Vintus

In his preview of 2009 Red and White Burgundy, Wine Spectator’s Bruce Sanderson found that a near-perfect summer resulted in ripe, charming Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays. Domaine de la Romanée-Conti codirector Aubert de Villaine likened 2009 to 1959, one of Burgundy’s notable older vintages, while Lucien Le Moine’s Mounir Saouma  said the 2009s tended to have two distinct personalities:

“The first went through malolactic conversion by Christmas 2009 and were racked early. These are gentle wines that will be pleasant to drink over the next 10 years. Indeed, I have already tasted some 2009s in bottle here in the United States.

The second are wines with density and purity that are capable of long aging. In the cellars at Le Moine, the malolactic occurred from June to July 2010, and when I visited at the end of January 2011, the wines had not yet been racked. Most of the growers I visited in late January were just beginning to bottle, or will bottle over the next few months.

Saouma described 2009 as “a vintage of details, with a lot of small pieces to put together.” The vintage is very transparent, he added, but doesn’t favor any specific terroir.”

According to Bruce Sanderson, “the style of 2009 will have broad appeal for wine lovers because of their ripe, pure fruit flavors and fleshy textures. Unfortunately, they will be expensive because of the exchange rate and strong worldwide demand. Importers I contacted quoted price increases of 5 to 20 percent over the 2008s. The good news is that I tasted several excellent ripe, fruit-filled bottlings at the basic Bourgogne level, which will provide some value and relief from the sticker shock of the ’09 crus. Burgundy lovers should also buy some 2008s, which in retrospect, will look like bargains compared to 2009.”

Can wines made to be approachable soon after release actually reward extended cellaring, or is this simply a case of trying to have it all?

This was the subject of a recent winemaker roundtable discussion on Stephen Tankzer’s blog, Winophilia.com. Several different winemakers, ranging from Rupert Symington to Olivier Humbrecht, weighted in on the debate. Here is Lucien Le Moine’s take on the subject:

“I feel that there are two categories of consumers today: people who want everything NOW and people who would like to play the game and wait.

After 20 years of winemaking and 11 years of making the Lucien Le Moine wines, I can say that Burgundy and specifically our style here at Le Moine is enjoyable in the first two years in bottle and then the wines need five or six years of rest before we can enjoy them again. In other words, the wines provide two different experiences—fresh and fruity early, more soft and spicy later.

I am against making wine to satisfy a certain category of wine drinker. We do it our own way and with our own convictions, and then we help people to understand these crus of Burgundy that are made in this way. We know that we can never satisfy everyone; that’s why we make 30,000 bottles a year and not more.

Normally Burgundy is a place where great wines are great from the beginning. I never buy a Burgundy that’s not enjoyable during the two years after the bottling. Ageability is another matter. If we let our wines deal with oxygen early on, and during long barrel aging, they will be more fine and elegant and they will age better. I don’t believe that tannic wines age better than elegant wines. To us, classic Burgundy means light extraction, fine vinification, and more than 18 months of aging on the lees, with a late malolactic fermentation, no early sulfuring and gentle bottling without fining or filtration. All of these techniques produce wines that can be very sexy young and will sometimes age forever. Our 2002, 2006 and now the 2009 vintage are perfect examples of this style.”

Read the rest of the roundtable discussion here