Dominique Lafon from Les Héritiers du Comte Lafon - Tuesday 28th April

The Hameau de Barboron was the perfect setting for two Burgundy marathons. 2016 White Burgfest and 2016 Red Burgfest proved to be an unexpectedly comprehensive pair of tastings.

The White tasting held in May, the red at the beginning of this month. A total of 218 white and 259 red samples were mustered, a show of great faith and generosity from growers given the tiny yields of this frost-ravaged vintage. A group of 12 wine merchants and journalists gathered to taste blind over 4 mornings each for the red and white wine marathons.  At white Burgfest there were 38 blind flights, at red Burgfest 43 blind flights, each organised by village and, where possible, vineyard.  The rabble, herded patiently by Jasper Morris, included myself, William Kelley (for the white tasting only) Jason Haynes (Flint), Catherine Petrie (Comte Armand), Matthew Hemming (Vinum), Adam Bruntlett (BBR) Toby Morhall (The Wine Society), Christopher Moestue (Moestue grape selections), Neil Beckett (World of Fine Wine), Luis Gutierrez who made a cameo appearance in the absence of Neal Martin for white Burgfest, and a well recovered Neal Martin himself who returned for the reds this month. A full, collective report of the Burgfest tastings will be published in the World of Fine Wine towards the end of this year. In the meantime find herewith my own personal thoughts: 

Last week Burgundy-specialist merchants and journalists gathered to taste 29 White Burgundies from the 2010 vintage, an experience that was impressive and, dare I say, surprising. The element that was most encouraging being the absence of premoxed wines. 

Almost all were in good condition, except a slightly tired, bruised-fruit Pernot Belicard Puligny that may have just been a bad bottle and a Terre de Velle Puligny that was just about holding on. The regional wines, at the lowest end of the quality pyramid, were tiring a little but nothing more than you would have expected and still showed rather well considering.  Certain wines displayed  more unctuosity alcohol and exotic fruit, recalling the botrytis that affected some of the crop, these were fine and still very much alive now but did not necessarily offer excitement or suggest further ageing potential. 

It went down to minus 8 the evening that the great Christophe Thomas arrived in Aberdeen to talk through the wonderful wines of J.Drouhin over dinner. 40 of us sat down to taste eight Drouhin wines and one Sauternes over 5 courses at The Marcliffe. 

As we all gathered for a glass of Forget Brimont, I inspected the white wines, which were bathing in basins of ice, and with a shiver I went to join our Chairman. Luckily, there was nothing chilly about the evening.