MBSC No. 6 - Grand Cru theme

[Chris H]

Last function for the year for the Melbourne Burgundy Social club, so Grand Cru was the theme. Wines masked as usual.

Thanks for an extremely enjoyable year fellow clubbers. Touched by a tinge of sadness though, with the man who had the idea for the group, Mr Benchmark and his wife heading overseas for new adventures. They will be missed.

2010 Domaine Michelot Meursault Perrieres 1er Cru
Buttercup yellow. Rich style (ripe peaches, honey, barley sugar and almost touches of butterscotch) but with good acidity and structure underlying the fruit to avoid it being soft or flabby. Ready.


2006 Chateau De La Tour Clos Vougeot VV
Youthful ruby. Attractive deep five spice perfume that kept building as it opened in the glass. Classy fruit with excellent depth - multi-faceted dark cherry, cassis-plum, some earth and a good tannin spine. Relatively youthful but starting to drink nicely.


2011 Chateau De La Tour Clos Vougeot
A lighter version of the 2006, with less power and structure partly due to the vintage and partly because of the extra fruit density in the Vieille Vignes version. Quite approachable and easy drinking now.


2009 Louis Jadot Grand Echezeaux
Trademark oak and aromatic black cherry fruit on the nose. Lighter than I expected on the palate, but good quality fruit. Will cellar well.


2001 Domaine Dujac Echezeaux
Pretty much close to its peak drinking for me. Lovely perfumed nose, just starting to develop some complex secondary sous-bois characters. Dark cherry fruit and some stalky complexity. Good acid length.


2005 and 2011 Domaine Bruno Clair Chambertin-Clos de Beze
Put on together by our resident Pavlova King. The 2011 showed the elegant side of the vintage and was ready to go. Just lacked a bit of stuffing. The 2005 was surprisingly ready to drink also, and again an elegant expression of this vineyard. A touch of distracting VA on the back palate though.


2008 Louis Jadot Chapelle-Chambertin
Not showing as well as it should have. Opened as fairly ordinary in this company, so something NQR.


2005 Gerard Raphet Clos De La Roche
Shows the richness of the vineyard with good quality dark fruits and complexing touches of liquorice, spice and earth.


1999 Frederic Esmonin Chambertin
A relatively light and elegant version of an often powerful vineyard. Typical Gevrey earthy tannins underpin medium weight developing black fruits, that just lack expected intensity and complexity.


2006 JJ Prum Graacher Himmelreich Auslese Riesling
Minerally honey, citrus and red apple fruit underpinned by soft tingly acid. Went beautifully with the fruit platter.

[Benchmark]

Great night.

I look forward to reading more write ups from the MBSC.

Thank you to everyone for a fantastic year.

[mjs]

Yep, a great night, all the wines were very good, some exceptional, perhaps as you would expect, maybe there's something to this Burgundy thing

Food at Choi's was excellent, a great finish to the year. Hopefully Ozzie can post some label pics.

Just a minor correction to Chris's excellent notes, the older Clos de Beze was 1995, not 2005.

[JamieBahrain]

Nice one!

[Chris H]

Ha, no wonder it was ready to drink then

[Ozzie W]

What an epic way to end the year! Bottle photos below.

[mjs]

Ha, no wonder it was ready to drink then

exactly

[Con J]

Yes, it was a great way to end the year.
Looking forward to next year.

Cheers Con.