WTN's: Clos Vougeot

Our semi-regular Burgundy group’s most recent tasting was focused on Clos Vougeot. It was a small group of four people and the wines were tasted over dinner in blind order arranged by the owner of the dining establishment.

2005 Bouchard Pere et Fils Meursault 1er Cru Perrieres. We started out with a white, as has become the norm with this group. This one takes about 15 minutes to open up, and eventually does so with moderately rich aromas of meringue, peach, pineapple, lemon candy, hazelnuts and sweet oak. In the mouth, it has a certain degree of explosiveness that the nose clearly does not yet possess. It has a lot of presence on the palate and pumps up the volume on flavors of peaches and herb, pear, chalk and hazelnut. There is still some wood to resolve, but the structure is solid, the texture is nice and fleshy and the finish is dense and broad.

1997 Domaine Jean Tardy et Fils Clos Vougeot Grand Maupertuis Grand Cru. The first of our blind wines features a bouquet of delightful purity and a sense of beauty, as notes of cooked cherries, compote of red berries, fresh mint leaf, chicory and exotic spice cabinet just waft out of the glass and invite the drinker right in. In the mouth, it is fairly feminine and more finesse-driven than I would have expected from a Tardy offering. The whole palate journey is marked by intense spiciness to accompany juicy flavors of cherry, cranberry and earth. It has a certain airy quality to it at times and possesses an ethereal finish. Over time, though, it turns a bit more sour-fruited as the acidity turns a bit puckering. I have to mark down for that and also probably recommend that this be drunk sooner rather than later. It was my #2 wine of the night (with 1 first and 3 second-place votes from the group).

2001 Maison Champy Clos Vougeot Grand Cru. The nose here is stiff and monolithic, without much of anything to say for itself. And nothing really seems to develop over the several hours we sit with it. There are maybe some notes of cherry, green peppers, fireplace ashes and forest greenery, but they are muddled and boring. Nobody smells TCA, but we all suspect some kind of damage here. In the mouth, it is rather dry and spicy, with just a narrow band of dark red fruit and earth tones for flavor. Still, one can sense that there is a lot of body and volume to the wine, but it seems bereft of fruit. The finish feels stripped and mute, so again we all just assume this is either a terrible wine or somehow just a damaged bottle.

1996 Domaine Bertagna Clos Vougeot Grand Cru. This wine is cool, reserved and dark-toned on the nose—with smoldering notes of black cherry, black raspberry, and black rocks that seem a bit inward-looking early on and just begin to show more of an outward-looking face toward the end of the evening. In the mouth, though, it is delicious. It has the greatest volume and the most fully-developed character of all the wines, in my opinion. It fills all corners of the mouth with its beautiful flavors of dark cherry, ashy smoke, forest floor and cool stoniness. It feels dense but vibrant, and is seamless and lushly-textured, yet balanced, refined and pure. The tannins are expertly-integrated and the powerful drive of the wine never prevents the beauty of the wine from showing through. It is a great drink, but for me, I had it #3 due to the rather somber nose. Still, the wine did garner one first place vote.

1998 Dominique Laurent Clos Vougeot Grand Cru. This is the most complete wine of the night and was my Wine of the Night. The bouquet takes a little while to shed a bit of dusty old attic aromas and then it comes on strong with very pretty aromas of sour cherry, spice powder, sweaty fur, soft spearmint and abundant cedar that combine in a lovely way. On the palate, this is chock full of bright cherry fruit, accompanied by flavors of brown spices and a generous dose of cedar. It also has a very pretty inner mouth perfume of purple flowers that I really fall for. Yes, there is some oak here, but the wine shows so much vibrancy of fruit and acids that the wood seems supportive more than distracting. The whole thing has great drive and presence, with excellent length and a generous yet classy finish. This is drinking very nicely today, but I could also see it improving over the next three to four years. This wine received two firsts, one second and one third-place vote, so it tied for group wine of the night, but did show the widest spread of opinion.


-Michael

[David M. Bueker]

Thanks for the insights. Any summation? How do yohu feel about Clos Vougeot? How do you feel about Clos Vougeot as a Grand Cru?

I'm never quite sure how I feel about Clos Vougeot. When I drink an Anne Gros or Mugneret-Gibourg wine I am very confident, but is that producer or the selected parcel in the (large) site? I am tempted to say both, but I've had very fine Clos Vougeout from other producers, and not everyone can have parcels in the best sections.Then there is the quesiotn of what makes a grand cru so grand. The current vogue is to value power (not always a key element of teh Clos' wines), but that has not always been so.

David, I am FAR from an expert, but there are maybe a few things I can summarize from this mini-sampling. First, if I hadn't known they were all Grand Crus, I would not have pegged any of them as such. I really liked elements of each one (except the damaged Champy), but there wasn't necessarily the gravitas or breeding one might expect of a Grand Cru. Furthermore, it was hard to find any identifiable commonality between the wines, so I don't know that I learned a whole lot about what to expect from the appellation (unlike the Clos St Jacques tasting we did earlier in the year, for example). A few things I DID learn: I continue to like mid to late-90's Dominique Laurent wines, regardless of appellation. And I need to have more patience with my '96's across the board--I think the Bertagna is going to maybe hit the Grand Cru heights about 10 years down the road. Indeed, maybe we drank all of these too young and expected too much of them?

-Michael

[David M. Bueker]

The only one of the 4 I would have expected to be anywhere near ready was the '97. '96 & '98 are toughies that will never get enough time, and I just don't see an '01 GC being ready to go yet.

The moment I saw the Clos de Vougeot vineayrd on my first trip to Burgundy, the explanation for the wide variation in quality between producers was immediately obvious. The Clos is still surrounded by its monastic wall, and it stretches from the flat land abutting the route nationale all the way up the slope to the top of the Cote d'Or.

The root cause of the quality variation is that the whole Clos--everything inside the walls--is classed as Grand Cru. And there are seventy-odd producers, each with one or more little plots of vines. A producer can make wine from vines on the flat part by the route nationale and call it Grand Cru, whereas wine made from grapes grown on the other side of the wall are only entitled to a villages designation. On the other hand, the top of the Clos is in the same band of geography as all the other grands crus on the Cote de Nuits. Between these two extremes are rows of vines with premiers crus abutting the wall on either side.

So Clos de Vougeot can range from a village-level wine to a true grand cru, but all of it is entitled to the grand cru designation. You have to know which producers are using grapes from the good plots in the Clos. It's a nightmare situation for the consumer.

-Paul W.

[David M. Bueker]

There has never been a system of classification that was not fraught with some sort of peril.

In Burgundy it is not just Clos Vougeout where reach is beyond grasp. Echezeaux and Corton spring to mind as well. Of course in all three there are stunning examples alongside those that leave much to be desired.

Now consider what happened in Germany with the 1971 wine law, where historic vineyards (e.g. Erdener Pralat, Piesporter Goldtropfchen) were expanded beyond their historical bounds in the interest of simplification. It takes a lot of background information to know which examples to purchase with confidence.

Then there is Bordeaux where a chateau can purchase land adjacent to the current boundaries and expand the domaine. Where does the good soil stop and the less good start?

I could advocate for a wholesale clearing out of existing classifications. Maybe starting from scratch would be a good idea. Unfortunately any reset would be fraught with even greater peril, as egos, commercial interests and historical legacies both old and not so old came into conflict over what might be best to do for the regions, the consumers and ultimately the wines.