Everyone has personal preferences when it comes to wine, which has no bearing on any sort of quality hierarchy. Your favorite wine does not have to be considered the best wine and vice versa.
Quality in wine can be discerned by some things like length, depth, complexity, structure, etc. But notice one thing quality cannot be quantified in is pure unadulterated joy. I loves wines that are what they are and are not trying to be something else. That is probably why I love Burgundy so much. Many love Burgundy because the highs can be so dizzying and exalted but that is only a part of it for me. I love Burgundy because of all the different expressions. From Marsannay to Gevrey, to Irancy there are so many fascinating and enjoyable expressions out there for all price points. Burgundy can be expensive but it does not have to be. I could put together a cellar of wines that would have me drinking wonderful, pure wines of great pedigree that would last me 20 years and all of it could be done for under $45-$50 a bottle. I know for a fact if I was doing that the below two wines would be a large part of the equation.I love the wines of La Croix Montjoie in Vezelay because first and foremost they are Vezelay and second of all they are trying to be the best possible expression of Vezelay they can be and not something else. The wines are clean, pure, amazingly precise and honest. Many of you have the first batch being shipped in the coming weeks and I am confident when you crack them open, after the 3 week wait of course, you will fall in love with them as much as I did. They are hard not to. They are wines you want to drink and drink.
The 2011 La Croix Montjoie Bourgogne Vezelay "Voluptuese", which can be had for as little as $22.99 on a 4-pack, represents what can be achieved in Vezelay in a great vintage with passionate and detail oriented people at the helm. What is unique about Croix Montjoie is all their white wines and the Cremant come from a hill that looks like a miniature hill of Corton right behind their house; it has very low yields due to poor soil. They did not want to just make one wine so they taste the parcels and differentiate certain plots and bottle as such. This wine is just plain ethereal and shows how great Vezelay can be. God it is so good. It is raised in 25% new barrels and then 75% 5-7 year old barrels. The new barrels are to let oxygen in and that is all. There is no noticeable wood on the wine. Amazing integration here. The vines for this are 30 years old and the oldest in the vineyard. Wonderful structure here and plenty of volume and amplitude in the mouth. So juicy and a real density/presence here. The acid is wonderful. Spikey and delicate. A brilliant expression of Vezelay from the best producer there.
I also have a lovely sparkler from La Croix Montjoie, the NV Cremant de Bourgogne that is a steal at $19.99 a four pack. The grapes are from their estate and then the wine is made at a friend's estate in Rully. Not everyone has sparkling wine equipment around. It is so killer. Crisp, mineral and salty with salinity for days. Lovely apple and pear fruit that is crunchy and an elegant mousse. Something to knock back and at a price that is unheard for really good sparkling wine. I am lucky to have it.
Below is some background information from the previous e-mail.
What do you do if you're a great young winemaker and want to start your own winery but can't find anything affordable in the well known parts of Burgundy? Well, Sophie and Matthieu Woillez decided to bring Vézelay back to its former glory. Would you believe it if I told you that at the end of the 19th century, there were 5,000 hectares of vines around Vézelay, more than in nearby Chablis at that time? Well, phylloxera wiped it all out and today there are only 100 hectares and almost no one has heard of Vézelay. The Woillez's managed to obtain some fantastic terroir and open a winery making wines that are incredibly distinctive and simply stunning. These wines are both from the 2012 vintage, which is incredible and a wonderful introduction to the style of these young winemakers.
Even though it is close to Chablis, the wines are not as similar as you would think. They have minerality, but no where nearly as intense as Chablis. These guys are just smart young winemakers with some really good terroir making really, really good wines that are a unique expression of that terroir and because it's in an unknown area, the price is very low for the quality.
One the things I am trying to achieve with my Burgundy portfolio is to get as many young up and comers in as many interesting appellations as possible. The history of these wines is fascinating and comparing and contrasting say for example Dampt Chablis and Croix Montjoie L'élégante in 2-3 years is a fascinating proposition. Many of these up and comers know the history of these appellations and respect it and are not oaking/extracting these wines and really trying to express why these places had former glory.
Sophie Woillez is just incredibly nice. She is the granddaughter of winemakers in Beaujolais and she and her husband are trained oenologists who worked in Bordeaux and the Rhône before opening their estate. She oozes passion for her wines and rightfully so. Their first vintage was 2009 and they have come a long way since then and are really making a name for an appellation that time forgot after phylloxera. It is principally a white wine appellation with Chardonnay being the grape of choice.
Sophie and her husband's wines are about balance and purity. I had lunch with her in Beaune the other day and she brought her 2012 wines. 2012, which you all know by now, is on the level of 2005, 2010 and 1999. It really reminds me of 1999 but with much less quantity. Man, the wines she and her husband makes are beautiful. So pure, so fresh and so restrained, everything I am looking for in Burgundian outskirts Chardonnay. I kept muttering how precise these wines were along with with sheer amount of volume in the mouth. The purity was just astounding.
What makes their wines unique is their vineyard is one ten hectare parcel on a hill. They make different cuvees by tasting different barrels and tanks after the harvest. Certain plots express certain things and they bottle them accordingly. Certain areas have different soil subsets and yield different wines. It is almost a German way of making wine versus a Burgundian way. Fascinating is what it is.
2011 La Croix Montjoie Bourgogne Vezelay "Volupteuse" - $24.99
($91.96 a 4-pack)
NV La Croix Montjoie Cremant de Bourgogne - $22.99 ($79.96 a 4-pack)
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