Burgundy question on Bordeaux forum

[JCNorthway]

For those of you with knowledge of Burgundy producers and vintages, I'd be interested in your thoughts on this. I have a few miscellaneous bottles of 1999 Laurent NSG and Gevrey premier crus. How ready do you think they are? I opened a couple of bottles 5-6 years ago, and they did not seem in a good place. I'm hoping they just needed more time, since I've heard this is a producer whose wines need time. I've also heard that the 1999 vintage in general needed time.

[Musigny 151]

I have just been cracking some 1999 village wines, and they are showing well. Laurent premiers probably still need a few more years, particularly the Nuits.

[Claret]

Interested... I have a few 99 Laurents.

[Comte Flaneur]

Jon - if you are going to drink one you need to ‘beat up’ the wine with a vigorous decant to get some oxygen into it. Given the right preparation these wines can be magnificent but they tend to be reductive.

You are right as Mark notes the 1999 vintage has been slow in coming round, painfully so. Villages wines are generally drinking very well. I am starting to dip my toe into some Barthod 1er Cru. But no hurry.

[jal]

I had 3 Emmanuel Rouget Echezeaux that I drank the last twelve months. The first bottle was damaged, the other two were absolutely gorgeous.
You may get lucky with Laurent, but imo, his wines are a bit oaky and they need more time than most.

[stefan]

In general, 1999 Burgundy has been very, very slow to come around. Those that have are really good, but experimentation can be expensive and unrewarding, as I know all too well from experience.

I am not a fan of Laurent wines from that period as they are over oaked for my taste. They will require more age than the average to be drinkable, I think.

[JCNorthway]

Thanks for all the input. It pretty much confirms my "hypothosis." As a result, I plan to sit on these a few more years.

[Claudius2]

JCN
I am not so sure about this. Some experimentation is probably warranted.
I agree that 99 was a relatively long lived vintage and that I drank some of them a bit too young but the style varied from producer to producer, and village to village - they were not all tannic.
Some were for sure - even at 15 yrs, 99 1er's from various producers were surprisingly tannic for Burgundy of any age.
I drank a few cases of Arnoux NSG and VR 1ers in the mid 10's and at 15 yrs or so, I actually thought that the fruit would fade well before the tannins.
So my point is that some wines were too tannic for the fruit (sounds like 75 in Bdx).
I had imported them directly (as part of a local buying group) and they were all stored in temperature controlled environments.
By about 15 yrs, the fruit in the Arnoux wines were showing a mature profile, and I did not expect that they would improve, rather, I thought that it was best to drink them soon to avoid the fruit fading away.
And I don't mind a bit of tannin when drunk with strong tasting food.
Yet many other 99's were never as firmly tannic - eg, Confuron Cotetidot, Harmand Geoffroy, Grivot, Groffier, Morot, Fourrier, Pavelot and Castagnier.
Unfortunately, most of what remained of these was sold off before I left Sydney and I am still regretting it.

I bought some Laurent wines during the 90's and early 00's and I found them to be rather erratic.
Surprisingly, I did not find most of them to be overtly woody (I would have said that about Faiveley however, and I stopped buying them entirely).
I just checked the storage unit manifest and the only Laurents I have are a few 2002's and I will try and pull them out of the hold and drink soon.
Yet my experience would be that one Cuvee would be very good, others at the same supposed level (e.g., two NSG 1ers) would be ordinary.
Their popularity in Australia seemed to fade over the years - I stopped seeing them on order forms and at tastings.

If you have multiple bottles, suggest you drink one soon, and decant for a while.
I think at that point you can contrast the fruit and the structure of the wine to see where they are going.

[Musigny 151]

In general, 1999 Burgundy has been very, very slow to come around. Those that have are really good, but experimentation can be expensive and unrewarding, as I know all too well from experience.

I am not a fan of Laurent wines from that period as they are over oaked for my taste. They will require more age than the average to be drinkable, I think.

I admit to having problems with Laurent’s use of oak. Then I tasted his 1996s and that was at least five years ago. I was shocked how good they were, a little oaky for sure, but so much less than my initial tasting. Since then, I have tasted a couple of 1996s, and the wines really reminded me of Lignier; a little more than I like but well within tolerance.

[jal]

I agree with Mark, that's why Laurent's wines need even more time than most.

[robert goulet]

I snagged the ‘99 Laurent volnay 1er les santenots based on comments that his ‘99 were solid...I was going to try and wait another 5 on this due to the heavier oak treatment