a blind tasting of 20 white Burgundies from 2005

Our wine club Euryanthe got together yesterday to taste 2005 white Burgundies . We were interested in exploring the stage of their development , if there would be premox , and of course which ones were best .
Overall , it was a great success . While the grand cru’s are understandably closed , most 1er cru’s were drinking beautifully . I was told by vignerons in Burgundy that this vintage is closed at the moment but that is not so .
Sadly , we had 2 premoxed bottles and from VERY famous producers indeed .
All the wines were double decanted 4 hours before the tasting .They were served in duo’s .

This was a blind tasting of 20 wines , 10 tasters present .

1. Spices dominate , easily identified as Coche , intens and sharp , very slightly dry finish . 91/100 ( JF Coche Dury Meursault Villages )

2. More mineral , softer texture , elegant wine . 92/100 ( Raveneau Montée de Tonnerre )

3. More liqueur on the nose , very ripe and slightly exotic , to drink now 89/100 ( Billaud-Simon Chablis Preuses )

4. Corked ! ( Dauvissat Chablis Preuses )

5. Really great wine ! Round and ripe , perfect balance , with ages ahead . 95/100 ( Chablis Clos Raveneau )

6. More tight and closed . Very mineral with great concentration . Very different in style . Great wine 10 years from now 93+/100 ( Chablis Clos Dauvissat )

7. Elegant and spicy , delicious wine for now , fresh , “ rafiné “ , 93/100 ( Arnaud Ente , Puligny les Referts )

8. Somewhat fatter in style versus the previous one , but it remained its elegance . Lovely . 92/100 ( Carillon Puligny Les Referts )

9. Spicy sexy wine . Delicious . Open for business . 94/100 ( Coche Dury Meursault Caillerets )

10. Much more closed . Very young and unyielding . You taste the power but not ( yet ) any complexity . ( Pousse d’Or , Puligny Caillerets )

11. A great wine . Wood , honey , spice , great lingering acidity , this has it all . 95/100 ( Domaine Leflaive , Puligny Pucelles )

12. Also delicious wine ( served together with previous one ). Impossible to choose which is best . This one is more elegant with a peachy nose . Perfect to drink now . 95/100 ( Coche Dury Puligny Enseigneres )

13. Over the top wine . oxidative . Became worse after 5 minutes in the glass . NR ( Comte Lafon Meursault Goutte d’Or )

14. Super nose of gun powder , nuts and citrus . Amazing concentration . Who other than Lalou Bize Leroy can make such a wine ? My WOTN. 96/100 ( Meursault Goutte d’Or , d’Auvenay )

15. Slightly oxidative ( “ pommadé “ ) which gets worse over 10 minutes , this is not right . NR ( Batard Montrachet Henri Boillot )

16. Very fine , elegant , mineral . Still very young but great class . 93+/100 ( PY Colin , Corton Charlemagne )

17. Delicious wine but it misses concentration to be really great . Elegant . 93/100 ( Chevalier Montrachet , Pillot )

18. Longer , fuller , has more of everything 95/100 ( turned out to be another PY Colin Corton Charlemagne ). After unblinding the wines , I tasted them side by side and I found the second bottle slightly more open and evolved . Because of the different decanting times ? This was the only bottle out of the 20 wines that was brought in at the last minute .

19. Totally closed wine . You taste greatness but that’s about it . Difficult to assess. 95+/100 ( Chevalier Montrachet Domaine Leflaive ) later that night , it revealed some of its potential , but I would leave this wine alone for another 10 years .

20. Surprisingly deep yellow color . Utterly delicious now . Slightly controversial because some tasters around the table were suspicious about the color , associating it with an advanced stage of development . Not in the glass though . 96/100 . ( Montrachet , Lucien le Moine )
    
    
    At the end , I asked everybody to vote for their favorite wines . Overall winner was the Meursault Goutte d’Or : 9 out the 10 tasters voted it as WOTN ! Second place was for JF Coche Dury Puligny Enseigneres , third place for the Puligny Pucelles from Leflaive . ( grand cru’s were too closed to compare now ).

My conclusion is that the 1er cru’s are drinking beautifully now , at least at these top domaines .

Herwig,

Thanks for the notes, this was very enlightening. Having drunk my Raveneau 1ers, I suppose I’ll let the Grands Crus sleep for a while longer. A pity about the corked Dauvissat Preuses, by the way.

My thanks also herwig.
I agree on that leflaive Chevalier - an awful brute with at least 10 years more time needed - I hope all the (my) bottles make it that long…

Great tasting and notes to follow. Thanks. The biggest surprise is you only found 2 oxidized wines from this vintage. I`ve never had a bad Leflaive, Les Pucelles and love this one.

Thanks…

Great job Herwig. I hope you can find yourself in Los Angeles in Feb/March for our installment of the 2005s.

I don’t know what it is saying about either you or your tasting colleagues that 9 of 10 of them thought that one of the two wines you felt was oxidized was the wine of the night.

Herwig,
Great notes as usual. I recently had the 08 Coche Dury Enseigneres which showed lovely. Coche really doesn’t make bad wine. Good to see that Leflaives are doing well and if I buy new Lafon, I would drink up immediately.

Don , wine nr 13 was Goutte d’Or from Comte Lafon and was oxidized . Wine nr 14 was Goutte d’Or from d’Auvenay and was WOTN .
If I can make it , I’ll bring one along : that is : the d’Auvenay one .

Thanks Herwig. I have a lineup of ten 2005 Meursault Perrieres I am going to open later this year. Sounds like they are just starting to show well.

Herwig:

Great report. Your better bottle of PYCM Corton Charlie is consistent with my experience. Out of magnum, as I’ve had on ocassion, it is that much better.

Unfortunate that Raveneau Valmur didn’t make it into the line up. Along with the Rav Clos 89 and 02 and Dauvissat Clos 08, it is among my favorite bottles of Chablis.

Best,

Barry

Excellent notes, thanks.

Lovely notes, thanks so much for sharing. Too bad about the corker and the premox’d wines.

Lovely tasing notes. Of what I have tasted from 2005 some grand Crus are backward while others are ready and appealing right now. Due to fear of Premox, I have less than two dozen left.

Mike–had the 05 Raveneau Clos as part of a 04-09 Rav. Clos vertical recently, and it was the wine of the night. It’s really showing well now, so if you have more than a couple, it’s an incredible drink even at this point.

Thanks Herwig, very educational…

Glad to know your palate is still reliable. I’m hoping you’ll be able to join us. I realize the sample is small but 10% premoxed at exactly seven years sounds like just about the same level we’ve seen for 2002 and 2004 here.

I know one of the complaints about the 2005s on release was that a lot of the wines tasted too ripe and too low in acidity to be ageable for an extended period, yet you thought a couple of the wines needed another ten years while the 1ers were ready to go. Any thoughts about the ripeness/acidity issue compared to vintages like 2000 and 2002? (I won’t ask about 2004 because all of that reduction makes the comparison less meaningful).

I think the 05 vintage is riper than 2002 with less pronounced acidities .It’s not a great vintage for Chablis .
I heard it was a tricky vintage for Chardonnay , and date of vendages was critical . Many wines are too soft and overblown . Of course , our wines are from the top producers , people like JF Coche know what they are doing .