On Tuesday, I had lunch with an old friend, and we opened a bottle of 1966 Gouges Porrets that I had been saving for him. Decanted at home from a bottle with about 3.5 cm of ullage, it was returned to its bottle and we drove to the restaurant.
Once there we reopened it, and it showed a beautiful soft red color, and a magnificent bouquet of wild strawberries, roses, meat, iron and spices. On the palate it was seamless, pretty, hauntingly fragrant with a long easy finish. It continued to evolve in the glass, showing absolutely no sign of fading.
Today, I was enjoying a steak at a local restaurant, and casually asked for the list. I saw a Gouges NSG Les St. Georges 1999 on the list for $100. I ordered it, but there were none left, but they did have the Pruliers. As with most youngish Gouges when you open them, it was completely dumb. No bouquet at first, little on the palate, apart from the tiniest shard of fruit. It was cellar temperature and after it warmed up, it shared a few things with the 1966. The wild strawberry, and the ferric character, but it was bigger, and much more rustic, and showed none of the elegance and pretty fragrance that the older bottle had. Gouges apparently needs 30 plus years to soften and to lose that chunky rusticity. I didn’t finish it, but took the half bottle home. Five hours later, with plenty of aeration, it was a tad softer, but still quite dour and unforgiving. Tough to love, and I have a few 1999 Gouges left. They are going to hibernate for a couple more decades.
So a rewarding older wine, and a ferociously backward younger wine that may turn out as well, but wasn’t showing much of anything on the day.
Thanks for the peek into an old Gouges. Glad to know that they indeed DO come around, despite all the jokes to the contrary. Now what to do with the 05s…
Mark, my friend Seth R (whom you have perhaps met) is pretty firmly of the opinion that '99 in the CdN is a no-go/non-starter. I’m not sure if he thinks that means forever or just for now, but our experience together is persuasive towards his opinion. CdB is another story ENTIRELY, where '99 is, frankly great. (You can find him looking for notes on, say, '93 Leroy VR Beaux Monts. Just don’t want to out him, here…)
Just a thought to start a tangential discussion. Cut it off if the thread drift sucks too much lol…
The oldest Gouges I’ve had was the 91 Vaucrains at Le Meurice. It was drinking beautifully, so fortunately I found three bottles and had one of those recently which was open and not the usual Gouges rusticity. I have 96 and 99 and am letting them sleep.
I opened a 1998 Gouges NSG Chaignot a little over two years ago that was moderately approachable.
Six months before that a 1999 Potel NSG Les St. Georges, which I believe I had been told was partly or all Gouges juice, was tough sledding. I wrote “Tough as nails. Gouges? Nothing giving here.” So you may not have missed out on much at the restaurant, Mark.
I visited Gouges only once, back in 2001. It was the first time I spoke entirely in French for 2 hours. I visited with Pierre Gouges, and we tasted through a few young wines, then he started pulling increasingly older vintages out of the cellar. The last one he opened up, he wanted me to try and guess the vintage. It was a beautiful wine, mature, but also fresh, lively, with balanced tannin for further aging. '78? No. '72? No. '64? No. Turns out it was a 1950 NSG.
Jay, I am not sure what he means, exactly, but he reacts to '99s the way he reacts to '88s: hard, unyielding, charmless. I have little personal experience with '99 CdN – but I do trust his palate (though it is different from mine). I’ll try to get him to chime in on this thread.
The CdB wines are another matter; they are gorgeous to a one, that I’ve tasted. Did you try Diane K’s '99 Lafon Volnay Santenots the other evening? Gorgeous (once the funkies blew off).
Yes, great quip, Alan. But a mag of '85 Dunn HM the other night was absolutely beautiful. Rounding out, sweet, and even a little tender. Mommie Dearest in a winsome stage… My first experience with such a pretty Dunn.
I have only two bottles of Gouge -2006 NSG Vaucrains- which by the above discussion (and knowing that Vaucrains is a slow evolved at the best of times) will be barely ready by 2046 at the earliest!!!
Faiveley used to make ‘hard as nails’ wines in the past but more approachable ones now. Has Gouge changed to that extent now? Any one with experience care to comment?
My wife and I just returned from Paris. We brought back a case of wine. Among them, we bought two bottles of the 2005 Gouges Les Pruliers.
Most of my Burgundy drinking experience has been at restaurants. I’ve never jumped in to buy Burgundy in volume for cellaring, thinking that I came too late to the party. But these were selling for about $50/bottle (after VAT refund) – we also picked up several 2012 Dauvissat La Forest for about $32 a bottle – so we thought they were worth a try. I take it from this discussion and some earlier threads that we shouldn’t open one for about 20 years?
Mark, my friend Seth R (whom you have perhaps met) is pretty firmly of the opinion that '99 in the CdN is a no-go/non-starter. I’m not sure if he thinks that means forever or just for now, but our experience together is persuasive towards his opinion. CdB is another story ENTIRELY, where '99 is, frankly great.
My thanks to Matt for notifying about this thread, and for his taking of my name in vain
So my position is that I’m actually pretty down on 1999 CdN wines - not focused on the “when they are ready” issue, but I just don’t think they are that good. More specifically, I don’t think 1999 is a great vintage in the CdN, although it certainly is a very good one. I’ll admit that I haven’t had a huge number of 1999 CdN wines, but I have enough familiar ones to form an opinion. My problem with 1999 CdN wines is transparency and terroir. I think the wines can be quite flavorful and tasty - they aren’t overripe, and they have good power and balance in the mouth, but I find them all a little … uniform or unitary. I think the wines show more of a 1999 vintage character than they do their specific terroir, and this leads to a kind of blockiness or “mono” aspect that prevents me from putting 1999 up there with 91, 93, 02, 05 and 10 (for me). Given the reputation of 1999, I think that this is being ‘pretty down on 1999’ compared to others. Probably the wine that started to convince me of this was the 1999 Leroy VR 1er Les Beaux Monts, as part of a mini vertical back in the early to mid 00’s with a few other vintages from the 90’s. The wine was popular, so it was showing well at the time, but to me it was missing something that I love about that cuvee, and something that I didn’t think would emerge with time. NB that this is an overall characterization - there are certainly going to be wines which defy the general rule.
I should say that this is NOT true at all for 1999 CdB wines, which tend to show their site very well.
Welcome, and if you stay here for any length of time, your name will be taken in vain many times.
Interesting analysis, although I don’t agree with it. Had you described 2002 as being high quality easy wines but without the transparency of the terroir, I would have nodded in agreement, but the 1999s I have tasted seemed very marked by their respective terroirs. Not that I have that many, about ten in the last year, of which at least half were too closed to make any definitive judgement.
We are planning a Premier Cru 1999 tasting in the early Fall, and I think my biggest problem is how long before the tasting to open the wines. Anyway, it will be good to get a better handle on the vintage.
