Fourrier, 2008
3/14/11 -
Our esteemed colleague John Beaver Truax has been in Burgundy for the last two weeks – working hard, I assure you. With perfect timing he has just sent the following report of his visit to Fourrier, dated Friday, March 11th:
“I have had the great opportunity taste in Burgundy again and I have been tasting the 2009 vintage, some 2010's and revisiting the 2008 vintage. I have tasted at many Domaines, and today was with the very talented Gevrey Chambertin vigneron, Jeaton-Marie Fourrier.
If I can generalize about the 2008-2009 vintages, I have to say that I am reminded of 2001-2002. Everyone thought that they were supposed to buy the 2002, a very ripe, very forward and precocious vintage, low in acid and full of "babyfat". Ten years later, collectors who cellar wine are glad they bought the 2001's, a vintage that is sculpted and cut with real definition of terroir differences between the vineyards & villages. If you read John Gilman's great tasting notes in his latest newsletter, he talks at great length about how the fantastic Chambolle Musigny vigneron Frederic Mugnier tasted Gilman on the 2009's first. Then he brought out his 2008's and said something along the lines of – ‘Now let’s take a look at MY kind of vintage - one that shows off the terroir differences between the appellations’. And that's what 2008 is - a vintage that has real "typicite" - real delineation of terroir. Buy 2009 Beaujolais - buy a lot; and buy lots of 2008 Burgundy and put them both in your cellar. Do not wait for 2009 Red Burgundies, buy the 2008's now. When you do get your 2009's be careful to buy the wines that were not picked late and are overripe; the trick was to pick early to maintain acidity.
2008 was a very small vintage, but not a "low-yield vintage". Thirty to forty percent of the grapes were discarded between picking and pressing using the "table de trie", i.e. the sorting table. Were this the bad-old days of the 1970's, the 2008 vintage would have been a washout, a disaster. But we are now in the 21st Century and a new breed of vigneron can rescue a vintage that an earlier generation would have struggled with.
A member of Team Fourrier was raking dead leaves out of the hedges lining the courtyard of the neat-as-a-pin Domaine. There are many signs of recent construction, so new that the unpainted wood with shiny nailheads were glinting in the bright spring Gevrey sunlight; birds were singing, the crocus were blooming and it seemed the vines behind the new cuverie are ready to explode with new growth after a tough, cold winter. Another member of the team was wax-sealing the corks with thick red wax instead of the foil capsules that most people use. Jean-Marie just bought a new/used (10 year old) piece of equipment from Champagne, a neck-freezing apparatus used for disgorgement, which they have adapted to chill the freshly sealed necks to 5 degrees centigrade instead of freezing them for disgorgement. He used to have to wait 20 minutes for the wax to dry before stacking them. This is a traditional yet innovative Domaine; Jean-Marie is very pleased with his new toy.
We went into the new cuverie, built in 2007, lined with 20 or so new stainless tanks, spotless tile floors, very slick and shiny. His delightful lamb-like fuzzy white dog Suzannah wanted to play fetch with a tennis ball, and she had to be sent to play somewhere else as she was too distracting. Suzannah is an Italian truffle dog, but does not hunt truffles in Burgundy because truffle season is hunting season and dogs get shot by mistake. French hunting joke - " Q: What's the difference between a dog and a fox? A: 3 beers."
We tasted three wines from 2008:
Gevrey Chambertin VV - from the North side of Gevrey, and full of red fruits -raspberries especially; very pretty, very forward; it jumps out of the glass. "A wine to enjoy with food!" exclaimed Jean Marie.
A pale rose color, but this is not Syrah, it is Pinot Noir! Very tangy and spicy, a lively tension and brightness and sparkling vivacity. A wine that makes you salivate, literally makes your mouth water, a wine for food in that it makes you want to eat, not that you need food to drink it - no - this wine makes you hungry, it stimulates the appetite. There is a French word, salinité, but that does not mean saltiness or salinity. This is GREAT Burgundy wine that illustrates how fantastic the 2008 vintage is. Avoid this at your own peril.
Clos St Jacques: the Grand Cru that is not a Grand Cru because it does not touch Chambertin or Clos de Beze. Perhaps greater than some vineyards that are rated Grand Cru; certainly one of the finest 1er Cru vineyards in all of Burgundy. There are five owners of the Clos St Jacques - Fourrier, Jadot, Rousseau, Sylvie Esmonin & Bruno Clair. All five producers make excellent Clos Saint Jacques and all take great pride of ownership in one of the Cote's most prestigious vineyards. All have parcels that run from the top to the bottom of the vineyard. One row of vines runs 400 meters down the slope and one row of vines is approximately equivalent to one ouvree, and yields about one barrel. When Jean Marie's grandfather purchased his rows of CSJ from the Comte de Moucheron in 1956 the price for a row (one ouvree) was a barrel of Clos St Jacques. So the very lucky purchasers of CSJ farmed their parcel for one year, gave the Comtes de Moucheron his barrel, and the vineyard was paid for!
The 2008 Clos St Jacques is plush and full and rich in the aromas of Pain d'epices and perhaps chinese five spice, and a lovely floral character and some of the salinité referred to above.
Griotte Chambertin: Jean Marie says that Griotte Chambertin is the Musigny of Gevrey Chambertin, and I think he is absolutely correct. It is not as powerful or massive or weighty as Chambertin or Chambertin Clos de Beze, but it has a perfume and intensity that puts it into a very different and ethereal sphere; different, but not necessarily better than its regal brethren. Lots and lots of purity and finesse and minerality is the hallmark of great Griottes.
The 2008 has a perfume with an ethereal mineral character that is quite different from the oyster shell, chalky, limestony minerality that I associate with Chambertin and Clos de Beze; rather it is like Jean Marie says: a scented wine reminiscent of Musigny. Jean Marie would like to make Musigny - or perhaps Ruchottes. But not Clos Vougeot…
