Wednesday Wines – Episode 41
Episode 41 – 6th January 2021
Two stunning £20 Burgundies
The month of January is all about the annual Burgundy En Primeur releases and the vintage in question is 2019. You will be able to read my notes and scores from the various tastings on this website. I have already published three articles, there is one more coming this week and there will be more to come in due course.
While you are scrambling to reserve your allocations of the 2019s you might like to taste some rather lovely 2018s which do not break the bank and which are both ready to drink now. I have selected one Chardonnay and one Pinot Noir and both wines dip under the twenty quid mark!
2018 Mâcon-Lugny, Les Crays Vers Vaux, Florent Rouve, Burgundy, France (£19.99, www.waitrosecellar.com).
Both this wine and its red counterpart below have suitably grand flavours at a rather keen price. As you will already be aware, 2018 was a ripe, generous vintage and these two words act as perfect descriptors for this succulent, single-vineyard Chardonnay. Rouve always loads his wines with intensity and gravitas and this wine is no exception. Honeyed, ever so slightly exotic and full-flavoured, this is a main course white and yet the acidity is very finely-judged and this brings a welcome zestiness and bounce to the finish. Make sure that you don’t over-chill this wine because it needs to fully express itself and then line up a classic roast chicken (serve breast with this wine…), polish your favourite glasses (you will need two each) and you are ready to go.
2018 Bourgogne Côte d’Or Rouge, A Tale of Terroir, Louis Jadot, Beaune, France (£19.99, www.tauruswines.co.uk).
Drink this beauty with the legs and wings of the aforementioned roast chicken (hence the ‘two glass’ note above) because this is a delicious Pinot Noir with terrific depth and silkiness and it is clearly made from top drawer ingredients. Drinking now, but able to hold for a few more years, too, this is a work of art from the famous team at Jadot. Introduced in 2017, the new Bourgogne Côte d’Or denomination can be used by wines that draw on fruit from within the prestigious Côte d’Or subsection of the greater Burgundy region. In theory, this superior and specific version of the generic Bourgogne nomenclature should be reflected in the high level of raw materials and resulting wine quality. I have tasted a good few examples of wines under this Bourgogne Côte d’Or label and it certainly seems to work, not least because these examples I have tasted were all made by top-end estates. Of course, these wines will inevitably wear a more expensive price tag as evinced by this very wine, but it is a cracker, so worth paying up for! As well as tasting like a work of art, this superb creation wears a work of art, too. Featuring the three Burgundian elements of soil, landscape and climat this label was designed by Alice Lengereau and Joel Davies, students at London’s famous Central Saint Martins University of the Arts.
