Nothing says the weekend is here quite like a Friday afternoon wine romp!
Weingut Günther Steinmetz, Mosel, Kestener Paulinshofberg, Riesling, 2013
I drank the same wine about a month ago and it was the first wine made by Stefan Steimetz that left me a little underwhelmed. Thankfully, this is much better. It's clear, pure, livelier than my bottle, showing a warm personality full of apples and peaches. I have found over the course of the last year that I prefer Steinmetz' gentle versions of Mosel dry Riesling to outright Grosse Gewachs. What I get from Stefan's work is the sense that he never feels the wines need to impress you with overwhelming structure or pizzazz. The dry wines feel a little sweet without actually being sweet, so I feel like my palate and the wine are collaborating, rather than my palate being worked over. And they're almost always great value.
Domaine Armand Rousseau, Gevrey-Chambertin, 2019
The real estate that the Rousseau family owns in Gevrey makes them outright millionaires. Their wines are well worthy of the reputation their patriarch, Charles Rousseau, helped establish for the village and its crus. This village wine, for example, has the depth and balance of a Premier Cru, at least. It's floral, deep and broad. And young! We caught it at the point where development in glass brings out fruit and ripeness, but now matter how fruity it became, the balance stayed pure and definition sharp.
Domaine Ninot, Rully Premier Cru, Marissou, 2018
When I wrote that the Rousseau has the balance of a Premier Cru, I didn't mean a Premier Cru from Rully. Comparing crus from Cote de Nuits and Côte Chalonnaise is really a matter of comparing apples and oranges. This is not a deep wine. It's earthy, a little woody, still, and the oriental spices on the nose are a little too forward and obvious. What it does get by on is pure, rustic charm.
Domaine Alain Chavy, Puligny-Montrachet Premier Cru, Folatieres, 2015
It's rare that a vintage is great for both red and white Burgundies. For example, the warmth of a vintage like 2015 might be too much for whites. This wine seems to have escaped the trap of warmness to the extent that it is not only tasty, but taut, salty, driven by firm, though not overwhelming, acidity. This half bottle was at its peak and to be quite honest, I didn't get a full sense of how great it was. There's only so much I can read in a wine in the tail end of a short afternoon get together. But, it's really good. It's the kind of wine you want, need, to stack up in your cellar. It's a textbook example of why the Cote de Beaune became the role model of Chardonnays all over the world: the spicy yellow apples; the notes of dry grass and flint that balance the fruitiness; the lithe form that restrains the ripeness and fullness of the fruit.
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