Bonjour à nouveau tout le monde! Hello, again, everybody and welcome back to Cépage et Cuisine, Mary’s and Brian’s wine and food blog. Here are a few experiences from May 9 in Burgundy.
After a morning trip to the marché in Nuits-St-Georges for Mary’s abricot pastry, we set out to Morey-Saint-Denis in the Côte de Nuits, the northern half of the Côte d’Or of Burgundy.
Among other famous vineyards, Morey is home to Clos de Tart and Bonnes Mares, both of which are Grand Cru vineyards. For Pinot Noir and Burgundy enthusiasts like us, this is hallowed ground.
Morey is also home to Domaine Dujac, a prestigious Burgundy producer. I was ecstatic to get an appointment for a tour and tasting. The domaine was purchased by Jacques Seysses only about 50 years ago, a blink of the eye in Burgundy time. Much of the day-to-day is now handled by Jacques’ son, Jeremy and Jeremy’s wife, Diana, an American who is herself a member of a Napa Valley wine family. In the photo below you see Diana leading the tour. This is a very busy time in the vineyards of Burgundy and we greatly appreciate vignerons and their families taking the time to show us around. An interesting note about Domaine Dujac is that the grapes are fermented in whole clusters, which means the whole berries and the stems are included in the fermentation before pressing off the fermented juice to barrels.
Later in the day we visited the cellar of Domaine Chandon Briailles in the village of Savigny-lès-Beaune. The estate is very old and the domaine has been in the family of the Count and Countess Aymard-Claude de Nicolay since 1834. It is now managed by Jean-Claude Bouveret and her brother, François de Nicolay, the fifth generation of the family to run the domaine.
Madame Bouveret was gracious enough to take us to the cellar and allow us to taste through their 2009s as well as one slightly older vintage. The wines were delicious, balanced, elegant, approachable now but will be so much better in a few years. The cellar is amazing. It was hand dug from solid limestone by the Cistercian monks over 900 years ago. The symmetry and detail, the generations it took to create, the engineering perfection…hard to comprehend for Americans whose country is so relatively young.
Then it was off to dinner at Les Chavaliers, a restaurant in the heart of Beaune. We visited there last year and had a memorable dinner of roast duck, so we wanted to go again. Once again, it was a delightful dinner outdoors on the plaza. We both had the duck in a fig and cassis reduction, pommes de terre dauphinoise (scalloped potatoes) and a plat du fromage, or cheese course.
We selected a village level wine by Maison Louis Jadot. It was delicious, not as complex as the Pommard we had a few days ago at La Ciboulette, but paired beautifully with the dish. Here are my notes on the wine.
Maison Louis Jadot Côte de Beaune-Villages 2006. This was a very nice wine, not highly complex, but delicious with a dinner of duck breast and the accompaniments. Still fairly young, the aroma profile was mostly of bright fruit and a little earthy, mineral note. The palate was smooth, medium-bodied, with nice, medium acidity for good balance. The flavor profile was mostly red cherry and berry with a bit of spice on the finish. Nicely balanced, moderately complex, medium length, solid but not excellent. 13.0% alcohol. The restaurant price was €55.
That’s our post for now. We’ve been busy and haven’t posted every day, but I hope to catch up over the next few days, so check back frequently at Cépage et Cuisine. In the meantime,
Cheers !
Mary♥Brian
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