2010 White Burgundy – One to watch!

None of us can quite believe that we’re finally getting to the end of the Saint Veran 2008 party by Julien Collovray. When we tasted his wines back in July of last year we had a moment of madness and bought everything he had left in his cellar but we haven’t had much time to regret it. In fact, everyone bar our accountant is sad to be seeing it go.

 

Based down in the heart of the Mâconnais, Julien is one of our most dedicated and most fun producers.  His wines might not be desperately cheap but they’re of a quality that you’d be hard pressed to find from the Cote d’Or among the villages of Meursault and Chassagne.  His 2008’s particularly show the poise and presence of wines so far above the expectation of their appellation, delivering freshness, power, ripeness and minerality all in perfect harmony.  So yes, Julien is certainly a terrific winegrower but this is not all about trying to flog the small amount of his wonderful wine that we’ve got left, it’s actually about well made white burgundy and how different it tastes from 2008, ’09 and ’10.

 

For a wine to get the thumbs up from us, it has to have balance.  Many of the ’09 whites we tasted and still are tasting, particularly from the Maconnais, Cote Challonaise and further south are often just that bit too rich. They’ve got stacks of butter and creaminess but the’ve not got that backbone of acidity to make us want to finish the bottle and that they’ll definitely need to mature. Of course we’ve tasted some magnificent ‘09’s too, particularly from the Cote d’Or and further north in Chablis, where they’re often on their knees praying for sun from about May to September time, but it’s produced powerful and intense wines that required a bit of ‘know how’, love and attention from the wine growers.

Our tasting on Thursday kicked off with Julien’s Bourgogne Chardonnay 2010.  Selected from parcels of fruit grown in and around Pouilly and bottled just two weeks ago, this showed immediately the nature of the vintage.  Fresh, fruity and ripe, this is charming white burgundy that will evolve over the coming few months to become slightly richer, giving more emphasis to those creamy, buttery notes that are the hallmarks of Julien’s powerful wines. None of the other wines have been bottled yet so these were tank samples but the Macon that we tried, then the various plots from both Saint Veran and Pouilly Fuisse, delivered more concentration and more complexity as we tasted up the scale. All of these wines had great freshness and no small amount of power meaning that they’ll be delicious young but they’ll also develop in the cellar for two to perhaps five years to come.  Going back to the ’08 Saint Veran and Pouilly Fuisse made us think that these wines have the promise to outshine both the ‘08’s and the ‘09’s – they’re definitely going to be special.

So…watch out for the 2010 white Burgundies when they hit wine lists later in the year.  The minor appellations from the good producers should be charming this winter and the more grown up appellations will be great next.  We’re certainly keeping a penny or two in the pot to ensure we’ve got some in our cellar.

View our selection of Julien’s wines >