For all of the codification of Burgundy – all of the vineyard rankings and classifications – there’s still the catch-all ‘Bourgogne’ category, which, truth be told, is a bit of a crap shoot.
The wine may be Pinot Noir, and it may be from Bourgogne, but it’s often pretty uninspiring, and often rather pricey to boot. On the flipside, there’s transcendent stuff labeled with the humble ‘Bourgogne’ moniker that has no business being thrown in with such motley company. And guess what: This wine is the latter. It’s another example of an over-performer: a wine grown just outside the line that separates the pricier real estate from the less-so but doesn’t taste like it.
Long story short: this is baby Nuits-St-Georges you don’t want to judge right after pulling the cork. Right out of the gate it has nice concentration for its classification, but on first sip it’s taut and a little reticent. Give it a few minutes of aeration, however, and you’re in another dimension – a darker, spicier melding of pomegranate and dried plum, herbs, dried herbs, flowers, and some sylvan notes of moss and wet stones. It was an almost cartoon-ish transformation from thin to muscular, from lean to broad, with a pleasingly ‘Burgundian’ rusticity that makes me crave something earthy and braised, like a classic Boeuf Bourguignon. While I’ll happily drink this right now at about 60 degrees in big balloon stems, I would also consider aging this wine for a short term (say 2-5 years), which isn’t something I’d usually say about a seemingly simple ‘Bourgogne.’ But that’s what I love about wine: Things aren’t always as they seem.