Limited Offer of Exciting Burgundies
12/14/2021
Limited Offer of Exciting Burgundies
Savigney-les-Beaune, Hautes Cotes de Nuits, Declassified Puligny Montrachet
Burgundies for the Holidays!
Village Wines, one of our importers, recently had a limited Burgundy pre-sale of some fantastic wines. Burgundy is a complicated place of tiny producers with multiple holdings and a bewildering array of appellations and classifications all lain on top of each other. The exciting wines are often so expensive that they're unattainable. For these reasons Devenish doesn't do a lot with Burgundy; however I couldn't pass up this chance to snag some of these gems just in time for Christmas! I always say Pinot Noir and particularly red Burgundy is the wine people are most likely to really fall in love with and also the wine most likely to break your heart by not living up to your expectations. Pinot Noir is hard to grow and even good wine makers will sometimes make mediocre wines even in good vintages. You never know what you're getting into unless you've tasted it.
So here are my tasting notes below!
Francois Gay Savigny-les-Beaune 2019
Approximately $60/btl
You can find this at the Rosemont in Cape Elizabeth (or order from any of them), Now You're Cooking, Maine and Vine, Lincolnville General Store, Vic and Whit's, Sawyer's Specialties, Duck Fat, and Treats
This lovely Savigny-les-Beaune is made by Pascal Gay. Pascal took over running his family's 8 hectare estate from his father (Francois) about a decade ago and is the 8th generation to work these lands based from the village of Chorey les Beaune. Chorey les Beaune is sort of an oddity: it's located just to the north of Beaune and surrounded by some of the most sought after Burgundy AOCs, but Chorey les Beaune itself is sort of over looked. He also has holdings in the Corton Grand Cru, Savigny-les-Beaune, and Beaune 1er cru. Maybe being based in the less pricey Chorey les Beaune has contributed to him keeping his prices down...I don't know how else to explain why this Savigny-les-Beaune is such a great value! The winery makes about 3400 cases total production per year, so quite small, and most of that is sold directly to restaurants in France.
The vines are about 40 years old and the grapes are manually harvested. Before pressing, the grapes were mostly destemmed and then fermented and aged in French oak - 30% new. Pascal learned to make wine working alongside Francoise (who is still involved) so the wine is quite traditional. They farm sustainably and ferment with native yeast.
Aroma: wow! Really beautiful raspberry! Really just gorgeous fresh juicy raspberries. Well, maybe they're crushed. Maybe you're starting to saute them with a little bit of cinnamon. I definitely also smell some red rose: pungent beautiful and floral. This is classic gorgeous Burgundy aroma with a little bit of pepper and spice thrown in.
Taste: elegant poised red raspberry and cherry up front with nice acidity. This wine has really lovely supple texture but also serious structure behind that. It's so impressively knit together! The fruit upfront is delicious: cherry raspberry but also with a dimension of orange, but there's so much more going on in the wine. This has a delicious savory minerality that slides in behind the fruit, then a little bit of baking spice, a hint of cooked cherry, then some serious tannins ...and then behind all that a hint of cocoa powder.
Remoriquet Hautes Cotes de Nuits 2019
Approximately $50/btl
Available at Bangor Cheese and Wine, Maine and Loire, Leeward, Vic and Whit's, The Cheese Shop of Portland
The Remoriquet Domaine is a 4th generation family winery with 10 hectares of vines in the vicinity of the Nuits Saint Georges where their winery is located. Like Francois Gay, the Remoriquet winery isn't in the fanciest AOC, but they have holdings in amazing neighboring places such as Vosne Romanée 1er Cru. That vineyard actually borders the legendary La Tache vineyard whose wines sell for thousands of dollars, which you can't buy even if you had the money unless you're on the right lists! Since taking over from his father Gilles has adopted a lot of organic principles in the vineyard and more gentle processes in the winery for slower fermentations and less manipulation of the wines (switching from stainless to concrete and using more gentle pumps).
Hautes Cotes de Nuits runs parallel with the Cotes de Nuits AOC from Gevery Chambertin at one end and the Corton wood at the other. Remoriquet's Hautes Cotes de Nuits holdings are up just above the Cotes de Nuits hillside. This gives the vineyards a little more exposure to wind and the soil here is a rockier mix of marl and limestone. Gilles does a pre fermentation cold soak for a few days before letting the wine ferment with native yeast in concrete tanks. After primary fermentation is done the wine is aged for 12 months in Burgundian oak barrels.
Aroma: elegant sexy black raspberry with a little touch of smoke to it. It's a ripe open lovely smelling wine and just a little touch brambly
Taste: Oooh, it's quite gorgeous! The balance of structure to supple fruit is perfect. It opens with black raspberry fruit that's juicy and fresh with just the right amount of acidity. Then you quickly start to get a little bit of darker savory woodsy something coming in along with a delicious supporting saltiness. There's a hint of cocoa powder that comes in on the mid palate and then some relaxed black cherry and woodsy brambly touches on the finish. Finally at the very end as the wine is fading away, there's a little fatty savory rich taste like bacon fat that comes back to me. This is text book perfect medium bodied "seductive but still structured" red Burgundy.
Chavy Chouet Bourgogne Blanc Les Femelottes
Approximately $45/btl
You can find this at Helm, Vic and Whit's, Cheese Shop of Portland, and Grippy Tannins
Owner Romaric Chavy, who took over the estate in 2014, is the eighth generation to make wine in his family. Romaric learned from his father, Hubert Chavy, who founded the winery in 1982. Chavy-Chouet is one of the oldest families in Puligny-Montrachet. The Ropiteau family (on his mother's side) is the oldest one in Meursault. Hubert originally sold most of his wines to top negociants but when Romaric got involved they began bottling themselves. Romaric began learning to make wine when he was 12, attended a specialized wine making prep school, and then worked in South Africa, Greece, Spain, and the Languedoc before taking over his family's domaine at 22 years old. Romaric is one of those wine makers who believes wine is made through good farming and healthy vines so he's been adopting organic farming methods, uses native yeast fermentations, and does not filter or fine the wines.
Les Femelottes is 100% Chardonnay from 5 parcels of vines that are either just outside the Puligny Montrachet AOC or are inside but young vines and so Romaric declassifies the grapes. Vine age ranges from 5-60 years old. The wine ferments with native yeast in barrel and then is aged in barrels for 10 months; 10% are new and the rest are 2-3 years old.
Aroma: ripe sunny apricot and white peach backed up with a touch of toasting meringue, toasted coconut, and a hint of hazelnuts. That rich sunny fruit is the primary aroma. I can definitely tell from the other aromas that this was aged in oak, but it works well and the aroma is totally unified with the oak elegantly integrated.
Taste: nice rich ripe citrusy clementine orange upfront followed by a bit of a mango flavor and then some delicious tasty saltiness. There's a little bit of a toasted coconut/vanilla biscuit woven in there too, but this is fresh, lively, and tasty. The finish has a brilliant green apple and honeydew kind of flavor with a very gentle hint of ginger-like spice. This is a great example of how oak can work so well and play a supporting roll to Chardonnay's ripe fruit and vibrant acidity.
Robert Gibourg Coteaux de Bourguignons 2018
Approximately $30/btl
You can find this at the Lincolnville General Store, Vic and Whit's, Store Amperand, and Treats
Robert Gibourg inherited 1 hectare of vineyard way back in the late 60s and then slowly grew the estate over the next 30 years he slowly acquired small special vineyard sites in Ladoix, Aloxe Corton, and Corton Grand Cru. The domaine now has 6 hectares and is run by his son in law Sebastien Bidault. Coteaux de Bourguignons is a sort of catch all Burgundy Appellation, but in this case the fruit comes from a few parcels up on the clay and limestone plateau above his famous village wines. The grapes are hand harvested, destemmed, cold soaks for 3-5 days, and then ferments with native yeast for about 3 weeks. This is bottled unfined, unfiltered, and with no added sulfur. Sebastien wanted to experiment with a zero sulfur wine so he contact his friend Fabrice Dodane, a famous natural wine maker from the Arbois to help guide him. It's perfectly put together and fresh: there's nothing to give away that it's zero sulfur aside from maybe the wine is a bit more vivacious.
Aroma: black raspberry, blueberry, and cherry; fresh, ripe, and fruit forward. It smells a bit like currants and licorice candy as well. Also there's a hint of cloves and black pepper.
Taste: Upfront juicy tightly wound black raspberry fruit with a touch of black currant. There's nice acidity that keeps the fruit energetic and tense. The mid palate has more raspberry and also some red cherry. It tightens and tannin comes in that gives the wine a dry dusty black pepper and currant finish. The tannins are in balance but really have some staying power; this is a more forceful slightly rustic Pinot Noir.
Gueyu Mar: Ideal Presents and Stocking Stuffers
Devenish is now distributing the conservas (tinned fish) of Abel Alvarez in Asturias Spain! Abel's seaside restaurant, Gueyu Mar, is famous summer destination, but the cold stormy winter weather makes the coast a ghost town. So Abel spent years researching and trying out techniques for canning fish. It's paid off and these are recognized as some of the best in the world. The conservas are all fresh fish Abel buys at market for the restaurant, grills over an oak wood fire at Gueyu Mar, and then immediately tins it with fresh local olive oil.
They're delicious and really fun to play with. Think of them as an ingredient that is all cooked and ready to go. Just open the can, heat it, and then serve the fish with whatever you want to add. I've had the grilled tuna steak with diced scallions, olives, some tomato, and a bit of calabrian chile. The Octopus was great chopped, served over fried potatoes, with some sea salt sprinkled on it.
You can find these at Browne Trading in Portland, Bangor Wine and Cheese, Blue Hill Wine Shop, Maine and Loire, Havana, Sawyer's Specialties, Bleeker and Greer, Solo Cucina, and Trillium Caterers.
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Copyright © 2021 Devenish Wines, All rights reserved.
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PO Box 11210
Portland, ME 04104
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