Clos Guillot comes good

2009 Baudry Clos Guillot

Over the last couple of vintages, I really think that this wine has come into its own. This is undoubtedly the best vintage of this wine that I’ve had and I think shows the potential that so excited Matthieu.  I drank this at Vin Rouge with some hachis parmentier and the combination of a cool autumn evening was superb. The nose was compact but with fresh fruit and herbal notes and only a hint of a floral edge. The palate had excellent concentration of fruit with a very strong stone and mineral component. It really reminded me of the vineyard, which contains lots of limestone in clay. While this was young and intense and concentrated, the balance is impeccable. In past vintages, one or the other component would stick out, but this wine is seamless. As much potential as it has, it was delicious as a young wine (if you like that sort of thing). If there is any of this running around in your market (there is some on the interwebs, including Cave Taureau, shameless self-promotion) you should snap some up. This will be the first vintage that I buy this cuvée in cellar quantity and people say that the 2010 is even better. I can’t wait to try it.

Interesting experiment

Grilled out with friends on a beautiful Spring evening.

2007 George Descombes Brouilly
I’ve been really enjoying the Morgon lately from the same vintage and was curious about how the Brouilly was doing. Doesn’t have the same minerality or focus, but it does have really pretty fruit with herbal and floral notes. Not much on the tannin side, but the acids are present enough to keep freshness in the wine. I tasted from a bottle that showed much better a few days later. Maybe we should have let this get some more air. Regardless, I’d finish these off over the next few years.

Next up, I had saved my last bottle of Franc de Pied from 2007 to have with my friends Noel, a natural wine aficionado. In case you don’t know, a portion of the Clos Guillot vineyards, which is rich in limestone and mostly clay, was planted Franc de Pied by the Baudry’s. Almost all the vines have succumbed to phylloxera by now, with only a couple of rows still alive, but they are probably not long for it either.

2007 Domaine Bernard Baudry Chinon Franc de Pied
It was interesting how different these wines started out. This was bigger and darker in terms of fruit and with deeper notes of leather. The contrast between the wines only grew with about an hour of air. The Franc de Pied became more diffuse and started to unravel, while the Clos Guillot became more complex as it stretched along its structural frame. The Franc de Pied are really not wines for aging, they are to be enjoyed in their exuberant joyful youth, as the Baudry’s intend.

2007 Domaine Bernard Baudry Chinon Le Clos Guillot
Much tighter on opening and dominated by an intense limestone quality. This reminded me of putting down lines for a football pitch in the early morning. This cuvee has been a bit of a mystery to me, seeming over the top in 2005 and odd in the context of the 2006 Baudry stable, I think that this vintage bears the idea that Matthieu is circling around what he wants from this site and starting to define it. There are also notes of fruit and herbs and meadows but they are all wrapped in that tangy package. The tannins are firm without being brutish or drying, the acidity strong, but not mouth-puckering. I haven’t bought Clos Guillot for the cellar in the past. Well, the past is the past as they say. This is worth trying now, although it should be better in a couple of years.