TNs: 1999 H Lignier Gevrey Chambertin and a few other tastes

[Michael Malinoski]

Below are some catch-up notes from Thanksgiving time at my in-laws’ house.

N.V. Duval-Leroy Champagne Brut. This is a bright yellow color and displays a very active bead. It leads with pleasant aromas of pencil shavings, chalk dust, lemon peel and pear. It really foams up in the mouth and provides a burst of ginger ale, pear and lemon/lime flavors that are full-blown but a bit obvious and sweet-tinged. It does seem to improve over time, gaining a bit more complexity and finding a bit more elegance on the second glass.

2003 Domaine Weinbach Gewurztraminer Cuvee Theo. I served this with a curried butternut squash soup, which turned out to be a poor pairing given the strong apple flavors in the soup that tended to clash a bit with this wine’s flavor profile. I was thinking to match the curry but should have been focusing on the core elements of the dish. Oh well, live and learn! Anyway, this wine possesses a very floral nose of lavendar, orange blossoms, rosewater, lychee and a bit of musky funk and brown spices. Those brown spices really come forward on the palate, where they blend with the flavors of lychee and pineapple that are a bit sweet up front but much drier on the back (much like a bottle of this drunk a few weeks earlier). The wine is oily, fairly exotic and has a good deal of palate presence, but needs a better food pairing than we afforded it.

2004 Frederic Magnien Cote de Nuits Villages Croix Violette. Here we have a wine that is a transparent light ruby color and features aromas of birch, sassafras, mushrooms, white pepper, a bit of funky sweat, creamy oak and sweet dark cherries. It is a bit prickly at times, but also pretty interesting and enjoyable to sniff. In the mouth, the fruit is very bright-toned and lifted, with a notable but not excessive acidity. There are some savory earth, herb and wood notes running beneath, but for the most part this is bright and mixed berry-driven. The finish is dry and a bit tight, but it is creamy and moderately sappy through the center. The oak influence becomes increasingly apparent over time and the wine as a whole gets a bit cinched up, but otherwise it is fresh and easy to drink now.

1995 Chateau de Gevrey-Chambertin Gevrey-Chambertin Monopole. This bottle was a relic from my very first visit to Burgundy in 1998—the trip that started me down this crazy wine path. On a sightseeing recommendation from a native, my wife and I visited the old château and had a wacky tour from the elderly proprietress (Madame Masson, if I remember correctly), who eventually lead us down to the cellar to taste a few wines made from their vines surrounding the property. Well, we bought this bottle and carried it home, where it has been sitting for some time. Sitting too long, it would seem! Upon opening, it is clear that the wine is rather stinky—giving off aromas of stewed red fruits, composting mulch and balsamic bits. It is a lot better on the palate, thankfully, where it features some sour cherry, cranberry and raspberry fruit flavors that are again a bit tinged with balsamic overtones, but with a crisp-edged acidity that helps it feel fresher and more enjoyable. It is definitely a somewhat spoiled bottle, but there are some redeeming taste elements to it even if the nose is pretty gross at this time. A great memory, but a questionable bottle.

1999 Hubert Lignier Gevrey-Chambertin. I opened up the back-up bottle, which I was glad to have brought. Ah, the bouquet is really quite nice and complex, with a focus on dark, brooding and serious earth tone aromas of black smoke, fresh-turned soil, pine needles, sous bois undergrowth and beautiful dark cherry fruit. It really draws one in, especially as it grows and evolves over the course of the evening. In the mouth, it is masculine, fleshy and serious—with excellent flavors of black cherry, cranberry and black raspberry fruit riding atop impressions of foresty green plants, black tea leaves and dark soil. It is impressively structured for a village wine and finishes with a nice savory kick, where one also finds a late twang of acidity and some baby tannins lurking. It gets more giving and juicy over the course of several glasses, so I would say drink now or hold for another 3-5 years.


-Michael

[Winona Chief]

Hubert Lignier is a fine producer - that 1999 Gevrey-Chambertin sure sounds lovely.

I really enjoy reading your tasting notes!

Chris Bublitz