Christie's Hospices de Beaune Masterclass

Christie's Hospices de Beaune Masterclass
26 October 2010

The Domaine des Hospices de Beaune is a charitable organisation which has had many vineyards donated to it. Every year they have a charitable wine auction where the wine is auctioned off in barrel. That is, each lot is an entire barrel of wine. So the purchase price of the barrel is difficult to translate into a per-bottle price since, once the barrel is purchased, there are still significant transaction costs before bottling. For example, you still need to pay someone to look after the barrel for you until the wine is ready to bottle. Then it needs to be bottled and shipped. Still, you then get to give the wine its own cuvee name which would be pretty cool. So well worth considering for anyone who has storage space and drinking capacity for a few hundred bottles of the same wine.

For the last few years the auction has been run by Christie's. This tasting of wines from previous Hospices auctions was organised by Christie's as a prelude to the 2010 hospices be beaune auction. Total bargain too considering the quality of the wine.

Tasting notes
1. Pouilly-Fuisse, Cuvee Francoise Poisard 2006
Medium-pale gold colour. Medium intensity aromas of sweet ripe apple and melon and some smoky notes. Good intensity on the palate. Lots of spicy oak, great length. For an entry level wine this bodes well for the rest of the tasting! Drink now, but will age fine for a few years.
PS When you go back to it after tasting the other whites it suffers from the comparison.

2. Meursault-Charmes 1er Cru. Cuvee de Bahezre de Lanlay 2005
Deeper gold than the previous wine and appears more "weighty" in the glass. Lots of fruit on the nose. Showing a very little of development character with some cooked apple and dried apricot coming through. Some nutty aromas too. Less intense initial hit on the palate that wine 1 but much crisper acid. More taut and lean and a little bit of oak tannin too. Strong finish, will be better in the future.
At the moment the first wine is actually more pleasant to drink but this wine is clearly of higher quality.

3. Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru, Cuvee Francois de Salins 2007
Very young. Noticeable oak on both the palate and nose which has not had time to integrate. Quite intense citrus on the palate. Very long finish is basically just pure fruit at the moment. Having said that, once the wine opens up in the glass there is more secondary character.
The wine is far too young, but will be excellent at some point.

4. Batard-Montrachet Grand Cru, Cuvee Dames de Flandres 2007
Rounder, richer and more inviting nose than number 3 and more integrated oak. Still very young and very acidic with great length. This wine has serious power and still tastes great even when gone back to it after the reds. Total infanticide drinking it now.

5. Savigny-les-beaune 1er cru, Cuvee Arthur Girard, 2008
Too green. I didn't like this one at all.

6. Beaune 1er cru, Cuvee Dames Hospitalieres 2006
Ripe, warm and inviting nose with only a hint of vegetal character coming through. Silky and elegant on the palate... until the finish where there is plenty of grippy tannin. Lots of acid to balance. I liked this a lot - it even tasted good when I went back to it at the end after the big boys.

7. Beaune 1er cru, Cuvee Guigone de Salins 2005
Smooth, silky and spicy. Great length. Still too young but not bad to drink now.

8. Volnay 1er cru, Cuvee Blondeau 2005
Quite similar to number 7 but not quite as well balanced. Initially it was showing better but once they had both had time to open up in the glass then number 7 was the better wine.

9. Pommard-Epenot 1er cru, Cuvee Dom Goblet 2007
Very pale red wine. Elegant and restrained nose. Silky and smooth on the palate. The tannin is there when you search for it but otherwise would go unnoticed. Eminently drinkable now but probably won't last much longer. However, it is definitely the most enjoyable red wine so far in terms of drinkability now. Yum.

10. Corton Grand Cru, Cuvee Charlotte Dumay 2003
Deep colour - almost ribena-like levels of concentration. Definite barnyard on the nose - like being kicked in the face by a horse! Some tobacco on the nose and lots of spice and leather. Noticeable oak, toasterd cherries and tarte tatin. Quite a complex nose.
A structured, powerful and agressive wine... particularly for a Pinot. Plenty of tannin. It's a little over the top for a burgundy, but very good. Could not be much more of a contrast to number 9.

11. Clos de la Roche Grand Cru, Cuvee Georges Kritter 2005
Complex nose: spicy red/black fruit, meaty and vegetal. This wine is very good - it has the right balance between power and elegance. High acid and tannin. Excellent but very young.

12. Mazis-Chambertin Grand Cru, Cuvee Madeleine Collignon 2006
Quite elegant. Mostly young red fruit character. Not showing much in the way of development yet. Fresh and young-tasting on the palate too. Got a good life ahead of it.