Tag Archives: alcohol level

Is Aligoté the Future of White Burgundy

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Aligoté is not quite the grape variety that dare not speak its name, but it is certainly quite subservient to Chardonnay in Burgundy. It is found only in a relatively small production of Bourgogne Aligoté and in Bouzeron on the Côte Chalonnaise where it is the authorized white grape variety. The problem with Aligoté has always been its piercing acidity, but could that now become an advantage in the era of global warming, when Chardonnay can lose acidity and become over-ripe and overblown?

“Of course, thanks to global warming it is more and more important. Because Chardonnay is less and less vibrant. The skin of Chardonnay is becoming thicker and this brings bitterness, which may replace acidity,” says Pierre de Benoist at Domaine de Villaine, the top domain in Bouzeron. (Pierre is the nephew of Aubert de Villaine, of Domaine de la Romanée Conti, who established the domain in Bouzeron in 1971.)

Part of the problem with Aligoté is that the dominant cultivar—from which the available clones are derived—is Aligoté Vert. Domaine de Villaine grows the Aligoté Doré subvariety, which achieves greater ripeness. It’s been propagated by selection massale from some very old plants, some 115 years old representing the first planting after phylloxera.

Burgundy’s top Aligoté vineyard is Domaine Ponsot’s premier cru Monts Luisants in Morey St. Denis, one of the rare plantings of a white variety on the Côte de Nuits. (It is curious that although white plantings dominate the southern part of the Côte de Beaune and are rare on the Côte de Nuits, it is the latter that has all the variety ,with the Gouges strain of Pinot Blanc growing in premier crus in Nuits St. Georges, as well as the Aligoté in Morey St. Denis.)

The Luisants vineyard consists of 80% old vines planted in 1911 and 20% replanted in 2006. It cannot have been easy to maintain, because for a while planting Aligoté was not allowed in premier crus, although the restriction now has been lifted. Actually, Aligoté may be more common than is always realized: some years ago a producer on the Côte de Nuits said to me darkly, “you would be amazed how much Aligoté there is in Corton Charlemagne if you take a look at the vines.” Indeed, as Alexandre Abel at Domaine Ponsot points out, “The reputation of Corton Charlemagne was established in the 19th century when there was a huge proportion of Aligoté.”

Monts Luisants has become more consistent and precise since Alexandre took over winemaking in 2017. It used to be fermented in stainless steel and moved to barrique only after fermentation. Now it is moved to barrique around halfway through fermentation. “In 2017 we started to press it more gently and we don’t use sulfur,” Alexandre says.

One of the most interesting Aligoté cuvées I tasted comes from Meursault (of course, the vines may be in Meursault but the wine is Bourgogne Aligoté). Patrick Essa of Domaine Buisson-Charles is a person of strong opinions. When I had to change the time of our appointment because another producer had a problem with timing as he had to pick up his wife and children at the railway station, Patrick said, “Keep in mind that a vigneron whose principal concern is to collect his wife from the train is not as passionate as he should be about what he does.”

Patrick harvests the Bourgogne Aligoté as late as possible. “Aligoté goes from green to doré to rosé and I like it to be rosé.” Will Aligoté become more prominent because of global warming causing loss of acidity in Chardonnay. “I don’t have any problem with Chardonnay, lack of acidity is a problem caused by high yields.”

Global warming is forcing producers to reconsider what grape varieties may be appropriate everywhere wine is made. In the Rhône, they are bringing back varieties such as Counoise and Cinsault, that had been more or less phased out, because they produce less alcohol than Grenache. With Burgundy whites, the problem is more lack of acidity than gain in alcohol, but the question is the same: could a different variety produce better results if global warming continues?

Tastings

Domaine De Villaine, Bouzeron, 2021 
This is a blend from 17 plots of Aligoté in Bouzeron. They come from 9 lieu-dits and each lieu-dit is vinified separately in a foudre. Average age is 65 years and the oldest vines are 115 years. This vintage shows good acidity, but not oppressive, with inclinations towards salinity. Quite savory and fresh. Considering this is a cooler year, shows very good roundness. 89 Drink –2027

Domaine Ponsot,  Monts Luisants, 2020 
The acidity is really very well controlled and is more in the background than upfront. Fruits are quite lemony but the palate is silky, round, viscous, but without the fullness of Chardonnay. This is a leaner style, pointing in a more saline direction.   90 Drink –2030

Domaine Buisson-Charles, Bourgogne Aligoté, 2022 
(barrel sample) Almost stern impression to nose. Round, ripe, and flavorful, mingling fruity and savory impressions. A good example of the potential complexity of Aligoté.    88 Drink -2027

Oenologues Triumph in St. Emilion

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A tasting organized by the Grand Cru Classés of St. Emilion turned out to be a striking demonstration of the power of the oenologue. The 64 Grand Cru Classés are the starting level of the classification, below the 18 Premier Grand Cru Classés (according to the reclassification of 2012).  Half of the Grand Cru Classés were represented at the tasting, showing their 2009 and 2010 vintages.

While many of the wines conformed to the general reputation of the vintages – 2009 for lush, more forward fruits, but 2010 more reserved and structured – there were enough where the 2010 was more open than the 2009 to make generalization difficult. The most striking feature of the tasting was not the difference between vintages or variety between chateaux, but the general similarity. If there’s a model for the Grand Cru Classés today, it’s for furry tannins behind soft black fruits: the very model of micro-oxygenation, you might think. (I have no idea how many of these wines actually used micro-oxygenation, but the overall impression from this tasting was that it might be epidemic in St. Emilion.)

On the subject of style, alcohol levels were high, just a touch higher in 2010 (average 14.6%) than in 2009 (average 14.3%). A more revealing comparison is that some wines in 2010 were as high as 15.5%, and almost half were 15% or greater, whereas the highest wines in 2009 were 15%. In all fairness, the alcohol was well integrated and did not stick out, but the level gave me pause for thought about the staying power of the wines. I was also extremely surprised to discover that some wines had levels of residual sugar that were almost detectable (around 3g/l: the level of detection for most people is around 4 g/l, and most red wines usually have only around 1 g/l). Sometimes I got a faint impression of saccharine on the finish, but this seems to have been due to ripeness of fruits, because it never correlated with the level of residual sugar.

The similarities among the wines are less surprising when you realize that more than half were made with the same winemaking philosophy. To be more precise, Michael Rolland was the consulting oenologue for 40% of chateaux, and Jean Philippe Fort of Laboratoire Rolland for another 20%: there was scarcely a single chateau left without a consulting oenologist. (What happened to the old proprietor-winemakers?)

So I thought I would see whether I could detect the hand of the oenologist directly, and I organized my tasting in terms of oenologists, tasting all the chateaux from each oenologue in succession to see whether similarity of style was obvious. I think it is a fair criticism that the style of the wines tends to be a bit “international,” but there did not seem to be enough homogeneity among the wines of any one oenologue to validate the view that they impose a common style. Every oenologue had some wines that were lush, but at least one that showed a more restrained fruit impression, sometimes with an almost savory sensation. It would have been difficult to identify the oenologue in a blind tasting. Perhaps the wines for which Hubert de Boüard was the consulting oenologist tended to be the most refined. If there is a marker for Michel Rolland’s style, perhaps it is the sweetness of the smooth tannins. Rolland’s focus on ripeness is shown also by the fact that in both vintages, the wines on which he was a consultant showed higher alcohol than the average.

There were direct impressions of overripe fruits on only a couple of wines. I did not get much sense of anything but Merlot in most of these wines (the average Merlot is 75%); the dominance of those soft Merlot fruits tended to give a somewhat monotonic impression. Overall I was disappointed: there was too much sameness and not enough character to the wines. They seemed more at a level equivalent to the Cru Bourgeois of the left bank than to the classed growths of the Médoc. Perhaps flavor variety will develop as the wines mature, but my impression is that the wines are more likely to simplify into sweet fruits. Perhaps this is due to the combination of grape variety and the ripeness of the vintages rather than oenologues’ choices. But I was left with the feeling that the monotonic fruit character and high alcohol would make a bottle tire over dinner.

A Reality Check on Napa Cabernet Sauvignon

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It’s become a truism that more powerful, fruit-forward wines in the “international” style may show well at tastings, and in fact make it difficult to appreciate wines in more subtle, restrained styles. No matter how experienced a taster you are, there is always the possibility that the sheer deliciousness of a wine taken in isolation will give a misleading impression of how it will taste with food. So I like to perform a reality check: after seeing how a wine performs at a tasting, to have a bottle for dinner and see how much my impression changes. I should declare my perspective, which is that I’m with Emile Peynaud, who once famously said, “If I want to drink fruit juice, I’ll drink orange juice.” For me, wine should have at least savory intimations; it should not be an alcoholic version of grape juice.

In connection with my book on Cabernet Sauvignon, I have been investigating all styles of the variety, and during a visit to Napa last month tasted a range from the more restrained to the most opulent. In the course of the last week, I repeated this exercise on a more restricted basis with wines at dinner. The dinner wines were all from the 2005 vintage, which was relatively lush, so perhaps it should not be a surprise that all the wines seemed more fruit-driven and more overtly aromatic, than the impression that had been gained of each house during vertical tastings in Napa.

My first impression was that none of these wines is ready to drink with dinner. None of them would seem unready at a tasting in the sense that the fruits come through clearly, and are not obscured by the weight of tannins; indeed, I think these wines all come into the category of seeming delicious at a tasting. The big question is what will happen with time? All have a strong sense of a powerful underlying structure, but this is hidden by the intensity of the fruit concentration. That of course is what makes them approachable now. As the fruits (and tannins) lighten, I expect they will come into a balance that is more suitable to accompany food; the aromatics will become less intense, and the fruits will begin to turn towards savory rather than jammy. That will take at least another five years.

All the wines have high alcohol (over 14%), but this was not the main determinant of their suitability to accompany food. The wine with the highest alcohol (14.8%) was Araujo’s Eisele Vineyard, which seemed the best accompaniment to food. The wine with the lowest alcohol (14%), Shafer’s Hillside Select, seemed the least suitable. The main criterion for me was either the intense aromatics or the very high level of extraction. In the case of the Spottswoode, the aromatics seemed too intense against food, and the Shafer Hillside Select was simply so powerful that I tired of it before we could finish the bottle. I’m sure that in every case the high alcohol was a factor, in that it enhanced the sense of aromatics or extraction, but it was not the sole determining factor.

Of course it’s unfair to put these wines down because they are not ready to drink now. You would not necessarily expect Bordeaux to be ready to drink after six years; indeed, I have not started to drink any Bordeaux of the 2005 vintage. I would normally expect to start on the vintage after about a decade. It’s curious that the point at which the wines become ready to drink (as opposed to tasting) may be similar for both Bordeaux and Napa, but for very different reasons. Typically the tannins need to resolve to allow the fruits to show in Bordeaux, while it seems to me that the fruits need to lighten (especially to become less aromatic) in Napa. It’s premature to make a judgment now: just as you would no more have criticized a great Bordeaux vintage in the past for having too much tannin to drink when young, so it may be unfair to put down a great Napa vintage because it has too much fruit when young. (Some people feel that wines with too much extract and fruit will never age gracefully, but I am prepared to reserve judgment for the moment.) So for my money, a fair test to compare Bordeaux and Napa of the 2005 vintage would be to wait another five years or so.

Tasting Notes in order of suitability to accompany a meal

Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, Eisele, Araujo Vineyard, 2005 (14.8%)

The nose gives a suggestion of balanced restraint, with a mix of red and black fruits and a touch of coconut and vanillin showing, turning to coffee in the glass. The palate shows the coconut and vanillin more distinctly than the nose, with the overt black fruits cut by a faintly austere herbal note of anise. This gives a fine-grained textured impression to the palate, with coconut and vanillin overtones coming back on the finish. This is still too young, but the herbal touch that takes the edge off the exuberance of the fruits promises that this will become a finely balanced wine in a more savory spectrum over the next decade. 91 Drink-2021.

Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, Spottswoode, 2005 (14.1%)

The initial impression is that this has a European nose but an American palate. There’s a hint of development in a faint touch of barnyard on the nose as it opens, than later this clears to show aromatic black fruits, before returning again. The palate is distinctly Napa, with bursting fruits overlaid by notes of vanillin and coconut. Some intense blackcurrant aromatics stop just short of cassis and make a forceful impression on the palate and finish. This vintage seems less restrained than others from Spottswoode. The underlying tannins take a while to show directly, but finally appear in the form of some bitterness on the finish. It’s not so much the power as the force of the aromatics that make the wine too forceful to accompany food; perhaps another couple of years will make a difference. 89 Drink 2013-2019.

Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon, Hillside Select, Shafer, 2005 (14.0%)

The first impression is very Californian, in the form of strong notes of coconut and vanillin on the nose, turning to coffee and chocolate, but then accompanying savory notes, with a faint tinge of barnyard, suggest there may be some development. The palate, however, reflects more the initial impression than the follow up, with a rather aromatic impression of black fruits, blackcurrants with overtones of cassis, and then those notes of coconut and vanillin coming back on the finish. It’s intense and chewy on the finish, colored by those strong aromatics. No one could quarrel with the quality and intensity, but sometimes I think this style is more food in itself than wine to accompany food. The label claims that the Hillside Select is typical of the Stags Leap District, but I think it is more typical of itself. The big question in my mind is how long it will take for those aromatics to come into a calmer balance, and whether that will be paralleled by an extension of those faint suggestions of development to the palate. My guess is at least a decade before the wine will cease to be so assertive that it overpowers any accompaniment. 90 Drink-2021.