With this offer we welcome back SommSelect Editorial Director David Lynch, with his take on this earthy and warming red Burgundy from house favorite Terres de Velle:
We know it may come off as presumptuous when we say something like, “Try a bottle now, then lose a few more in a dark corner of your cellar.” This assumes (a) that you have a wine cellar; and (b) that you have enough disposable income to purchase wine this way. Let’s just say we’re being “aspirational”—I have neither a huge cellar nor much disposable income, so I can’t always take my own advice. But today I can, and I will. This 2013 Auxey-Duresses, thanks in part to Ian’s relationship with its importer and in part to its being from an “outer-borough” appellation, is my kind of collectible. It’s the kind of wine I craved as a restaurant wine buyer (namely, one that delivers real value for dollar) and it’s the kind of wine someone like me might lay down for a few years. I don’t know how many like-minded folks there are out there, but when Ian and I tasted this spicy, slightly rustic red Burgundy, I got to thinking about what I aspire to as a wine collector. Much as I want to have a cellar full of pricy, rare trophies, wines like this work, too—especially given the price we got. It should be $40, but we’re able to offer it at $29. It’s too tasty and expressive not to have one (or two) now, but I’ll be saving some for later, too. I urge you to do the same.
A few more words on wine collecting: I don’t begrudge anyone their spreadsheets, their rare jewels on display, or their desire to see their collection appreciate in value. All I can say to those folks is (a) good for you; (b) what time can I come over? My aspirations as a collector are slightly different. I’m looking to build a cellar more of the type I imagine Julia Child, or maybe Richard Olney, having—one I duck down into sometime between dinner prep and the guests arriving, perusing the shelves for something interesting, occasion-appropriate, with some bottle age. Something that doesn’t come with any huge expectations other than that it be delicious. Doesn’t that sound all country-French and nice? (I’ll work some trophies in there, too, I hope!)
Consider also that the vast majority of the wine made in the world is consumed within one year of its release. When I think of all the acts of infanticide I committed in my many years as a sommelier, I shudder. This Auxey-Duresses is exactly the kind of tasty, affordable, accessible wine that typically doesn’t live to see its fifth birthday. That’s too bad, because I think it’ll be terrific in 2020.
Established SommSelect subscribers are by now well-acquainted with Terres de Velle, a winery that has become something of a pet producer for us. After a decade as winemaker for the négociant Alex Gambal, Fabrice Laronze and his wife, Sophie, founded Terres de Velle in 2009. They acquired an assortment of well-placed, but not well cared-for, vineyards—about six hectares across 11 appellations—and set about reviving them. This was no small task: these were chemically treated, rarely plowed sites with lots of missing vines, and they spent several years replanting, re-training, and converting to organic farming (with a few biodynamic practices mixed in). They finished their winery building in 2011, transferring wines from tank to barrel using gravity flow and initiating fermentations with only native yeasts. Everything we’ve tasted from them recently, white or red, has been spot-on.
Auxey-Duresses, one of the Côte de Beaune’s lesser-known villages, is where the Terres de Velle winery is located. Geologically, Auxey is an extension of Meursault and Monthélie, with pebbly marl and limestone soils. Terres de Velle sources this wine from a vineyard called “Les Closeaux,” which is at the southern end of the village and actually faces north (as opposed to the more typical southeast exposure that characterizes a majority of Burgundy’s two ‘Côtes’). The wine certainly displays the nerve and structure of a cooler site, and yet there’s enough depth to the fruit to spark one’s imagination as to what it will become.
In the glass, this 2013 is a deep garnet red moving to crimson on the rim, and to quote Burg-o-phile Ian, the nose suggests a “cross between a Pommard and Volnay.” The aromatics suggest both black and red fruits—wild black raspberry, currant, a touch of cranberry and strawberry—and are layered with woodsy notes of damp leaves, forest floor, dried mushrooms, tree bark, warm spice, and crushed stones. Medium-bodied, earthy, and spicy, this wine instantly had us plotting to make a pot of beef bourgignon or something similarly rib-sticking and rustic. It’s the kind of red Burgundy that summons images of thick-fingered
vignerons in berets, smoking Gauloises cigarettes and slicing pieces of saucisson over a wine barrel (even if, in reality, the wine’s makers are an attractive young couple). For the bottle (or two) that I open now, I’m going to make the Frenchified
hamburgers from my sauce-stained copy of Julia Child’s
Mastering the Art of French Cooking. And I’m going to try—really try—to forget about the other bottles I’ve stashed away. Cheers!
— David Lynch
