Tasting the wines at Domaine Guy Roulot

The tasting during our Domaine Roulot visit proceeded on two tracks: a tasting of the 2012 whites followed by a tasting, some of it blind, of some older Roulot vintages. The 2012 tasting segment tasered terroir onto our palates while the free-form segment cemented Raj Parr's reputation as an accomplished blind taster with superior knowledge of Burgundy wines.

2012 Meursaults

The 2012 vintage had been abnormal with hail damage, mildew, odium, and heat combining for a 60% reduction in stock. We tasted through the full range of Meursault wines. Given that these wines were from the same vintage, and had been subjected to similar winemaking treatments, any differences should be attributable to terroir. And we did note such differences. There were consistent observations of fruitiness, minerality, and crisp acidity but texture, degree and shade of fruitiness, type of minerality, and florality varied depending on the source of the fruit. Our observations regarding these wines are captured in the table below.

                           Domaine Guy Roulot 2012 Meursault Wines

Classification	Climats/Lieux-Dits	Location	Characteristics
Bourgogne Blanc		Meursault	Citrus, mineral, acidity
Meursault		Slope south of valley	White fruit, citrus, floral, mineral, freshness
	Tillets	Highest on the slope and facing south	Floral, focused, step up in quality
	Vireuils	North of Tillets at slightly lower elevation; east-facing	White fruit, richness, crisp acidity, will age well
	Luchets	Further north and lower	Sweet white fruits, floral, citrus, chalky minerality, richness
	Narvaux	Adjacent to Tillets	Only 1 barrel made. Slight oakiness
	Meix Chavaux	North of Premier Crus but at same elevation	Lemon, stone, denser than wines preceding, mineral, sea shell
	Tessons	do.	First bottle deemed improper by Jean-Marc. Second bottle fresher fruit, minerality, crisp acidity. Balanced with a long finish
Premier Cru	Bouchères	Northernmost	White fruits, mineral, citrus
	Porusot	South of Bouchères	Tight minerality, sea shell, citrus, crisp acidity
	Charmes	On Puligny border; 70-year-old vines	4 barrels made. Big, rich fruit structure
	Perrieres		Big structure. Grand Cru quality. Pear. Weighty, mineral. Long finish

Pre-2012 Vintages

The first wine tasted in this segment was the 2011 Bourgogne Blanc. Jean-Marc said that this vintage had experienced early flowering and harvesting and there had been no attacks of odium or mildew. This wine had great texture and balance. Ron voiced that it was the best Bourgogne on the planet. The next  offering was the 2011 Tessons, a wine which revealed lemon, pear, and a distinct mineral note.

The next wine was offered blind. Tangerine, earthiness, and a chalky minerality. One of the things that we noted during this trip was that the winemakers all wanted to have Raj taste their wines blind. They constantly put him to the test and he consistently hit the mark or came pretty close. In this case he surmised 2010 Bouchères. It was 2009 Bouchères instead. Jean-Marc rapidly followed with another blind wine which Raj thought was a 2005 Tessons. It was. The third blind wine was ripe and open. 2003 Tillets said Raj. Right again. A tour de force of blind tasting in my opinion. The next wine offered had tangerine and honey on the nose and was very rich. I got lucky and tagged the vintage as 1989. It was a 1989 Bourgogne Blanc.

The final wine tasted was the 1992 Perrieres. Sweet tropical fruit to include pineapple. Ron described it as absolutely amazing. Jean-Marc called it "old Chardonnay." Raj said that this is one of his 10 best wines of all time.

A blockbuster end to a truly amazing tasting and a truly amazing day. Unfortunately the morrow did not attain this level of sustained, intense brilliance.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

What is Raj Parr drinking? A Delectable (get it?) study

Coming out of our trip to Burgundy with Raj Parr (noted Sommelier cum winemaker), I gained the distinct impression, based on the social drinking experiences recorded in the pictures below, that he had a preference for Burgundy and Northern Rhone wines and Champagne.

First night dinner at Bistro de l'Hotel with Raj

Second-day lunch in Burgundy

Third-day lunch in Burgundy

Lunch at Willi's Wine Bar in Paris

I sought to validate these thoughts by studying Raj's posts to the Delectable platform and my findings are reported herein. I was comfortable that using Delectable would reveal his preferences because: (i) during our time together, Raj was religious about posting every wine we drank to the site and (ii) he generally took on the task of ordering the wine, a role that he would probably assume in most settings.

I examined Raj's posts to Delectable up to, and including, Monday of this week. He is a serial wine consumer so the data points might have shifted somewhat within the intervening timeframe but I would expect the volumes to have shifted, rather than the trends. A point of note. The Delectable system will only record one bottle per picture, regardless of how many bottles are in the shot. As a result, the top-level numbers are understated. For example, when Raj participated in an 8-bottle DRC vertical, the site only recorded one bottle. For the top-level analysis, I used the Delectable numbers; for Commune-level analysis I counted the bottles in order to get granular accuracy.

So here is a brief summary of some of the key findings:

• 73% of the wine that Raj consumes is of French origin with the US (10%), Italy (6%), Germany (3%) following in that order. Japan and Spain are a little above 1% while Australia, Canada, NZ, Austria, Greece, and Portugal barely pass his lips.
• At the regional level, Burgundy comprises 35% of his total consumption, the Rhone 12%, the Loire Valley 10%, Champagne 8%, and Bordeaux and Piedmont 3% each. The US equivalent of this grouping is a state and California tops the the other states with 8%. That is not, however, as revealing of a wine style as are the preceding regions. What I find striking here is the showing of Piedmont and Bordeaux vis a vis their peers, a confirmation of my initial perception as to Raj's preferences.
• Turning to the countries, let us first look at France. Burgundy represents 48% of Raj's French wine consumption, with the Rhone (16%), Loire Valley (14%), Champagne (10%), Bordeaux (4%), Jura (3%), and Languedoc-Roussillon (1%) following. All other French regions are less than 1% individually.
• Within Burgundy, 44% of the wines consumed were from the Cote de Nuit, 31% from the Cote de Beaune, 10% from Chablis, 7% from Beaujolais, and 1% each from Cote Chalonnaise and Cotes d'Auxerre.
• To give a sense of the granularity that the data set allows, in the case of the Cote de Nuit, we are able to see that Raj's preferences are for wines from Gevrey-Chambertin, Vosne-Romanee, Chambolle-Musigny, Flagey-Echezeaux, and Morey-St-Denis, in that order.
• We are also able to discern that Raj is most likely to be drinking Armand Rousseau and Dujac wines in Gevrey-Chambertin (he is particularly partial to Chambertin) and DRC in Vosne-Romanee.
• Finally, we can show that he is primarily drinking wines from the 1990s and 2000s in these Cote de Nuit communes.
• Within Rhone, 83% of the wines that Raj consumed originated in the Northern Rhone.
• For the Loire Valley, 82% of the consumed wines were from Anjou-Saumur, 18% from Touraine, and 14% from the Central Vineyards.
• In the case of Champagne, 24% of the wines were from Montagne de Reims, 13% from Cote de Blanc and Valle de Marne, respectively, 12% from Aube, and 10% from Cote de Sezanne.
• Fully 70% of Raj's US wine consumption was from California. Oregon (21%), Oregon/Washington (11%) and Virginia (8%) had meaningful contributions.
• The dominant Italian regions were Piedmont (53%), Tuscany (13%), and Sardinia (12%).

And on it goes. There is a wealth of information contained in the platform but the data have to be manually extracted and analyzed.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

"Stump the Somm" at DRC bottle tasting (Burgundy, France)

We had been down in the DRC barrel cellars for a while so the light seemed especially bright when we re-emerged from our temporary subterranean domicile. Our struggles to adjust to the light did not in any way diminish our high. We had just completed tasting-through the 2013 lineup from barrel and were ready to go talk about it over lunch. But wait. Not yet. Bernard said something and then began walking off into the distance. Peter said that we needed to follow him as the tasting was to continue at the estate's bottle storage facility which was housed in another building a little ways away. This was a welcome, though unanticipated, development. A crowner. A topper. Found money.

We followed Bernard down a few narrow streets for about 250 yards to our eventual destination. We entered through large wooden doors and then immediately stepped down into the obligatory cellar. Except this one was populated by dark, unlabeled bottles set into alcoves, with each alcove identified by the wine contained therein and the number of bottles in the stock.

We rolled by a number of these alcoves until we arrived at a dimly lit room -- which was also the terminal point of the cellar -- furnished with a solitary table positioned centrally and adorned with two candles on stands. Bernard laid his (now) straw basket on the table and disappeared. After a short while he re-appeared with three .375 ml unlabeled bottles which he placed on the table beside the straw basket. We were going to be blind-tasting the wines contained in these bottles and providing our conclusions as to the labels and vintages. We were okay with this. We had two "Somms" in our group.

As he was pouring the first wine, Bernard mentioned that it was from a great vintage where both the quantity and quality of the harvested grapes were high. The wine showed some stemminess along with floral notes and spice. Great complexity and a lengthy finish. Youthful. This wine was revealed to be a 1999 Grand Échézeaux and I do not recall anyone hitting that on the button.

The second bottle, according to Bernard, was from an exceptional vintage. It had a reductive nose which soon gave way to a savory complexity. Ron noted ripe fruit, elegance, and power. This wine had some age on it. Revealed to be the 1990 Grand Échézeaux and my notes do not indicate anyone jumping up and down because they nailed it.

The third bottle had apple-pear notes, a rich oiliness, honey, brown butter, hazelnut, almonds, caramel and a stemminess. I thought the acid level was low. This wine turned out to be a "ringer." It was a 2007 Bâtard-Montrachet, a wine of which the estate only produces 300 bottles for family consumption. Ron felt that it was the best Bâtard that he had ever had. I know that no one got this one right.

Bernard was having such a great time that he brought a fourth bottle to the table. While pouring, he described the wine as the product of a difficult vintage. It had a watery-gold color with a broad, pale rim. On the nose, molasses, brown sugar, caramel, a nuttiness, dates, figs, and mushrooms. Ron thought it had, additionally, tangerine and orange-rind notes. Balanced on the palate. This was a unique wine for both Ron and me. Raj thought that it was a 1977 Montrachet and provided the reasons for his conclusions. It was  a 1977 Montrachet. I was doubly impressed: first by the wine and then by Raj's recall.

Now Bernard had created a monster. We kept saying things like "encore" but he did not get the message. He began trudging purposefully towards the exit. We followed grudgingly. It was over. Now we could go to lunch and talk about our great experiences.


©Wine -- Mise en abyme