Myth Over
Matter: Mature Burgundy 1920-2019&nbsp;

BY NEAL MARTIN |&nbsp;MARCH 30, 2023Let’s
clear the elephant from the room…

Many wines
herein are extraordinarily rare, more myth than matter. Some are so expensive
that they could bankrupt a small equatorial country or solve the financial
predicament of a Swiss bank. As I typed up the notes, I often found myself
reminiscing about blackened saturated corks being surgically prized from ancient
bottles encrusted by dust and time, nobody knowing what their contents would
reveal, yet light-headed with anticipation and the thought that this would be
their solitary encounter. By all means, grab a calculator and punch in their cumulative
market value. That would be missing the point. Each and every bottle fulfilled
its raison d’être: opened and poured, shared and savored. Not one
ignominiously gathered dust, reduced to simply a vessel for accumulating resale
value for an indifferent owner. Thankfully, not everyone is like that. Casually
martyring a bottle of 2007 Romanée-Conti Grand Cru to gleeful
disbelieving guests in Beaune, a friend was asked why he was pouring such a
valuable bottle?

His rhetorical
answer was straight and apposite…

“What
else am I going to do with it?”<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1680101388028-romanee+conti+2007_copy.jpg">The
idea that professional wine critics spend all their time in hermetically-sealed
laboratories dissecting wines and never entertaining the thought of consuming wine
for sheer pleasure is utter nonsense. It’s far from the truth. Every full-time
wine writer enjoys wine outside work hours, their vocation an extension of
their passion. Many bottles in this report are ones that illuminated private
dinners accompanied by friends and like-minded oenophiles: wines of various maturity,
some expensive and others…well…I am not going to write “cheap” because that
word is no longer applicable, but let’s say, less expensive. No, not
everyone is going to unleash three Clos Vougeots from Engel or a double magnum
of 1953 Corton. But here’s the thing…sometimes they do. And sometimes Bacchus
and Lady Luck smile upon you because you’re there when it happens. 

I
sympathize with what some might perceive as the immorality of drinking 750mls
of fermented grape juice that might have funded your child through university. I
bet there’s some kid stacking supermarket shelves bitterly ruing that his
parents literally drank away their higher education. Though market values can
enter realms of obscene, there are oenophiles whose passion for Burgundy
predates its fetishization, including myself. Passions remain unchanged even if
prices become unhinged. Some are coerced to sell, and who can begrudge that? We
live in straitened times. Yet many view the price of a bottle as what they once
paid, not what they could sell it for now. What you lose pulling that cork
depends upon your interpretation of opportunity cost.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1680101409518-bourgogne+1962+bottle_copy.jpg">I
bought this bottle myself in the UK as it came from a cellar with excellent provenance,
which is always a crucial factor when buying this kind of wine. 

This treasure
trove accreted over several months, a depository for odd bottles that do not
fit into vintage horizontals or the verticals that will follow. Across the
world, circles of Burgundy lovers constantly exchange and share bottles,
fomenting a communal, close-knit scene that traverses borders and time zones. Underlying
it all is incomparable generosity. Though I cannot rustle up a La Tâche
knocking about my Eurocave, I strive to proffer something a bit leftfield that
might surprise, such as the 1962 Bourgogne Blanc from Domaine
Mugneret-Gibourg. I probably gained more gratification serving it to co-proprietor
Marie-Andrée Mugneret than the slightly fusty wine itself, but it proved that
lowly bottles can defy time (just). Perusing the list, there are naturally
clusters of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Roumier and Rousseau. Lucky me.
Perhaps of equal or even more interest are the less well-known names, such as
the 1985 Chambolle-Musigny Les Charmes 1er Cru from François Bertheau
or 1986 Puligny-Montrachet Les Demoiselles 1er Cru from Madame
Francis Colin, to name but two. But which wines made the biggest
impression? I am not talking about the biggest scores but the ones indelibly
printed on my mind.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1680101438327-corton+1953+hospices_copy.jpg">Certainly,
the double-magnum 1953 Corton Grand Cru Cuvée Charlotte Dumay from the
Hospices de Beaune. The handful of mature Hospices wines has never wowed me,
yet the time-defying nectar entranced me, and it just oozed class. This was followed
by a heavenly 1953 Gevrey-Chambertin Clos Saint-Jacques 1er Cru from
Pierre Ponnelle. Old bottles from this négociant can be thrilling when
they’re on form, and this ranks as one of the finest examples I have ever
tasted from the renowned Premier Cru. I must also mention a 1969
Meursault-Blagny 1er Cru from Louis Latour, partly as a reminder
that they crafted dazzling wines in those days and partly in memory of Fabrice
Latour, who passed away last year. You will find plenty of Raveneau, the
most memorable and time-bending 1975 Chablis Montée de Tonnerre 1er Cru,
not a great vintage for the region and theoretically long past its best-before
date. This bottle was having none of it – startlingly fresh and vivacious,
every sip, bliss. <img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1680101458940-corton+1978+meo_copy.jpg">Haloed
vintages are included, though the likes of 1978 or 1985 are becoming
increasingly uncommon. Of course, at that time, the number of quality-driven
producers was a fraction of nowadays, so unlike Bordeaux, you have to kiss a
few frogs to find your prince or princess, some having weathered the passing
years better than others even before accounting for provenance. Indeed, the 1978
Chassagne-Montrachet Grandes Ruchottes 1er Cru from Domaine J F Pillot
was a surprise package that showed little evidence of its age, while Jean-Nicolas
Méo poured an exquisite 1978 Corton Clos Rognet Grand Cru. This was
not made by Henri Jayer, as some might presume, but rather by the unsung
winemaker of that period, Christian Faurais. Apropos 1985, I adored the Corton-Charlemagne
Grand Cru from Domaine Bonneau du Martray and Bienvenue-Bâtard-Montrachet
Grand Cru from Domaine Leflaive, though I find that the vintage is becoming
a bit more hit-and-miss as years roll past. You might have expected a thundering
score for the 1985 La Tâche Grand Cru. On the contrary, several bottles
over the years have confounded expectations, and the wines come up short. You
can easily fall into the trap of willing a wine to perform at an ethereal level
by dint of reputation and market value, thereby losing your objectivity. I hope
it is patently clear that the arbiter of my reviews is how respective wines
showed in the glass and nothing else. <img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1680101485754-bienvenues+1985+leflaive_copy.jpg">Readers
will find plenty of mature white Burgundy in this article. It is such a pity
that premature oxidation has understandably frightened away many who appreciate
the wines. 

Indeed,
despite the canonization of Burgundy, its wines remain fickle. Let me give you
an example. A friend organized a blind tasting of seven 2009 Côte de Nuits
in November at a private club: heavyweights that included Grands Crus from
Leroy, DRC, Rousseau and Comte du Liger-Belair. The wines were eagerly
anticipated, as you might expect. A dozen of us assembled, and the wines were
served blind. After we put down our pencils, an uncomfortable silence ensued. A
silence that was not provoked by our sense of awe but rather a silence as we
waited for the first person to pipe up and comment upon how underwhelming they
were. Even putting the oxidized Richebourg aside, only a couple of performances
were commensurate with their reputations. The sommelier assured us that the
wines would improve later, but in the end, even he admitted that they never
budged. It was inexplicable. Were our palates kaput? Perchance a root day? I
never subscribe to that bunkum. It was simply a pertinent reminder of the
capriciousness of Burgundy reaches up to the pinnacle of the Côte d’Or
irrespective of how much somebody is willing to pay.

Maybe
the 2009s are not what they are cracked up to be?

Then
again, comparing J-F Mugnier’s 2009 and 2010 Chambolle-Musigny blind,
side-by-side, during a Burgfest lunch, I was foolishly confident of nailing the
latter as the superior and much fresher wine. Yet it was the 2009 that trumped
the 2010. 

That’s
Burgundy for you… constantly tripping you up.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1680101509648-montrachet+2015+colin_copy.jpg">Infanticide?
It’s only infanticide if the wine is distastefully closed and young, where two
bottles of this Montrachet have shown brilliantly, to the point where one
almost questions whether to cellar longer. 

Plenty
of wines are less than ten years old, admittedly stretching the definition of
“mature Burgundy”. Essentially, this is a catch-all collection of tasting notes
that do not fit into my annual barrel or Burgfest reports. There’s no
definitive answer to when a bottle has reached its prime. For many years, I
have posited that time alone can manifest sensory nuances that elevate
something as mundane as fermented grape juice into a beverage of unparalleled
profundity. Paradoxically, I will not deny the pleasure of imbibing young
Burgundy, reveling in its precocious fruit, youthful vivacity and purity. It
depends on the producer. For example, I find that Christophe Roumier’s wines
tend to give sensory pleasure both young and old, whereas, say, Sylvain
Cathiard or Joseph Roty’s wines mandate bottle age. It depends on how they are
built. Of course, if dining in Burgundy’s heart, the town of Beaune, then you
have little choice since mature Burgundy is often defined as young as a 2017 or
2018! The list suggests that the Côte d’Or did not exist before those years. I
am not being glib - I have often encountered a sommelier who described 2017 as
a “mature vintage”. Everything is relative. It’s a shame because visitors to
the region are denied the chance to experience its wines with appropriate age.
Yet, anything older is habitually whisked from the list before the ink dries. Mea
culpa.

I will
leave it there. A friend is opening a series of 1999 Burgundy wines bought on
release, including a Vosne-Romanée Les Brûlées 1er Cru. I suspect that the
cumulative cost that he paid back then is a fraction of what that wine
currently fetches on the market. How the world has changed. But I will spend
the night just enjoying those wines with friends, not thinking about the cost,
but thinking about the joys of mature Burgundy.&nbsp;© 2023, Vinous. No portion of this article may be copied, shared or re-distributed without prior consent from Vinous. Doing so is not only a violation of our copyright, but also threatens the survival of independent wine criticism.<hr> You Might Also Enjoy<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/money-well-spent-domaine-de-l-arlot-1959-2019-mar-2023">Money Well Spent: Domaine de L’Arlot: 1959-2019</a>, Neal Martin, March 2023 <a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/plus-ca-change-drc-2020-in-bottle-feb-2023">Plus Ça Change: DRC 2020 in Bottle</a>, Neal Martin, February 2023 <div><a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/burgundy-2021-the-market-jan-2023">Burgundy 2021: The Market</a>, Neal Martin, January 2023<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/cleaning-out-the-cupboard-bordeaux-1943-2020-jan-2023">Cleaning Out the Cupboard: Bordeaux 1943-2020</a>, Neal Martin, January 2023 </div>

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