Fine Burgundies on a rainy Friday.
We tasted through 5 this afternoon, and they were all very good to taste,
expressing the trend away from extraction and toward finesse.
Pascal revealed that he aims for this style,
picking his grapes a little early to preserve freshness and intervening as little as possible in the wine making,
just a little punch down toward the end of fermentation.
The two whites we tasted were vinified almost the same but tasted quite different,
the Savigny Les Beaune a little leaner and more saline than the Puligny-Montrachet,
which for me was a little more traditional in that it was round and creamy…
Anyway I like acidity and don’t care much for candy.
The Puligny Montrachet came from grapes Pascal bought from friends, which makes him a garagist…
The Savigny Les Beaune comes from his own land.
The three reds we tasted covered the lower end of Pascal’s range,
beginning with regional Bourgogne Côte d’Or,
then a Village Savigny Les Beaune,
and finally a single-vineyard Vosne Romanee from “Aux Champs Perdrix”.
Quite a discussion arose over their light body and the extreme fineness of all their tannins.
Pascal insisted that these characteristics are his choice in vinification,
coincidentally in harmony with the current dialectic swing away from intense and extracted wines.
Pascal said this, and I agree:
to believe that a wine expresses its terroir,
you must have faith in the winemaker’s sincere desire to express the essence of their land.
It was good to see Wayne Wen (from New Century) there translating for Pascal.
It turns out Wayne is related to Jerry Lan, the owner of La Grande Vinoteque,
which by the way is a fabulous location, with a massive sound system, acoustic treatment, a giant collection of vinyl records, and decorated with abstract art on the walls.
We need to get back to this place.