A BUYING TRIP TO BURGUNDY AND THE LOIRE

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Monday morning -
Domame Alain Voegeli, Gevrey-Chambertin.

Today is an ambitious day. I have arranged seven appointments, including a visit to the Gachots, where we will be given lunch. I have only allotted M. Voegeli half an hour, because he only makes one wine and is usually fairly brisk.

Would we like to taste his 2002? We go down into his cellar full of barrels. We taste the 2002, which has really nice fruit and reminds me of his 1999. We taste from various different barrels, one new and several older ones. He opens a bottle of his 2001, which we taste (I have already bought and shipped this) and he tells us that his wines last well - he doesn't keep older vintages himself, but a friend and customer recently opened a fifteen year old bottle of his wine for him and it was excellent.

By the time we get to the next appointment we're already running quarter of an hour late.

Domaine Bernard Amiot, Chambolle-Musigny.

M. Amiot has retired and sold his vines. But he still has wine to sell. Again, tastings chez Amiot are usually fairly brisk affairs, so I have only allotted him half an hour. A mistake.

We taste 98, 99 and 2000. The star is a village Chambolle-Musigny 1999, but from a specific vineyard "Aux Echeseaux". This has a very open nose and the taste just makes you go "mmmm".

I reserve some of this wine, for shipping sometime in the future.

By the end of the tasting we are running over half an hour late.

Domaine Philippe Gavignet, Nuits Saint Georges.

I was a little bit apprehensive about this visit, because for various reasons I hadn't ordered from him after my visit last year, so I thought I might not be very popular. I apologised to him and explained why. He seemed entirely unworried. I had remembered from my tasting last year his village Nuits Saint Georges 2000, which particularly impressed me, and I assumed that he would have none left. I was in luck - he still had stock of it! Previous vintages of this wine had failed to impress me, and I haven't bought it before.

Off we go tasting. We are treated to a very full tasting, both in barrel and bottle - so we sample his 2002s! He's thrilled to bits with them. Quite right too.

I arrange to collect some cases of his Nuits Saint Georges 2000 in a couple of days' time.

Domaine Gachot-Monot, Corgoloia.

We arrive at the Gachots nearly an hour late. They are building a new chai, where they can both make the wine and store it. Originally they had hoped to start building a year or two ago, but there had been some sort of hitch. Now it's under way and half built. It's planned to be ready for this year's vintage.

First we taste the 2001s in barrel. They are not bottled yet. Interestingly, many growers are bottling their 2001s later than usual. There is some tannin apparent in this vintage, and I have a theory that the wines are being left in barrel a little longer to allow them to soften and round out. It should be said that the 2001 wines here are fine - a nice vintage. I suspect it may turn out to be a better vintage for reds in the Cote de Nuits than the C6te de Beaune - M. Voegeli's Gevrey-Chambertin 2001, for instance, is excellent.

We taste through his 2002s. His Cote de Nuits Villages "Les ChaiBots" has a natural alcohol level of 13%.

This is a feature of the vintage throughout Burgundy: very high levels of alcohol and exceptional ripeness. The only people not happy in Burgundy are the sugar merchants because there has been very little chaptalisation. Another feature of the vintage is that despite the high alcohol levels the wines have extraordinary balance. My feeling is that many of them will be good for drinking throughout their lives, both young and old. The summer was dull - Cloudy, but dry. The ripening was going very slowly until September, when the sun came out and shone uninterruptedly for several weeks, ripening the grapes and producing sugar levels that even old hands in Burgundy have never seen. Happily, because of the dull summer, the wines have good levels of acidity, thus giving them balance, despite the exceptional ripeness. All very exciting.

Damien Gachot's 2002s are full of promise. Tasting here is always the high point of my annual visit.

Then lunch. We are joined by Alain, who works at the domaine. Without wishing to be disparaging, he appears to be a bit simple. He is sweet and gentle and unshaven. We drink as an aperitif a brew that Damien has been experimenting with: he calls it his Martini. It is a concoction based on his Bourgogne Passetoutgrain mixed with Marc de Bourgogne and various spices. A friend of his in the village, another grower, makes his own version and gave Damien the recipe because he liked it so much. He thinks his efforts are nowhere near as good as his neighbour's, and he can't understand why not since he has absolutely followed the recipe to the letter. Actually, I think it tastes great.

With the meal we drink a white Côte de Nuits Villages 1998 and a red. his Nuits Saint

Georges "Aux Crots" 1998, which is wonderful.

After that excellent lunch, slippage has happened time-wise.