After lunch, we drove about an hour and a half to Aubert and Pamela de Villaine's Chateau and home in Bouzeron. Who is Aubert de Villaine, you ask? Aubert is the director of Domaine de la Romanee Conti, one of the most sought after Burgundies in the world. Also, do you remember the movie Bottle Shock? He was one of the gentlemen on the tasting panel in the famous blind tasting in which California upset France. Upon arrival we descended into what Kermit refers to in his book as the coldest cellar in France, and he wasn't kidding. The cold in that cellar chilled me to the bone, literally. It took an hour and a half for my body temperature to come back up after being in that cellar. Pierre de Benoist, Aubert's nephew and wine-maker at the Domaine tasted us through twelve wines in the icy cold cellar. After tasting, we went inside and met Pamels, Aubert's cute wife and shared dinner, traditional beef bourgogne with some of the older vintages of their delicious wines. Unfortunately, Aubert had just had emergency eye surgery that day and was unable to join us.
Tasting:
2009 Bouzeron Aligote-pineapple, fleshy, nice balance between acidity and minerality
2008 Les Clous Vineyard - Not as much acidity as the '07, blended with some Aligote
2008 Rully Les Saint-Jacques Blanc - lots of lime and citrus, incredibly low yields
2008 La Fortune-35yr old Pinot vines, low yield because of an early frost
2008 La Digoine-Gamey with cherry and raspberry and a little hint of cola-gravely with a good balance of fruit and acidity
2008 Mercurey Les Montots-they are in the process of replacing old plants from 1955 with plants from Nuits-Saints-George
2009 Bouzeron Aligote-Really leaps out of glass, delicious minerality on nose, reminds me of a muscat
2009 Les Clous-absolutely perfect nose on this chardonnay
2009 Rully Saint-Jacques-great mushroomey, slatey notes
2009 La Fortune-Botrytis was actually setting in on this Pinot
2009 La Digoine-great body and nose, the star of the bunch
2009 Mercurey-possibly lighter than the '08, it could just be closed off
Pierre de Benoist
The spread
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