyond that, I lack my own context as I have not much (any?) vertical tastings of red burgundies, so it is really difficult for me to get a sense of how these wines will develop over time. If it takes 5 years from vintage for these to start to open up, perhaps I don’t yet have the skill to see how they will do so. Neither the 1er Cru nor the Grand Cru impressed me now, and the raisin in the Grand Cru, though it did hint at some complexity, seems to me to be in a style that I would less enjoy. But perhaps some of that will burn off, who knows.