2 DC Dinners - 21 Bottles of Gevrey-Chambertin

We hosted 2 dinners in DC for a bunch of folks with wines from Gevrey-Chambertin (GC). Basically any wine from GC village, premier cru, or grand cru. The idea of these tasting was to try to find a commonality amongst the Gevrey wines. To that goal, I admit, the tastings were an exquisite failure. The wines were great though and everyone had a good time. Took me forever to finally getting around to posting my notes.

October 19

Krug Grand Cuvee 164eme edition - Very good, but needs time, but essentially was just as I expected. I First time I tried this one. Enjoyable even at this stage. 94

1983 Clair Dau Gevrey Chanbertin 1er Cazetiers - really funky. This wasn’t corked, but I think it had the musty taint. I have a really really high tolerance for funk so I actually enjoyed this more than most. The taint was really only on the nose (hey-ohh!) The taste was unaffected, with nicely mature browning fruit, mostly interated tannins, and the brown sugar note that old burgundy gets. NR

1985 Rene Leclerc Gevrey Chambertin 1er Lavaux St. Jacques – Dusty earthy nose. Very funky with the fruit just hanging on but still really nice mature burg. 94

1988 Domaine Maume Mazis Chambertin – Lightly corked, but there was some fruit and density hiding. A shame. NR

2005 Rene Leclerc Gevrey Chambertin 1er Lavaux St. Jacques - Tight nose, but nice moderate black fruited nose. Light/med body, good fruits, nicely complex with some light bitter notes. 93

2005 Faiveley Gevrey Chambertin – Very solid village wine, fruit was very strong upon opening, After a bit, it closed up a bit and never really opened back up.The tannins and fruit tell me this needs some more time. 89

2009 Jadot Gevrey Chambertin Estournelles Saint Jacques – Rather upfront fruity nose. Nice bold fruit, strong tannins, cola, light mint. Strong tannins made it pretty drying, but will be great in time. 91 now, with a lot of upside

2016 Faiveley Gevrey Chambertin 1er Les Cazetiers – Very dank nose with some minty notes. Tart fruits, cassis, cola, spice. Blind, I would have called this a California pinot. Maybe time will tame this, I dunno. 88

2016 Sylvie Esmonin Gevrey Chambertin cuvee vielles vignes – Most red fruit nose. Fruit forward taste, a bit powerful tannic structure. Many people really like this. Needs time obviously. 90

1988 Doisey Daine – really enjoyable, not quite as mature as I thought, but was drinking really well, and had a mix of primary and aged fruits. Very good 93

2003 Climens – Woah. Super sweet. Much sweeter than any Climens I’ve had with a lot of marshmellow flavors. Less of the traditional flavors, but still had good acid. Give this time for the perception of sweetness to fade. 89

Overall, I thought the best Gevreys from this dinner were the ’85 Leclerc, the 2005 Leclerc and the 2009 Jadot. I really liked the Clair-Dau, but the nose would render it faulty for most.

November 2

2009 Cristal – This was really, really nice. I’ve never had a Cristal that drank well so young. Sure, this will be much better in 10 years, but it’s quite delicious now. Based on my perceived acidity, I don’t think this will be a 30+ yr old ager, but I could be wrong. 93

NV AR Lenoble - Very nice bottle, but I didnt take any notes: NR

1979 Domaine Trapet pere and fils Chambertin – This was a bomb bottle of burgundy. Probably my favority wine of the year. Effectively everything I want in an aged burgundy. Wish I could buy more Chambertins. 98

1983 Clair Dau Gevrey Chambertin 1er Cazetiers – Same source as the previous bottle. This was showing much, much better on the nose. Very, very fine bottle of wine 94

2001 Dugat-Py Gevrey-Chambertin vielles vignes. Light bitter green, lighter fruits, big drying tannins, Needs a lot of time. 91

2002 Frederic Magien Charmes Chambertin. Nice density of fruit and big tannins, but very closed. A touch bitter. 88

2002 Jadot G-C Clos St Jacques - Corked, shame

2005 Loius Boillot Gevrey Chambertin Les Evocelles. Nicely red fruited, lower (of integrated ) tannins, good mineral spine, very smooth and complex, 92

2009 Claude Dugat Gevrey Chambertin. Very hot nose, but kinda closed overall. Solid fruit, but rather inscrutable with moderate tannins framing the fruit Seems like this need a lot more time. 92

2011 Drouhin Laroze Chapelle Chambertin. Thinner, lighter, red fruited with lighter tannins. Not sure about this one. 89

2011 Dugat-Py Gevrey-Chambertin vielles vignes. Really nice, lighter, but very elegant with good complexity. 91

2011 Maison Ilan Mayozeres-Chambertin. Better than expected. I actually put this one in a different bottle so I didn’t unduly influence the tasting. This has a good density of fruit, with some moderate bitterness, some green notes, but I liked this. 90

2015 Domaine Tawse Gevrey Chambertin 1er Cherbaudes. Red fruited, lower tannins, just seemed bit simple at this stage. 88

2015 Domaine Faively Gevrey Chambertin 1er Lavaux St. Jacques. Fruity, solid tannins, this seemed like it held a lot of potential. Has a bit more interesting complexity 93

2015 Fourrier Gevrey Chambertin Fourrier Combe aux Moines Vieille Vigne. This has a red fruits confected quality which was very tasty, lower tannins, lower acidity for a burg. May not be perfect, but this was a nice bottle and could be a crowd pleaser even now. 92

1979 Guiraud. Nice bottle, starting to get some moderate mature notes of crème brulee, toffee, etc. Has a good amount of complex stuff going on with some balancing bitterness. 93

1988 Guiraud. To me this was close to the ’79 but seemed less complex. 91

2007 Doisey Daene. Didn’t spend a lot of time with this one. Sweet, young, apricot dominant, Needs time. NR

I thought the best Gevreys from this dinner were the ’79 Trapet Chambertin by a long way, the ’83 Clair Dau, and the ’15 Faiveley.

Thanks for the notes, Eric,

I did something similar recently, with a rather smaller sample. We tasted blind, looking for Gevrey character. I have to say producer and vintage trumped terroir. We really could not identify a defining characteristic that they all had in common, across a variety of styles. Any luck on your end?

P. S… Good to know about the Trapet Chambertin, as I’ve been holding some from the 90’s. Used to be a steal, but prices have gone up–the word is that the winemaking has also improved.

This was a really fun dinner. Thanks for hosting, Eric. You and Janet put together a wonderful dinner.

I can’t say that this red burg neophyte came away with an ability to identify a Gevrey-Chambertin, but there were a lot of excellent wines. My favorites from the second dinner were the 79 Trapet (awesome!), 83 Clair Dau, and 15 Fourier.

Just now seeing this. I’ve had that 79 Trapet several times and it has been beautiful each time. My bottles were acquired about ten years ago when I joined a group for a multi-case purchase at auction. After the group leader acquired possession he called me embarrassed because the cartons said Rossignol-Trapet (but not the labels). I explained that was a good thing as it meant that these cases were part of the division of the Trapet estate (in 1990 I think) and apparently these cases were released by RT at some point after that and as a result had been in burgundy cellars for a long time and not traveling around the US. Hence the good condition of the wines.

Do you think the person bringing it might have acquired it in a similar fashion?

Well, I brought that wine, so I can confirm that I did not get them in that fashion. I actually obtained my 2 bottles from the grey market via cellaraiders. So no idea what was going on before I purchased them. I was a bit concerned about the fill, but it turned out fine.

Trapet Chambertin can be great and was a relative value until very recently.

The Louis Boillot wines, and the Evocelles in particular, are really under-the-radar gems for those who like sleek, transparent Burgundies.

Sweet…I grabbed the 83 from him hope it’s same cellar than!

Agreed on both points. Trapet prices are getting seriously high, so I buy less, and usually buy some Rossignol Trapet at a fraction of the price. Never had the two side by side, but they do seem pretty close in quality.

The Boillot wines are amazing for the money. The Pommard and Volnay are my stand outs.

I loved this tasting review.

I felt like I was on a roller coaster from note to note. It was actually suspenseful moving from impression to impression.

I enjoyed reading it a great deal, and took heart in the fact that you hit some clunkers. I know we are all prone more to posting high notes than low low notes and your notes offered great insight into what we do.

Your post is greatly appreciated!

Identifying wines as coming from a particular Burgundy village is really difficult. Our Burg group (with a number of longtime Burgundy lovers) once years ago did a blind tasting of Chambolle vs. Pommard and we were not that much better than monkeys. The one wine I was totally and completely able to identify blind that night was a Chambolle-Musigny Sentiers from Truchot. I recognized the wine as Truchot (he did not make a Pommard).

I have seen people pick out wines as being from a specific village blind, but not too many. One that sticks in my mind is Bobby Kacher. Years ago, when David Schildknecht in retail in DC I was in his office at Pearson’s discussing which wines to buy when Bobby Kacher came into the office. David handed him a glass of wine to taste and Bobby Kacher identified it as being from Gevrey. But, I have not seen this done that often reliably.