On Monday at SFWC Mary Burnham was using the space to taste a bunch of wines that she is reviewing for Food & Wine Magazine's 2012 wine buying guide. She had tons of samples open, so she said I could taste them. After I finished work I went through the lineup. Mary was evaluating 2009 white Chablis and Burgundy with a few red Burgs at the end. There were so many to like! I tasted through the whites multiple times, trying to find my favorites.
2009 was a warm vintage in Chablis, a sub-appellation of Burgundy, so these wines are less austere and minerally than usual, but what it means is they are very ready to drink now. I liked the offerings from Domaine Billaud-Simon and Domaine Christian Moreau:
These 2 Burgundy's were awesome. It was the Latour family who transformed the now-famed Corton Charlemagne vineyard from dead Aligote and Pinot Noir vines after prohibition to the coveted Chardonnay that grows there today. The one on the right is a tank sample of Domaine Jacques Prieur. My guess is the wine hadn't been filtered and bottled in time to submit the sample, so they grabbed a tank sample for submission, and therefore it was cloudy. But how delicious it was! Creamy but tart at the same time, lots of layers and complexity.
The few reds sampled were also really awesome expressions of Burgundy. I hadn't had red Burgundy in a while, and after tasting California Pinot Noir for the last few weeks I had forgotten how much I love Burgundy. My palate remembers now, but my wallet does not.
The travesty of a wine reviewer - too many samples!
So I got to take some home :)
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