2011 Vintage Assessment Dinners – Night Three “Mostly Montrachet” – March 27, 2019 at Spago

On Wednesday March 27, 2019, ten of us met at Spago Restaurant in Beverly Hills for the third and final night of the 2011 White Burgundy Vintage Assessment and Premox Check dinners. This was the annual dinner known as “Mostly Montrachet.” We were happy to be back at Spago after a several year absence for what is usually a celebration dinner at the end of the annual tasting series. Paul Sherman, who was the Sommelier for the first two 2011 dinners, was invited by Spago to work with Cristie Norman, the Assistant Somm at Spago, on this dinner. Paul and Cristie did a superlative job and so did Spago Chefs Lee Hefter, Tetsu Yahagi and Della Gosset. The food was incredible and the wines were excellent to extraordinary.

The group hard at work tasting the wines with Sommelier Cristie Norman in the background

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the wines because on night one we had very few problems and a great deal of uniformity of color, but on night two we had a large percentage of wines with premox, reduction problems and other chemical defects. The Coche wines are usually predictable, but would the Montrachets be Dr. Jekyll, or Mr. Hyde? It turned out that, like the 2007 “Mostly Montrachet” dinner, except for one corked bottle, we had no problems with any of the wines.
My thanks to Andy Gavin for all of the great photos.

CHAMPAGNE AND APPETIZERS

1996 Philliponnat Clos de Goisses
Medium gold color; beautiful complex citrus, light floral elements and light toast aromas; on the palate the wine was even more complex and highly layered for Champagne; extremely long mineral and fruit finish which really grabs you. This is still a WOW champagne. 95

2002 Philliponnat Clos de Goisses
Light gold color; forward floral aromas with some background citrus; this is a more fullsome and slightly sweet champagne compared to the 1996, but is outstanding in its own right; that back-end sweetness is something that I notice in most 2002s these days; very nice but I definitely prefer the 1996. 94

FLIGHT ONE:

Olive Oils Poached Salmon
Turnip, Radishes, Bacon Oil

1 [2011 Olivier Leflaive Montrachet]
Light gold color; lightly floral aromas; a very light wine with good acidity, but seems too light for Montrachet (maybe Drouhin?); later on 2d pass: now a much larger aroma with citrus and pear profile and richer on the palate as well – more much intensity on the mid-palate and some minerality; much better than I initially thought. Six votes for the wine of the flight. My 8th ranked wine of the night. Group Rank: Fourth, 15 points (0/2/0/3/1) 92|94

2 [2011 Baron Thenard Montrachet]
Light gold color but a a shade darker than #1; some light tropical fruit and coconut in the aromas; sweet forward fruit and decent acidity. This just continued to improve with time in the glass. It lost a lot of the tropical element in the aromas with additional time. I wanted just a little more in the finish here. Group Rank: 9th, 2 points (0/0/0/0/1) 92|93

3 [2011 Louis Latour Montrachet]
Light gold color; lightly reductive, floral and green apple aromas; green apple and light citrus on the palate; great minerality on the mid-palate and finish. As this sat in the glass over the evening, the finish slowly developed some bitterness. One vote for wine of the flight. Group Rank: Tied for 12th (last), 0 points (0/0/0/0/0) 93|92

4 [2011 Maltroye Chassagne Montrachet “Dent de Chien”]
Light gold color; some floral elements but clearly corked wine; very dry on the palate. Group Rank: Tied for 12th (last), 0 points (0/0/0/0/0) DQ- Corked

5 [2011 Drouhin Marquis de La Guiche Montrachet ]
Light gold color; nice white flowers aromas; light and elegant green apple and citrus flavors; a fairly long if ever so lightly dry finish with an almost chalky element – nice but different. Four votes for wine of the flight. Group Rank: Tied for 10th, 1 points (0/0/0/0/1) 93

FLIGHT TWO:

Pan Roasted Lobster Tail
Lemon Butter, Morel Mushrooms, Pea Tendrils, Squid Ink Tuille

6 [2011 Coche-Dury Meursault Perrieres]
Very light white gold color; light reduction aromas with green apple and citrus; on the palate it was tight, etched flavors of green apple and citrus. This strikes me as the Coche MP. Later on this was still fairly reductive, but it wasn’t over the top at all – like Leflaive from 1990 to 2002. Everything seems to come rushing forward on the finish. Fabulous. Eleven votes for wine of the flight. My No. 3 ranked wine of the night. Group Rank: 2nd, 39 points (1/4/6/0/0) 95+

7 [2011 Rhys “Horseshoe Vineyard” Chardonnay]
Between light and medium gold color but slightly cloudy; fairly tropical flavors, a fairly rich wine; pretty good wine but different, so I would guess it’s the Rhys chardonnay ringer. Since everyone agreed No. 6 was the best wine in the flight, we voted for 2d best in flight two. Two tasters thought this was the second best wine in the flight. Group Rank: Tied for 12th (last), 0 points (0/0/0/0/0) 92

8 [2011 Chateau de Puligny Montrachet Le Montrachet]
Very light, white-green gold color; definitely reductive, almost baby poop aromas at first which cleared up with time to be be green apple and citrus; very bright, green apple and citrus flavors with excellent acidity and great viscosity particularly on the finish. Sneaky minerality on the finish. Based on the bottles from nights one and two, I think this is the Chateau de Puligny Le Montrachet. Six votes for the second best wine of the 2d flight. Should be long-lived. My No. 7 wine of the night. Group Rank: Tied for 6th, 5 points (0/0/0/2/1) 94

Was there really a Rhys chardonnay in that flight?? Yes, there was

9 [2011 Bouchard Montrachet]
Very light gold color with greenish hints; white flowers and green apple aromas; quite sappy green apple flavors with good acidity and incredible elegance that just materializes on the mid-palate and continues through the long finish. A wow wine. Bouchard? Three votes for second-best of the 2d flight. My No. 4 wine of the night. Group Rank: 5th, 10 points (0/0/0/3/4) 95

10 [2011 Sauzet Montrachet]
Very light white gold color; light citrus and sweet white flowers aromas with an odd chemical top note that seems to come and go; the wine has some concentrated lemon-lime flavors and a degree of power on the nascent finish. This was way better on the second pass – the chemical note seemed to disappear (reduction), and the wine, while powerful, became more nuanced and interesting. Seems obviously to be Sauzet. Group Rank: Tied for 10th, 1 point (0/0/0/0/1) 91?|94

FLIGHT THREE:

Slow Roasted Chicken Breast on the Bone
Black Truffle, Emmental Cheese Soufflé

11 [2011 Ramonet Montrachet]
Light yellow gold color; intense white flowers and green apple and pear aromas; incredibly concentrated wine, yet subtle and not overpowering – the antithesis of # 10; very bright, lifted wine; incredibly long sweet citrus and pear finish – but as this sat in the glass over the evening, the finish slowly developed some more bitter phenolic elements. Jadot? One vote for wine of the flight. Group Rank: Tied for 6th, 5 points (0/0/1/1/0) 95|94?

12 [2011 Marc Colin Montrachet]
Between light and medium gold color; beautifully perfumed floral and citrus aromas; bright citrusy flavors which are very nice but somehow didn’t quite deliver the depth that the aromas promised; still a very nice Montrachet. Marc Colin? Two votes for wine of the flight. My No. 5 wine of the night. Group Rank: 8th, 3 points (0/0/0/1/1) 94

The very impressive final flight

13 [2011 Coche-Dury Corton Charlemagne]
Very light gold color; lightly reductive aromas which partly gives way to bright citrus and green apple aromas; this has intense green apple and citrus flavors with multiple layers and fabulous acidity; this is incredibly tightly wound wine that begs for more time and yet is obviously amazing stuff; fantastic. Coche Corton. Three votes for wine of the flight. Group Rank: 3rd, 37 points (3/2/4/1/0) 95++

14 [2011 Jadot Montrachet]
Very light gold color; light mint and flowers aromas; very bright citrus and green apple flavors with an amazingly mineral driven late mid-palate and finish; the finish is incredibly long and minerally. An absolutely complete wine. Ramonet? Seven votes for wine of the flight. My No. 1 wine of the night. Group Rank: 1st, 47 points (7/3/0/0/0) 96

DESSERT COURSE

Madagascar Vanilla Bean Crème Brulée
Candied Almonds, Tangerines, Saffron Syrup
Blood Orange Sorbet

1990 Chateau Suidauraut
Medium gold color; very nice orange aromas; I didn’t pay too much attention to this wine, so it doesn’t seem fair to rate it. NR

Some general comments on what we experienced in the night three dinner —

• We experienced a very large divergence in the number of oxidized and advanced wines during the 2011 vintage. We encountered very little premox on night one, and none at all on night three (the only other time this happened was with the 2007 vintage), but we had a large percentage of premox on night two. It demonstrates the risk of judging a vintage based on wines from a limited number of samples or just a few of the appellations. (Hard to figure….)

• The DIAM closed wines continued to perform flawlessly from a premox perspective. Once again, there were no oxidized or advanced bottles closed with DIAM. There were also no unusual or unexpected aromas. Over the past three years we have now had 30 bottles closed with DIAM in excellent condition (but we did have one chemically flawed bottle of Jadot Bienvenues on night two.)

• The large number of wines that had chemical flaws of one type of another was disturbing.

• The 2011 Montrachets and the two 2011 Coche wines were extremely impressive. I thought these wines would hold their own very well with the 2010s.

• Jadot – The 2011 vintage was a stunning success for Jadot due to the DIAM closures used for the first time. Four of the five Jadot wines we tasted over the three nights finished in the top three wines rated by the group for each night. Jadot is back on my “buy” list for their top wines starting with 2011. DIAM will probably restore Jadot’s reputation, but the badly flawed 2011 Bienvenues on night two proved that you can still have bad wines despite DIAM.

• Coche-Dury – Both bottles were off the charts good. I preferred them to the 2010 versions we tasted a year ago, although I recognize that the 2010 Corton Charlemagne at its best is a monumental wine.

• Montille and Chateau de Puligny Montrachet – Another impressive performance here from Etienne and Alix de Montille, along with the Montille Puligny Caillerets (No. 5 overall on night two), the Corton Charlemagne and Meursault Perrieres. Like Jacques Carillon, Jean-Marc Pillot and now Jadot, here’s another former poster child from premox that is now back on the leaderboard for making superlative wines in top condition.

• Domaine Olivier Leflaive – another impressive Montrachet from the “other” Leflaive. A producer who had been off my radar for 20 years that’s worth watching again.

• Ramonet – While the Montrachet was very good and will likely round out with time, overall, I found the 2011 Ramonets to be the most disappointing vintage since the 1996s. I can only hope that this was a one-time phenomenon.

Sommelier Paul Sherman with “Mostly Montrachet” in front of him

Here is the premox report for the three nights combined. My count on the total number of bottles that were advanced was a bit higher than the group’s overall count, as is frequently the case. While we had a much higher than expected incidence of premox on night two, the overall percentage of oxidized or advanced wines over three nights was 8% for the group and 12% for me. But since this includes 12 bottles over the three nights which had DIAM closures, which had zero problems, it was also apparent that the DIAM closures were pushing down the overall incidence figures. So, it occurred to me that it would be a useful exercise to look at the incidence of premox by limiting the comparison to those bottles which continue to be closed with conventional cork closures. This would allow a comparison of apples to apples to determine whether the premox performance for the the producers of the top wines who continue using conventional corks has improved over time. The following chart does that:

What this suggests to me is that while the incidence of premox among the better producers is definitely somewhat better from 2007 onward than it was from 1996 to 2001 (and the worst year in 2005), the percentage of advanced or oxidized bottles under conventional cork closures from the best producers is still far too high (ranging from 13% to 19% per year). Given the astronomical pricing being asked for grand crus these days, this is simply unacceptable.

As always, thanks!

Wow, what an amazing opportunity. Thank you for sharing this experience.

Thanks Don!

I hope to get back to buying post-COVID, and Jadot is definitely on my list!

as always, thanks much, Don.

Thanks!

Great read as always. Thank you!

Thanks for the notes, Don. I haven’t checked back explicitly to the '10s and '09s events, but I recall large houses like Bouchard did very well then too. Not to disparage these wines, but it is a little surprising they would consistently do so well compared to the far more pricey “trophies” or flasher Domaine wines. Do you have a view on whether:

• it is simply the case that for a large portion of experienced tasters, the (say) Bouchard wines are just as good
• some of the “flasher” domaine wines tend to under-perform in this type of tasting format (limited ml and time vs having a whole bottle)
• some of the “flasher” domaine wines tend to require more time to show superiority (if any)
  Would be very interested in your thoughts, as well as those of other experienced drinkers of course.

Hi Rauno:

All of the wines in these dinners are tasted and voted on totally blind. So nobody knows that those wines that they preferred were say Bouchard or Jadot until they ended up being unbagged. So there’s no chance of label or expectation bias here. Moreover, the group of people that attend these dinners are all very sophisticated burgundy collectors/drinkers.

The Bouchard Corton Charlemagne, Chevalier Montrachet and Montrachet have done consistently well every year. Their Meursault Perrieres has been much more variable. The “flashier” wines which are sometimes the least evolved (i.e. Raveneau grand crus and Coche-Dury and sometimes Ramonet Montrachet) usually end up being highly preferred by the group too.

I think the fact that the wines from Bouchard and Jadot really shined is driven by two things: (1) the vines in question are owned by Bouchard and Jadot; and (2) excellent winemaking and attention to detail. The Bouchard wines from Corton Charlemagne, Chevalier Montrachet and Montrachet consistently finish among the top five wines from those vineyards against all competitors year after year. These wines come from great parcels that Bouchard owns and farms themselves. They list them as “domaine” wines. The other white wines from Bouchard, with the occasional exception of the Meursault Perrieres, don’t show nearly as well. These other wines are well made, but they aren’t wines that are among the best produced from those particular vineyards.

In the case of Jadot, it’s again great vineyard parcels that are owned by Jadot. A lot of people have forgotten that the Jadot Corton Charley, Chevy Demoiselles and Montrachet used to be among the top wines of their respective appellations every year. Jadot had a really horrible period from 2000 to 2010. Now thanks to adoption of DIAM (starting with 2011) and a change in winemakers, Jadot again seems to be at a top shelf level at least for those three vineyards and I think for the Batard Montrachet (which we didn’t have included in the 2011 dinners.)

Don, very interesting. How far down the scale do the Jadot white wines perform well. All their Domaine wines? Any Negociant wines? All the way to villages wines? Beyond? TIA!

James:

I think you might be misunderstanding me. I’m saying that you should not generalize from the experience that we had with the 2011 Jadot Montrachet, Chevalier Demoiselles, Corton Charlemagne and the Jadot Meursault Perrieres and assume that everything with a Jadot label is outstanding in its class. The 2011 Bienvenues was certainly a very flawed wine. Those five wines were the only 2011 Jadots that I personally tasted. A long time ago I used to get invited to the annual Kobrand tasting in Los Angeles, but that stopped several years ago after I became pretty outspoken about the problems at Jadot. If Jasper Morris or William Kelley are monitoring this thread (they both posted in the night two thread), they could give you a far better answer than I could about where Jadot stands today as an overall white burgundy producer.

Historically, Jadot’s top white wines have been the Montrachet, Chevalier Demoiselles, Corton Charlemagne, and Batard Montrachet. The Montrachet comes from Boillerault de Chauvigny (parcels 118 to 121 on the Montrachet cadastre map). They also supply grapes to Louis Latour. The Chevalier Demoiselles, Corton Charlemagne and Batard are all domaine owned vineyards. The Meursault Perrieres is a negociant wine. From memory (and we have to go back to pre-2000 vintages for good Jadot before 2011), in the 1980s and 1990s the Meursault Perrieres was sometimes exceptional (as it was in 2011) and in other vintages the MP was only average to above average. (You could say the same thing about Bouchard’s MP – sometimes it’s exceptional, but other times it’s merely very good but not great. But Bouchard owns its own vines in MP.) I don’t ever remember being particularly impressed with any vintage of Jadot Bienvenues Batard, Jadot Criots Batard or the “regular” Jadot Chevalier (which I’ve tasted only a couple of times). All of those wines are apparently negociant bottlings.

As noted, I haven’t tasted any of Jadot’s other Meursaults and Chassagne and Puligny bottlings in years. I do remember two vineyards from the old days where it seemed that Jadot made impressive wines from those vineyards – Chassagne Caillerets and the Puligny Clos de la Garenne. The latter is a Domaine bottling but I think the Chassagne Caillerets is a negociant bottling.

Don, I believe since at least 2017 there is now a domaine bottling of the Meursault Perrières at Jadot. I tasted the 2018 version while visiting earlier this year and was very impressed by the quality, and doubly so given the price.

Don, thanks very much for the detailed reply.

When you said, “The other white wines from Bouchard, with the occasional exception of the Meursault Perrieres, don’t show nearly as well”, I wondered if you were contrasting this with Jadot wines. I know now that that is not what you were saying.

Cheers

As always, thanks for doing this and posting such detailed information, Don.

What an endorsement for Jadot. I’ve tasted some whites from them post-2011 that I’ve really loved. This really validates that their quality is rising and that it might make sense to actually age them them rather than pound through them shortly after release.

I am happy to hear that. Do you know by chance where the vines are located? I have a couple of cadastre maps for MP, but none that recent.

Rauno:

Your comments about the performance of the Bouchard wines at these dinners intrigued me a bit. So today I went back to look at the results from 2007 through 2011. Starting in 2007 we left all of the wines bagged until the very end of the dinners after everyone had submitted their votes to rank the the top five wines from each dinner. (In prior years everything was served blind but we did the reveal at the end of each flight. So it was possible for there to be some level of label bias when people picked their top five.)

Here is how the Bouchard wines have performed under totally blind voting from 2007 onward. All of the scores are my own:

BOUCHARD – Performance from 2007-2011 vintages

2007
Meursault Perrieres - Group 2d, My No. 1 wine 97
Corton Charlemagne - Group tied for last (0 top five rankings) 93
Chevalier Montrachet - Group tied for last (0 top five rankings) 93+
Montrachet – Group 10th, My No. 3 wine 96

2008
Corton Charlemagne – Group 9th, My No. 4 wine 95
Chevalier Montrachet “Cabotte” - Group 18th 92
Chevalier Montrachet – Group tied for 3rd, My No. 4 wine 95
Montrachet – Group 4th, My No. 3 wine 95

2009
Meursault Perrieres - Group 10th 94+
Corton Charlemagne - Group 12th 93
Chevalier Montrachet - Group tied for 3d, My No. 3 wine 95
Montrachet – Group 2nd, My No.6 wine 94+

2010
Meursault Perrieres - Group 16th 92
Corton Charlemagne - Group 12th 93
Chevalier Montrachet - Group tied for 5th 94
Montrachet – Group 5th, My No.6 wine 95

2011
Meursault Perrieres - Group 5th, My No. 3 wine 94
Corton Charlemagne - Group tied for 17th 93
Chevalier Montrachet - Group tied for 5th 94
Montrachet – Group 5th, My No.4 wine 95

Ten of the twenty Bouchard wines in the dinners over the five year period were ranked by the group in the top five wines of each dinner. There wasn’t a single advanced, oxidized, corked or flawed bottle (but yes, Bouchard went to DIAM in 2009). My low score (on two of the twenty bottles) was 92 and my average score was approximately 94. The only winery that performed better over that period was Coche-Dury. Not even Colin-Morey had as good of an overall performance as Bouchard did.

The short answer is that if you’re not buying these whites from Bouchard you should be, especially given their pricing versus the “flashier” labels.

Thanks for doing my homework Don! That’s a pretty exceptional run, especially the Montrachet and ordinary Chevalier. I would guess these have at minimum been the most consistent in providing a good / great experience (other than Coche). I feel luckier still than earlier this week that I have some , though the “highs” from some of the other domaines are higher in my experience. Of course, I’m exceptionally lucky to see more than 2-3 Montrachet per year.

Bouchard MP probably the best white Burg to buy if buying only one.

Bouchard MP is one of my regular buys. Hard to get a white burgundy as good for its price.

I have done some further research. The 2016 vintage was the first “domaine” Jadot MP. Jadot acquired a parcel of Meursault Perrieres located in Perrieres-Dessus which according to Tim Atkin MW is located at approximately the 300 meter contour line in 2016. I have not been able to verify the former owner, but I strongly suspect based on the stated location and the cadastre map that Jadot bought the vines held by Henri Moigneon (someone no one has ever heard of before) who had a parcel located at the very top of Meusault Perrieres Dessus which is essentially all above the 300 meter line. (The other parcels with vines at or near the 300 meter line are Boyer-Martenot, Michel Bouzerau, and Bernard Millot.)

Jadot produced five barrels of 2016 MP and claimed that they got a full yield with no apparent frost damage. The reviews of the 2016 Jadot MP from Burghound, Tanzer and Neal Martin all gave modest scores ranging from 87-89 to 92. William Kelley of Wine Advocate liked it better than the others. Frederic Barnier told Steve Tanzer that Jadot planned to force the the roots deeper (likely by plowing between the rows) to increase the minerality in the wine in future years. So it sounds like a work in progress here.