Life is too short to drink bad wine

This is another great red Burgundy by Patrice Rion. Medium red colour and a delicious smell of red fruit, sweet vanilla and hints of chocolate. Super balanced long taste. Delicious fruit and a nice acidity. Soft tannins. Drinking perfectly now. Gevrey-Chambertin 1er cru Lavaux Saint Jacques 2006 Patrice Rion Ca 40$

Boxing day and a depressive outcome of the football matches so why not just dig into bit of detailed wine drinking…? So we concentrated our efforts on Nuits St George and Gevrey Chambertin in Burgundy… Clos de Argillieres a bit more clay dominated while the soil in Lavaux St Jacques is more red clay soil. Both Pinot noir of course and both produced by Patrice Rion. Both medium red colour, with perhaps the Gevrey Chambertin slightly darker. The nose very different with the Clos des Argillieres more dominated by dark fruit and pomme granite while the Lavaux Saint Jacques is dominated by red fruit and wet wool. On the taste the Nuits St George is powerful with a lovely balanced and a nice minerality. The Gevrey Chambertin got more body and softness to it (perhaps because its two years older) with a lovely smooth finish. The 2009 has more tannins although they are very elegant and soft. Both delicious wines, the Gevrey Chambertin is drinking well right now whil...

 Had this wine at Cote Brasserie in Covent Garden. Just 48£ in the resto for this deligtful light bodied and seductive Gevrey by Boillot. Medium ruby colour (or nearly pale?), delicious red fruit on the nose with vanilla. Velvety medium bodied taste which has a medium + lenght and a perfect balance. Very soft tannins for being 2010. Goes with game or light red meat. Gevrey-Chambertin 2010 Domaine Lucien Boillot De light ful...

This is an expensive but also an incredible good wine! Grand cru from Gevrey Chambertin and with Domaine Arlaud in charge not very much can go wrong! Delicious smell of red berries , raspberries, cherries and vanilla. The taste is out of this world with a wonderful fantastic balanced velvety long taste. Just incredible! This is a pure meditation wine.... Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru 2009, Arlaud What has price gonna do with it???? Ca 100£

Had this nice Burgundy by Frederic Magnien at the Le Village in Neuilly-sur-Seine the other day. A bit pricy, but oh so lovely and seductive and it goes well with both white fish and meat. When you find the right producers in Burgundy is difficult to go wrong.... Gevrey-Chambertin 2008, Frederic Magnien Seductive and oh so pleasant...

"Clos Prieur" (2 hectares)lies close to the Grand cru Mazis Chambertin with heavy clay in the lower part of the appelation. This gives an easy and accessible style. Medium dark red colour with some red and some darker berries. Quite a mouthful which leaves a fruity aftertaste in the mouth. Again the "silky" style of Patrice Rion with beautiful integrated tannins and pure smoothness all around. Gevrey Chambertin "Clos Prieur" 2007 by Patrice Rion, dont worry just buy....High price 40€

Petite Chapelle is a Premier Cru in Gevrey Chambertin just close to the famous Grand crus. The wine has quite a dark red colour for being Pinot Noir. Somewhat discrete smell of red berries , cherries and liquerice. 2005 is  a big year and the wine has a nice delicate style without the normal big body and tannins presently in other Gevrey Chambertin. A lovely wine with the "Chambolle" character being a bit of a surprise. Somewhat pricy for the experience (NOK 500), a Chambolle village is perhaps a better buy. Gevrey Chambertin 1er cru, Petite Chapelle 2005, by Rossignol Trapet, lovely, but pricy

Off to Antibes for Easter holiday. Two cases of wines purchased from Patrice Rion in Burgundy in order to reduce the stress factor. First off was the Nuits St George Vielles Vignes (22€) from 2008, the year my favourite English football club was promoted to the Premier League after no less than 26 years in the wilderness. Pale medium red colour with lots of red berries and a beautiful balanced taste. Lovely stuff and perfect with pale meat. Then on Sunday it was the FA Cup semi final with Stoke in it for the first time since 1972. Wine of the day was Chambolle Musigny 2008 (24€),a seductive beautifully raspberry/strawberry sensed wine,  great stuff stuff for special occasions and for those who appreciate the finesse of life. And what a combination: the ugly duckling of Premier league was in fact a beautiful swan just like the Chambolle Musigny which in the demanding promotion year of 2008 turned out be be excellent, delicate and wonderfully balanced. Five star wine...

Xmas lunch at a local restaurant with a good winelist. Snowy outside. Cold, bitterly cold in fact, due to a slight breeze sneaking in from the fjord. Time to heat up with excellent wine from a warm year. Confit de canard with  Gevrey Chambertin from the warm 2005 vintage was just what everybody needed. Medium dark red coloured wine with lots of dark berries on the nose and some hints of wet forrest ground and oak. Big solid and rich taste with lovely balanced fruit and acidity. A very nice basic Gevrey Chambertin from a great year. A shame we drank all the remaining bottles in the cave..... But Xmas lunch is Xmas lunch....(very favourable price ratio (2x) at the restaurant by the way) Gevrey-Chambertin 2005, Rossignol-Trapet, Medium price NOK350 or £30, someone got to do it....  Domaine Rossignol Trapet in Gevrey Chambertin

Th Clos Prieur is perhaps not the best plot in Gevrey Chambertin but PatriceRion and his wife have the tendency to make the best out of things. A very pretty medium purple colour with a discrete nose that develops in the glass. Raspberries, cherries and blackcurrent  and delicate vanilla. The taste is just delicious, soft and elegant with a firm but silky finish. At best between 5-10 years and served with game and red meat. Gevrey-Chambertin Clos Prieur 2007 by Patrice Rion, Medium Price, yet another silky wine from Rion. Domaine Michele et Patrice RION, vins de Bourgogne

When visiting Rion we tasted this red Premier Cru and it is just delicious. Medium dark red colour and a lovely beautiful smell of dark berries, cherries, wet wood, anis and lovely "cool" pinot noir fruit. The taste is in perfect balance with the smell; lovely fruit, acidity and big silky mouthful. You take a zip and you want another and another, and woops the bottle is empty... Luckily 5 more in the cave.... This is pure art, what a lovely experience! Gevrey-Chambertin 1er cru "Lavaux Saint Jacques" 2006 - Patrice Rion 35€ to 65€ (u know where)- when a visit to the clouds are required .....! Score ca 19

Some days into 2010, the weather is still cold (very cold actually as it is minus 10c or so). We are all fed up of big meals, coffee and cakes and looking forward to the normal daily life again. We had lots of Champagne bottles going into the festive season but now there is only two bottles left. So to round off the festive period I felt like trying some Burgundy wine and this time another Gevrey Chambertin was poured into the glass. Lovely dark red colour with a wonderful elegant smell of red berries (cherries / raspberries) with hints of wet wood or forrest (we have already thrown out the Xmas tree by the way..). Gevrey Chambertin is slightly more northwards (from Beaune that is) and the wines have slightly more body than those further south and this one was no exception. Big seductive mouthful of "cold (not frozen)" fruit, lovely length and body with wonderful balanced tannins and acidity. A great start to the New Year of 2010. A very impressive Burgundy indeed. Gevre...

Its practically Friday but its so windy wet and horrible that back home we decided to open a bottle of Burgundy wine with the dinner and the 24 months old Comte cheese. Lovely medium red colour from this hot vintage in Burgundy. Still very young, but the smell was full of delicate raspberries, cherries with a touch of wood. Quite a big "fat" Burgundy with sublime "cold" fruity taste, very nice lenght and a firm body and acidity indicating the need for further maturity. And with the Comte it was a perfect match enhancing the flavours of the wine...aahh Gevrey Chambertin 2005 Louis Boillot ca 40€ Score around 18.00 

Sylvie Esmonin took over the family domaine in the 90s. The domaine is based in Gevrey Chambertin where they have 7 hectares. She has started using more more stems in the vinification process to improve structure and quality. We bought some of her 2006 wines from our cave Bourdin down the road. Good red burgundy is rather pricy so the cheapest one cost 15€, a cuvée called Bourgogne rouge , from vineyards outside Gevrey-Chambertin was light, fruity and lively. Quite an easy drinking nearly Beaujoulais type of wine.  The second one (around 20€) called Côte-de-Nuits-Village comes from vineyards in Brochon, a small village between Gevrey and Fixin, has a nice raspberry smell with some smoke and pepper. The wine was well balanced with ripe tannins and sweet velvety fruit. Very nice indeed. The Gevrey-Chambertin  (around 30€) comes from 30-year-old vines and was darker, richer with more structure and taste. Dark fruit aromas and a lovely balance. In terms of value f...

Although I am not a fan of big houses, Bouchard keep impressing me with nice delicate Burgundy wines. Having tried some of the Beaune 1er cru wines which are all very much red berries and medium pale colour, we went on to the Gevrey Chambertin yesterday. Normally when going north from Beaune the wines gets bigger and darker (and its only the soil that is the difference, the grape is still Pinot Noir) and so this time as well. Bouchard had however managed to preserve the silky touch and taste that exists in his Beaune wines, with the wine this time expressing more dark berries than red berries and the colour being medium dark red instead of pale red. Yummy again!!! Gevrey Chambertin 2005, Bouchard 25 euro, P+