Burgundy tasting notes from a man in tweed, usually outdoors. Mostly from the Côte de Nuits: Gevrey Chambertin, Nuits St Georges, Vosne Romanée and the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits.
I still have a couple of the 2012s left from a case I bought en primeur. You have prompted me to open one of them in the near future. The last one I had a few months ago was still remarkably youthful.
4 walls wine are the best! I was fortunate to get a bottle of Arnoux Lachaux's Chambolle from them the year before it skyrocketed for 40 quid. They have so much good and affordable aged stuff...
I didn't realize that your glass was plastic so it looked like it was dirty. In some of your recent videos you didn't really like the wine and when you got home you liked it more. I think that's because at home you used the real glass one. I think it makes a noticeble difference.
In 2018 I bought a few bottles of Nuit St Georges Premier Cru 2016 in Nuit St Georges for ~24 euros and it was incredible. Now a regional Bourgogne is 30 pounds in UK, not even village... Thank you Tweedy for sharing your experience!
Had no idea you had other channels man! My wife and I really enjoy your main channel and the wealth of information and history you gather for your videos. Is this wine tasting even better from behind the tree? 😅all the best, Tony …p.s are you in the wine business?
Thanks Tony! Yes I have four channels in total! The bits standing behind the tree were a bit silly really, I was just trying to vary the scenery a bit so it didn't get too monotonous! No I'm not in the wine business, just an enthusiastic amateur.
That might be a long-range item (unsurpizingly from Bourgogne), appealing to secondary and tertiary notes (you may not appretiate that, the mileages may vary). Probably that's a longeval wine and good to see that it works as "youngster" as well. Thank you.
@@BoxTunnel I love the idea of Burgundy in pints! I'm completely on board with that as long as the glasses are the right shape. Actually a handled/dimpled "mug" wouldn't be terrible.
@@BurgundyWithTweedy Apparently the old dimpled mugs are too expensive now, if you can actually find them. My local has one left and that's reserved for my good friend Dinger on a Saturday evening.
What you describe indeed indicates perhaps a faulty bottle but it could've just been subject to being kept too warm in the store pre-purchase ? Synthetic corks are an instant 'Non' for me with Burgundies, they shouldn't be used with any Burgundy in my humble opinion
I'm sure a lot of "experts" would berate me for being too close-minded but I agree with you on synthetic corks. I can't think of a Burgundy I've had with a synthetic closure that I've really enjoyed. I understand the desire from winemakers to reduce the rate of faulty bottles but it didn't seem to help here did it...? If they want to eliminate the chances of TCA (at least coming from the closure) then why not go with a Diam cork? They're still made of cork, but processed / treated in a way that it's practically impossible to cause any taint. They're also quite technical in that they make versions with different porosity which gives the winemaker another lever to adjust to determine how the wine ages.
Thanks Mikael - yes I was definitely bracing myself for potential disappointment here! I was pleasantly surprised though, it really was something quite special, and quite different from other wines I've had from Gevrey Chambertin.
I'm guessing it's not going to be the sort of unspoilt rustic boozer I like (are there any of those at all left in the Cotswolds?) but I am still slightly intrigued.
I agree wine tasting notes sometimes sound a bit crazy and/or pretentious but it is actually quite hard to translate complex flavours and smells into words. I honestly used to think it was all bullshit but what changed my mind was the introduction to a book on whisky by Michael Jackson (No, not the singer! The beer/whisky writer, sadly no longer with us). He challenged the reader to describe the flavour of Coca Cola to someone who had never had it before. Whether you like Coke or not, there is a lot more going on there than just sweet fizzy water and it's actually incredibly hard to describe the flavour. Rightly or wrongly, bottles of wine - like the one featured here - often demand significant prices. Given that, I'm convinced there is some utility in providing a potential buyer with an idea of whether they're going to like it or not. Obviously though I would recommend people considering spending a lot of money on a bottle of wine to refer to someone with more expertise than I have!
Tweedy, this is a very comprehensive review. The wine is a great reward for all your work. I often wondered why anyone would pay 180 quid for a bottle of burgundy, but now I can see why. Maybe I shall treat myself one day, but in the meantime I shall continue drinking New Zealand pinot noirs at around 15 to 20 quid.
Thank you! Money is a funny old thing isn't it? We all have our different thresholds for different things. I'm really quite stingy when it comes to things like home improvement or cars but other people will happily lavish huuuuge sums on those things - way more than I spend on wine in a year. I wouldn't derive any pleasure from having a really smart frontage to my house - or a sports car parked in front of it - but I do really enjoy fine wine!
It's sometimes hard to tell with RU-vid comments whether it's a light hearted leg pull or a genuine grievance! If the latter, then it's worth remembering you don't have to watch anything you don't want to watch on RU-vid. I'd recommend turning auto-play off, and making use of the "not interested" and/or "don't recommend channel" options whenever you see a video recommendation you don't like the look of.
@@BurgundyWithTweedy Man, 16 years of using RU-vid, and I just learned that I don't have to watch anything I don't want to. This is extraordinary. Just amazing news, this.
@@The_Invisible_Hand_Of_CVGood, so we're past the basics. Sounds like you were here by choice, but something went awry. Was there something about the thumbnail / title which was misleading or inaccurate?
Thank you! Maybe you've seen some of my other videos and know what a high esteem I hold him in? Alas characters like that are in such short supply these days.
Thank you for those very kind words! I think wine in general is not a very popular subject on RU-vid and Burgundy is especially niche! I don't expect the channel to ever get very big but I enjoy making the videos and it's a useful way for me to remember what I've had before and what I thought of it!
Thank you! I guess this is one of the benefits of a very amateur wine channel - I don't feel any pressure to make the videos look professional and I'm happy to just have fun with it and stray off topic from time to time!
From a quick glance it looks like an ardeseal cork which is at least the best of a bad bunch. Surprised the struck match didnt blow off eventually. Im sure you've mentioned somewhere but how did your prong preference come about?
I think in hindsight this must have been a faulty bottle. I know a bit of struck match is actually considered desirable by some wine makers but to me even in small quantities it sets off alarm bells that something might have gone awry. Slightly ironic if this was indeed faulty given the synthetic closure - they're supposed to reduce the risk of that. Although I guess that's mainly to prevent TCA, and I don't think that was the issue here. I certainly couldn't smell any wet dog! I originally got the wine prongs because they're recommended for older bottles (e.g. 15 or 20 years plus), where there's a chance of the cork disintegrating with a corkscrew... but actually I very rarely drink older bottles like that. After using them a few times I just started to prefer the action compared to a corkscrew. The cork comes out nice and cleanly and I think I actually find it quicker and easier than a corkscrew now (unless it's a synthetic closure of course!). Plus they're neat and compact compared to some corkscrews, which is handy when I'm away from home. Although I suppose a waiter's friend is fairly compact too.
Not really by choice! As I mentioned in the video some shops (perhaps more the "bricks and mortar" rather than online variety) don't seem to have anything older than the 2020s now. Of course if you say to the staff that you think a given bottle might not be ready yet they'll tell you to lay it down for a few years. Well obviously that would help, but it doesn't solve the problem of finding something to drink today!
Usually, I find NsG to be more expensive than GC, but CG is also huge in comparison to the amount produced. More feminine also, so I tend to drink it either alone or with foods such as plain chicken roast. Thanks for the lovely content. 🙏🏽 Cheers! 🥂
Thank you! It's interesting you've observed the pricing of NSG vs GC being the other way round. It's always hard to get an accurate picture of this sort of thing because obviously there are no "official" figures, and there are lots of other variables affecting prices. My observation may have been skewed by the fact I've bought so much NSG from one of my favourite wine merchants (Fingal Rock) and their prices are very competitive. Their cheapest NSG currently listed is £36 - here in the UK at least it would be practically impossible to find anything from Gevrey Chambertin at that sort of price. You make a good point about the overall supply of GC though, you would expect given that there would be lower pressure on prices compared to a smaller village... However I wonder if it's also a factor that there are no Grand Cru vineyards in NSG? I had always assumed the existence of the Grand Crus like Chambertin had a trickle down effect on pricing of even village level wine from Gevrey.
I always show these wines in very inconsistent lighting conditions so it's hard to make a fair comparison on the colour! It was a great spot though, really enjoyed my time there.
As a big wine enthusiast I think you're very good at describing the wine. And it sounds like it delivered exactly what is to be expected from a Grand Cru Burgundy. Good stuff!
Thank you - I really appreciate that! I'm absolutely an amateur, I've never worked in the wine industry, and I don't even think I have a very good sense of smell, so I have to work quite hard at tasting notes! I was bracing myself to be a bit underwhelmed, and half expected it might seem like any other Gevrey Chambertin - but this genuinely did seem like something quite different and special. Probably not an experiment I'm going to be repeating very often, unfortunately!
I agree - in the sort of price range I'm normally more comfortable with (e.g. around £60 for Gevrey Chambertin) I really struggle to find anything at all on the shelves at Hedonism. Also whenever I've tried looking for cheaper appellations (e.g. Bourgogne Hautes Cotes de Nuits, which I think can be quite good) there seems to be nothing there. However, given the complex nature of wine pricing and the fact they carry so many bottles, I get the sense sometimes individual wines fall through the cracks a bit, and this particular Chapelle Chambertin was actually cheaper here than at most other retailers I saw on Wine Searcher.
Very interesting Tweedy. Strangely, I've just come from seeing you drink cider at the Petersfield pub, which was also interesting. But £50 is a lot for a generic Burgundy. Might the grapes used by Fourrier for this wine in fact come from vineyards that he owns, but which fall outside the strict limitation of the more prestigious Gevrey Chambertin appelation? I know that quite a lot of Burgundy producers do have property lying outside their pricier label appelations. I owned a restaurant in Lyon in the past, and we always had trouble finding drinkable Burgundy at a price our clients were prepared to pay. I now live in Burgundy (just above Mâcon), where a lot of nice white wine comes from. The producers here are trying to up the quality (and the price), and going for a "grand cru" label. I notice that the alcohol level of the whites is going up dramatically, with many vignerons around here selling whites at 15°. I've been buying much cheaper pinot noir generic burgundy on the spec that it will taste better in four years' time. We'll see if I'm right in my bets, but I have got some experience and am normally not that far wrong. And yes, a very nice fox indeed. This morning at around 6 a.m. a beautiful deer went sprining across the road in front of me. All seems appropriately ancient here, around Cluny. Thanks for sharing. Tom
I will not buy anything French, overrated, overpriced, and on occasion, mixed with Italian and other countries grapes ? They do have a superb marketing strategy to make it seem upmarket, but as I said before the Italian influences is there, of course that goes back to Roman times who introduced the vines originally to France, or should I call it Gaul?
Probably the only RU-vidr who will openly admit to spending his earnings on booze 😆 Class Tweedy, well deserved. Cheers, 🥃 Take care All the best D & B 👍
Hi Tweedy. Such a complex wine. I guess that’s what you would hope for from a premier wine …….. vimto and clotted cream! Delighted that your investment of your earnings was well spent. Thank you for the entertainment 👏👏👍😀🍷