- A lot of people will buy it so it has to drink well when they get it and when they open it.
- It should be from a good to great vintage for that wine
- It's best that it's affordable so that everyone can buy it and exhibits a profound quality to price ratio.
The 2012 Xavier Durand Cotes de Nuits Villages Cuvee VI for $24.99 (a bottle on a 4-pack) hits all four buttons and it hits them hard. Moreover, it's so good, I'm coining a new category, JFD - Just Freaking Delicious. When you drink your first sip, you almost shake your head it's so good.
It's a no brainer as an old boss used to say.
- It's drinking like a dream now. No noticeable wood and perfectly balanced.
- It has Fass acidity and freshness but it's super harmonious and integrated so you can drink it today.
- It's from the awesome 2012 vintage. I cannot overstate how great 2012 Red Burgundy is. It is ample, dense and packed with sweet fruit and ripe, velvety tannins. They are something to behold. And they will keep and keep. It truly is the best vintage for me since '99.
- it's affordable and an absolute steal for a Burgundy of this quality at $24.99.
The nose has the perfect blend of fruit and dirt. Very concentrated, packed and intense. Explosive actually. The texture and purity are top class and lifted to even greater heights by the vintage.
Xavier's parcel is only 100 meters from the famed Nuits St. Georges vineyard Clos de Marechale. And Xavier, whose estate is in the sleepy hamlet of Comblanchien, which despite being in the Côte de Nuits, not many have heard of as it only has Côte de Nuits Villages appellations. It's hard to find. Take it from me. But I always get there despite my best attempts not to.
Many of my Burgundies are in a particular style that is acid/terroir driven and they typically need hours/days open or years in the cellar to really show themselves. The wait is worth it. But sometimes I don't like waiting. Sometimes I want to open a young Burgundy that is full of fruit and a dash of earth that I can drink after a 10-15 minute aeration. I also want it to have all the things that my other Burgundies have but without having to wait forever. That is why I absolutely adore the wines of Xavier Durand. I feel with Xavier Durand, his wines will be as popular as Murat one of these days, who is the most popular producer in all of Fass Selections.
I am chomping at the bit to get these and sink my teeth into them as they are, to hijack a John Livingston Learmouth term, "WOW" wines. Not wow as in wow, this is completely mind blowing but wow as in this is "what one wants." They are full of incredible and dense fruit, bordering on the darker cherry side. It is dazzlingly pure and sweet fruit and all framed by Xavier's meticulous and judicious use of new oak. He is the master of new oak of all my producers. You don't know it is here. After every wine when I tasted with him back in March, he would tell me the new oak % and I would gasp as I never even expected these wines to have new oak, but they do and sometimes 25% but you cannot tell. He gets amazing material for the oak to suck up. You cannot tell it is there. Like a great chef with salt, where salt is needed in every dish, you don't know it is there and when there is too much it ruins the dish/wine. I point this out because for Xavier being so young and being able to get this amazing quality fruit while being this skilled with oak is just phenomenal. Also he has about some of the fairest prices in all of Fass Selections. I just tried his 2012 Nuits-Saint-Georges at a tasting in DC and it blew everyone away.
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