Jim- did have a 73 Lafon at a Paulee dinner 6-8 yrs ago that was fabulous- Just can’t penetrate the DRC/Ramonet cabal
Well, every time I’ve had DRC, Ramonet and Leflaive head-to-head…
Ha, in my dreams! I’ve only tasted Montrachet one time, a generous pour from a customer where I was working; it was the '86 Drouhin Marquis de Laguiche and it remains probably the greatest wine I’ve ever had, or certainly in the top two or three.
I have only had two Le Montrachet, sadly this precludes my participation other than noting the micro-aggression this thread obviously forces upon me.
- DRC 2010
- Gagnard-Delagrange 1999
- René Fleurot 1978
1986 Gagnard Delagrange
1982 Jadot
1985 DRC
1996 DRC
1978 Ramonet
1986 Ramonet
82 Ramonet
83 Ramonet
04 DRC
For my fellow Ramonet fans out there, a really nice write up from Clive:
"It is the spring of 1978. A small man, 72 years of age and very much a peasant, with an old stained pullover, baggy trousers and the inevitable casquette on his head, arrives at a lawyer’s office in Beaune. He is about to buy 25 ares and 90 centiares - enough to make about four and half barrels - of Le Montrachet, the finest white wine vineyard in the world. The vendors are the Milan and Mathey-Blanchet families: gentle people. Pierre Ramonet is a man of the soil. Apart from the occasional meal at some of his clients - Lameloise, Alan Chapel, Troisgros, Bocuse - he never ventures outside Chassagne-Montrachet. He hates the telephone. He rarely writes a letter. Such paper-work that needs to be done is achieved by Mother Ramonet, née Lucie Prudhon, whom you will never see dressed otherwise than in black, as befits old ladies throughout France, in an old school exercise book which she keeps in a drawer in her kitchen.
There is the question of payment. “Ah, yes,” says Ramonet. He fishes in one pocket for a thick wad of notes, in another for a second, in the back of his trousers for a third, and so on. The stacks of money pile up on the attorney’s desk. He has never seen such an amount of espèces in his life. “I think you’ll find it all there,” says Ramonet, uncomfortable in the formal surroundings of the lawyers’ office. And he leaves, anxious to return to the familiarity of his cellar and his vines.
“Père” Ramonet was more than a character. He was, to use the old cliché - but it is true in this instance - a legend in his own lifetime. More or less from scratch, by dint of sheer hard work and a genius for wine, he built up one of the finest white wine domaines in Burgundy. Today the name of Ramonet is synonymous with top Chardonnay. The allocations for bottles are fought over, for every collector considers it his or her right to own some. They sell at auction for astronomical sums whenever they appear. On the rare occasions, as in January 1995 at the Montrachet restaurant in New York, when someone puts on a special vertical tasting and dinner, the tickets - and they are not cheap - are over-subscribed ten times. Ramonet in white is the equivalent of Henri Jayer or the DRC in red.
Pierre Ramonet died in 1994 at the age of 88. He is much missed. But his echo lives on, and the wines, in the able hands of his grandsons Noël (born 1962) and Jean-Claude (b. 1967) since the 1984 vintage, (mais sous ses ordres, stoutly avers Noël), continue his reputation. They are very fine. More importantly, they are also very individual. A Ramonet wine is a Ramonet wine before it is a Chassagne, or a Bienvenue, or a Bâtard…or a Montrachet.
The original Ramonets came from the Bresse on the other side of the river Saône from Chalon. A branch settled in Beaune in the 19th century, where they were millers. The mill failed, and one of them, Claude, moved to Chassagne, where he became a tâcheron - a vineyard worker who is paid by the amount of land he tends rather than by the day as a direct employee - for Colonel Vuillard, owner of the Château de Maltroye.
This second Claude had three children; a daughter who married Georges Bachelet (from whence comes today’s Bachelet-Ramonet domaine) and two sons, Pierre, born in 1906 and Claude (b. 1914). This Claude never married, and died in 1977. Pierre married Lucie Prudhon, daughter of the Duc de Magenta’s chef de culture at the Domaine de l’Abbaye de Morgeot. (For a time the wine was sold as Domaine Ramonet-Prudhon). They had a single child, their son André (b. 1934), father of Noël and Jean-Claude. André has never enjoyed good health and for some time has been more or less of an invalid. He has never had total responsibility for the Ramonet domaine.
Pierre Ramonet left school at the age of 8 to help his father in the vineyard. His first vineyard purchase was in Chassagne-Montrachet, Les Ruchottes, early in the 1930s. Exhibiting at the Beaune wine fair in 1938, he found himself being addressed by Raymond Baudoin, one of the founders of the Revue des Vins de France, and adviser to many of the nation’s top restaurants. Baudoin had obviously encountered something disagreeable at a neighbouring stand. “Have you got anything to take the taste away,” he asked. And was given some Ruchottes 1934. “Excellent!” pronounced Baudoin. “Do you have any for sale? Can I take away a couple of bottles?” Six months later he arrived in Chassagne with Frank Schoonmaker, one of the first Americans to seize the opportunity provided by the abolition of prohibition. Schoonmaker took 200 cases of both red and white - though the Ramonets did not get paid until after the war!
Baudoin was of similar assistance in getting the Ramonet wine onto the lists of the top restaurants in France: Taillevent in Paris, Point in Vienne, the Côte D’Or in Avallon - and this encouraged the opening up of a market for vente directe. And of course, after the war, and his settlement of the bill for the 1934s, Schoonmaker continued as the major export customer.
Slowly but surely the Ramonet domaine began to expand. They now possess vines in 7 Chassagne premiers crus (Ruchottes, Morgeots, Caillerets, Clos-de-la-Boudriotte, Clos-Saint-Jean, Chaumées and Vergers) and most of these were acquired in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1955, two adjoining parcels, one in Bâtard (45 a), one in Bienvenues (56 a), were obtained from Henri Coquet.
More recently the domaine has expanded into Saint-Aubin (Les Charmois) and into Puligny-Montrachet (Champ-Canet and village wine in Enseignières and Nosroyes: the best village appellation vineyards, says Noël Ramonet) and some Boudriottes white has been bought, while they have lost one hectare of Morgeot to another branch of the family. The total now exploited is 17 hectares.
An even more recent development, dating from 1998, is the exchange with the Domaine Jean Chartron of Bâtard-Montrachet must for Chevalier-Montrachet must. In this small way, therefore, the Ramonet brothers are merchants.
In theory Noël is responsible in the cellar and his brother Jean-Claude in the vineyard. But in fact it seems to be a joint effort. Neither has had technical training, and so if you ask why they do this, or not do that, you will be unlikely to receive a coherent answer. The approach is empirical and instinctive. But it seems to work.
The Chardonnays are pruned to the Guyot system, the Pinots Noirs cordon trained. In the vineyard the yields are kept low, the average age of the vines maintained high, with no repiquage after a certain time. This means that, as has happened in Le Montrachet, whole parcels eventually have to be ripped up. The produce of the younger vines can then be vinified apart, and down-graded. This is the case today with half of the Montrachet.
The red wines, village Chassagne, Clos-Saint-Jean, Clos-de-la-Boudriotte and Morgeots, are partially destemmed, usually 50 percent, cold soaked for a few days, vinified in cement vats - there is a resistance to stainless steel here - macerated for 10 days, and matured using one-third new oak for a year, being both fined and lightly filtered.
There is a very noisy cooling unit for temperature control in the cellar. Above ground what looks like an ugly garage-type hangar stands over an extensive underground cellar hewn out of the rock. But the Ramonets express no interest in being able to cool down or warm up the wine in order to facilitate the malo-lactic. “We like to let nature take its course.”
Unusually the Ramonets do not allow the gross lees to settle out before the fermentation of the white wine begins. “There are elements in the gross lees which are good,” maintains Noël. Perhaps as a result of this, the wines are bâtonné-ed much less than elsewhere: only once a month for four months. Why? Because they fear that these gross lees would taint the wine. Fermentations are begun in tank, continued in wood - overall about one-third new - at 20-25°C, and the finished wine kept on the lees as long as possible before the first racking. A second racking takes place after a year or 15 months. The white wines, like the reds, are both fined and lightly filtered.
The cellar, both upstairs and downstairs, is not the neatest, most orderly cellar you have ever been into. Odd bits of machinery, adaptors for pipes, and boxes of this or that lie all over the place. You feel they have never had a tidy-up or thrown anything out. As you squeeze between a beaten-up truck and a redundant pumping machine to get below to sample the wines you find that the staircase is used as a cupboard for yet more accumulation of bits and pieces. It is like an ironmonger’s nightmare.
But all this seems fitting when you meet Noël Ramonet. The man is in his early 40s, stocky, usually unshaven, in a dirty old T-shirt and jeans, with piercing blue eyes, a loud voice, and pre-emptory way of expressing himself. Finesse, order and method, and reflection are alien. Energy, passion and forthrightness is his manner. But when you listen, you realise that this is truly a chip off the old block. He reveres his grandfather. But he has his own full understanding of his métier. (He has also got one of the most magnificent - and eclectic - private cellars I have ever seen. All bought; none exchanged).
“Moins fins mais plus profonds,” he will agree with you, when you sample the Chassagne, Morgeots white after the Saint-Aubin, Charmois. And the Boudriottes is more mineral, less fat and heavy, because this is on the semi-coteaux, while the Morgeots is in the plain. The Chaumées, despite being young vines, and the Vergers, show more finesse. They are properly on the slope. And the Caillerets and the Ruchottes are best of all. “Where the soils are really well drained, as here,” explains Noël, “you will always have much less problem with botrytis.” This is the heartland of Chassagne white.
Why is there such a sharp contrast between the Bienvenues - composed, accessible, discreet - and the Bâtard - closed, powerful, masculine? After all the vines are adjacent, and the same age. Noël shrugs. You feel he knows the answer. But he can’t articulate it. And is his Bâtard his most consistently successful wine, better even than the Montrachet, which can be totally brilliant, but over the 17 years since the Ramonets have produced it, certainly not always? Is this a question you even dare ask?
I find the Ramonet reds refreshingly direct. They are full, ample and plump, nicely concentrated but nicely succulent at the same time. Chassagne reds will never be great, and can be over-extracted. But the Ramonets get theirs right.
The whites, on the other hand, are exceptional. They are distinctive, full-bodied and long-lasting. They are rich and masculine, firm and concentrated. They can be magnificent.
And they can also be flawed. This is a result of risks being taken. But often the flaws are by no means disagreeable; they lend individuality; they give character; they add an element of dimension. For me, a great wine often does have often something just a little bit “wrong” about it. And a squeaky-clean “perfect” wine is very rarely as interesting."
1982 Ramonet
2007 DRC
2004 DRC
1983 Ramonet
1959 Comte de Moucheron (vines sold to DRC)
1982 Ramonet
1999 DRC
Interesting, François,
when I had the 96 Leflaive in 2010 it was tightly closed and quite disapointing … ![[scratch.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/4/42a16863a8714da3c1604419e3eb9206bb87aa50.gif "scratch"){kind=small}
BTW: not the best ever, but really outstanding and very enjoyable examples, which rarely any of you will ever have tasted, were:
Henri Bonnefoy 2001 (tractor-driver at M.de Laguiche, who seems somehow has gotten some M-grapes to make maybe a barrel or less).
Georges Pouleau 1973 (at Chassagne-Montrachet, not indicated if owner or negociant)
sadly, I am priced out now. Will drink what is in the cellar and let others mortgage their homes.
My three, pulled from a very small set of Montrachet tasting notes.
The Boillot was so good it inspired a whole tasting a few months later.
2001 Henri Boillot Montrachet
2002 Marquis de Laguiche (Joseph Drouhin) Montrachet
1999 Marc Colin et Fils Montrachet
A late entry to add to those above.
After a warm up of Ramonet’s excellent new St Aubin Dents de Chien, we opened a 1949 Baron Thenard. Sourced from the Domaine and served at LQV In HK. A high fill and a mid + gold colour. Remarkably viscous with a white Hermitage like waxiness. The nose was quite sweet and honeyed and not as truffley as I would have expected. The nose had a refreshing ginger flower edge to it that went on for ages. Popped and poured, the wine got better and better for 3 hours. It would have been good to give it more air however it wasn’t possible given the circumstances.
Last week I had a red Puligny Caillerets 1949 which was grown less than 1km away which was equally spellbinding.
1996 Leflaive Monty direct from the cellars. Amazing. Made more special by sharing with Ann Claude 3 weeks before her passing.
Over the last several years, I have had a number of Bouchard Montrachets, including the 2005, 2006 and 2010 that I thought were wonderful. Let us go with those. I really think Bouchard is an underrated producer of white Burgs.
'97 Marquis de Laguiche at a trade tasting.
1982 Ramonet
1986 Ramonet
1986 DRC
- 1961 Bouchard
2 & 3. Whatever was in my glasses at La Paulee SF a couple years ago. It was all a blur.
It should be a simple question, but I cannot answer it. The wines are just so very singular. On the one hand, even the really watery ones are clearly Montrachet- even in the worst examples I have tried the power of the site was there. That said, their personalities range widely- as though the amplified “voice” of Montrachet, both in power and complexity, provides the most distinctive impression of a winemaker’s vision of all. Of course it could also be that the prestige and value of the wine ensures all the more care in the winemaking process (well, not always.)
If I were to really force myself, I will concede 82 Ramonet would almost certainly be on the list. That is, for me, about as close to perfection as a wine can get.
With Montrachet, even more than most if not all other white burgundies, you really have to taste through several of them to see what you like- and then go from there.
Overall the DRC version is probably my favorite- but curiously it tends to be a very ripe and flamboyant wine. I usually do not care for that in white burgundy- but the massive structure containing what is probably the most recklessly wild white burgundy on the planet makes it all work beautifully, and so I love the wine.
From a practical standpoint- I think premox has to be considered as well. I used to love Amiot, and I got badly burned there before premox was even on the radar. Every single bottle I had bought at release or from reliable sources had turned before age 10. Blain-Gagnard is another worry- an entire case of the 2002 I shared with a friend turned bad in just a few years. At release these are two wonderful wines- easily in the top ranks on potential, but their endurance history is dismal (with Amiot’s going back well before 1996.)