Author: Thomas Wilcox

After three years away from in-person tastings, we were worried we might feel a bit rusty as we began our tasting trip yesterday morning. So we chose to begin with Christophe Mestre, a warm, generous winemaker who welcomed us into his cave as though we’d seen him only last week.

We tasted Mestre’s 2019s from bottle and 2020s from barrel, two very different but excellent vintages with lots of potential. Christophe also opened a bottle of his terrific 2018, which we’ve been enjoying since last fall. It continues to be delicious, and we enthusiastically recommend it again.

Mestre’s small-production Châteauneuf cuvée has become a favorite among our readers, offering uncomplicated, full-bodied enjoyment without the usual $50+ investment. The nose is explosive, with a wide range of notes from violets and pan drippings to strawberry jam and lavender. The mouth is smooth and soft and rich, with a dark red complexion and silky tannins. Critic Jeb Dunnock awarded 90-92 points, finding it “medium bodied, nicely textured, and with ample character.”

We shared a lovely lunch with Jacqueline André yesterday afternoon, and her tremendous, beautiful, ageworthy Châteauneuf is as good as ever. But Mestre’s cuvée shows a more accessible, more affordable, and less serious expression of the terroir. We plan to continue to enjoy both, and invite you to do the same.

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Mestre Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2018
bottle price: $35

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The Ansonia team arrived in France this morning, after the longest stretch away (three years) in more than two decades. The world has changed a bit since March 2019, as has the market for Burgundy, our business, and even your trusty tasters. We’ve added new offspring, new family members, new customers, new vignerons and even a few new gray hairs. But our passion for France and its winemakers has remained unchanged, and if anything we bring a renewed enthusiasm for our overdue visit.

We’ve got a packed schedule for the next few weeks, and we invite you to follow along on our Instagram and YouTube channels as we post (hopefully daily) updates from our trip. And if we answer emails a bit slower than usual, we kindly ask your patience – there’s three years’ worth of foie gras to be eaten over here…

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Aligoté is having a moment in Burgundy. Vignerons have grown the grape here for centuries, but for most of that time it’s been considered an afterthought – a high-acid grape producing humble, refreshing, unserious wines.

But as summers grow ever hotter and growing seasons shorten, Burgundian growers perennially in search of freshness have begun to rethink the grape’s potential. There’s even a movement to consider allowing blending with Chardonnay for major appellations, should the trend of ever warmer and drier summers continue.

Vincent Boyer’s Bourgogne-Aligoté makes a powerful case for the grape’s potential. It’s not in the same class as his magnificent cuvées from Meursault and Puligny, of course; but it’s the classiest Aligoté we know, and a startling bargain.

Boyer’s 2019 Bourgogne-Aligoté continues to get better. The nose is floral and gorgeous, with notes of white flowers, pear, and chalk. The mouth is smooth and round, with far more weight than the grape typically offers. The finish is clean and compact, with precise freshness and a lovely dollop of stones.

This is Aligoté that would beat out many a Bourgogne blanc in a head to head. There’s a regal character to the wine that would have been unthinkable for the grape a decade or two ago. Burghound found it “wonderfully fresh,” citing its “vibrant middle weight flavors” and “unusually refined texture.” Forget what you know about Aligoté; Boyer’s refines the genre.

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Boyer-Martenot Bourgogne Aligoté 2019
bottle price: $24

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The Domaine Ravaut is the ultimate local wine source. For over a century the Ravaut family has cultivated a loyal clientele of friends, neighbors, and local workers — our tasting visits are frequently interrupted by neighbors stocking up their cellars. The domaine continues to sell nearly half its wine to folks who walk in their front door.

The Ravaut’s make everything from humble Bourgogne to Grand Cru Corton, and each cuvée shows polish and precision. William Kelly of the Wine Advocate finds “characterful wines with plenty of stuffing,” and “plenty to admire.”

Most of Ravaut’s wines are at the very northern end of the Côte de Beaune, but today’s is just over the border into the Côte de Nuits, and the subtle regional shift tells you everything you need to know.

Ravaut’s entry level wines are usually lightweight and pretty — but not in 2019. Abundant sunshine and warmth produced a crop of bold, juicy, delicious reds with lots of instenisty and character. It’s dark, sleek, and beautiful with notes of gingerbread, earth, wild cherries, and smoke — all wrapped up in Ravaut’s signature polish.

Over the last few months his has mellowed into a gorgeously complex weeknight red Burgundy. If you’re feeling adventurous, serve with seared tuna; for classicists, go with game or duck or just a simple mushroom toast.

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Ravaut Côte de Nuits-Villages 2019
bottle price: $38

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Chenin blanc has an enormous range of expression. It can be anywhere from bone dry to very sweet depending on vintage, terroir, and winemaker. Vouvray is the original source for Chenin Blanc, but the surrounding towns in the central Loire Valley produce excellent examples as well.

Several years ago we spent a few days in the Loire searching for a new source for Chenin Blanc. We enjoy the sweet stuff from time to time, but our main goal was to find a dry, refreshing, unoaked, affordable Chenin. Today’s wine is the result of that search, and it’s become one of our most popular bottles of white from anywhere.

Nicolas Paget is an energetic and impassioned young winemaker in Touraine-Azay le Rideau (a neighbor to Vouvray). Like much Loire wine today, Paget’s wines are organic and low-intervention in style. They’re aromatically expressive and beautifully balanced — lush exotic fruit presented in a clean, fresh package.

Paget’s 2019 Melodie sports an almost Chablisien array of grapeskin and minerals — clean, pure and delightful. The nose is floral and dry, with faint pear notes and a hint of apple. Even in a warm year Paget has managed to craft a refreshing cuvée — at 13% alcohol it’s beautifully balanced, and a refreshing break from the palate-coating wines that dominate the market these days. Serve with fresh goat cheese on crusty bread and welcome the arrival of spring.

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Paget Chenin Blanc “Melodie” 2019
bottle price: $19

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Red Burgundy is classically a study in finesse and understatement. Pinot Noir’s thin skin and clear juice enable remarkable subtlety, and at their best, Red Burgundies can be hauntingly beautiful. They’re rarely the loudest voice in the room, but often the most impressive. But as with most rules, there are exceptions.

Town that produces the boldest, most intense expressions of red Burgundy is Gevrey-Chambertin. And even among wines from Gevrey, the Domaine des Varoilles style is concentrated and rich. The winemakers harvest relatively late, and use a long cold soak to extract loads of flavor and texture from their grapes. The resulting wines are distilled, dark, and delicious.

Today we’re suggesting a 2018 premier cru Gevrey-Chambertin from Varoilles, and one that you won’t soon forget.

Varoilles’s Gevrey Premier Cru Champonnet is a stunner in 2018. We usually bypass this wine for the domaine’s more famous monopoles of La Romanée and Varoilles — but this year it was impossible to pass up. The nose is sleek and muscly, with sweet oak notes mixing with blackcurrant fruit and chocolate. The mouth is long and gorgeous with notes of cassis and gingerbread, and a rippling current of seductive tannins.

Burghound was similarly impressed, finding “very good volume,” and a “powerful” pallet, “rich and caressing” with a “suave texture.” This wine has many happy years ahead of it, but the ripe fruit from a warm year make it enjoyable even today. Carafe it for a half hour while your roast lamb finishes in the oven.

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Varoilles Gevrey-Chambertin
1er cru “Champonnet” 2018
bottle price: $88

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Well-priced white Burgundy is getting harder to find. Demand is up, supply is (way) down, and the wines themselves just keep getting better. As prices at the high end reach to stratospheric levels and more consumers focus on entry level cuvées, it’s become trickier to find that weeknight Bourgogne blanc.

But there are still bargains to be found. A few years ago we stumbled across the Domaine Bohrmann on a wine list in a Beaune restaurant. Formed in 2002 with just 1.5 hectares of vines, they have no other importers, zero critical reviews, and a (very) hard-to-reach winemaker.

Sofie Borhmann is a Belgian winemaker, splitting her time between Belgium and Burgundy. We’re not sure where she’s been hiding, or why no other American importers have found her, but her wines continue to over-deliver their billing. We’ve sold through several cuvées of her excellent 2019 whites, but the Bourgogne blanc is still in stock.

Bohrmann is a master of careful oaking. Her terrific cuvées from Meursault, Puligny, and St-Aubin channel each town’s terroir with honesty and precision – just enough wood to support the wine, but not enough to get in the way.

Borhmann’s Bourgogne blanc comes from 40 year old vines, giving the wine an intense, distilled mouthfeel and excellent length. The 2019 is an extraordinarily complex wine for its level. The nose is smooth, elegant, floral, and concentrated, with more than a passing resemblance to Meursault. The mouth is cool, impressively long, and vibrant — ripe and ready to drink immediately.

Like the wildly popular 2018 (sold out in months last year), this is among the most impressive regional-level Bourgogne blancs we’ve tasted in years, and we’re excited to have it in stock. We bought as much as we could, but after one taste you’ll understand why this won’t be around for long.

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Bohrmann Bourgogne blanc 2019
bottle price: $34

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Last week we brought up the remaining stock from our offsite warehouse, a location whose inventory control hasn’t exactly been Amazon level. (We know – pot, kettle, etc.) But when the stock arrived we were excited to find a small lot of ten year old Bordeaux which was listed as white was in fact red – a happy surprise.

With guarded expectations we opened a bottle a few days ago, and found it not at all tired, and simply delicious. As a $25 wine that was drinkable by 2015, it certainly wasn’t something we intended to age for a decade, but it makes a convincing case to consider doing to so more often.

And so today we suggest a perfectly aged wine for which we can claim almost no credit: the Château Léhoul Graves rouge 2012.

Chateau Léhoul is a small family domaine in Graves, just south of the city of Bordeaux on the region’s Left Bank. Their humble wines are well made and well priced, and, as it turns out, age beautifully. This isn’t 2012 Haut Brion, but it’s a fraction of the price and was delicious with our burgers – don’t overthink it and it won’t let you down.

The 2012 shows lovely dark fruits, with notes of dried violets, tobacco, and plum jam. The mouth is velvety and smooth but not at all dry, with its inky tannins and softened fruit laid over a beautiful patina of texture. Give this 20 minutes in a carafe to wake up from its decade of slumber, and admire the power of patience. (Or lack of planning, your pick.)

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Léhoul Graves 2012
bottle price: $25

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We’re often apprehensive when a new generation takes over a domaine. Young winemakers often implement needed modernization, but sometimes get caught chasing trendiness. No winemaker in our portfolio has more expertly balanced these impulses than Gautier Desvignes.

The transformation chez Desvignes has not gone unnoticed. Vinous’s Neal Martin recently found Gautier’s wines “really quite superb.” And the Wine Advocate’s William Kelley named Gautier one of the region’s “five rising stars,” advising “importers looking for a potential future star should beat a path to his door.”

Most of Gautier’s 2019s sold out through futures, but his excellent village-level Givry is still available in small quantities.

The 2019 Givry from Desvignes shows bright red fruit with precision and focus worthy of a Côte d’Or red Burgundy. There’s berries in the nose with subtle hints of toast chalk. The mouth is clean and pure with beautiful tension slicing through the bursting ripe fruit.

William Kelly awarded 90 points calling it “already hard to resist,” “lively and charming,” concluding “it has turned out beautifully.” In short, this is among the best red Burgundy values in our cellar. We only wish there was more of it to go around.

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Desvignes Givry 2019
bottle price: $32

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