Faux Brahmin

Worry not. We will not be adding film reviews to this blog. This wine was simply consumed midday. Was it a socially responsible time to have wine? This blog is a judgement free zone so long as you wait until high noon. Or if there is some sport being televised. Or if it is a holiday…somewhere. Anywhere really.

Alright. So what did we think? It’s ‘fairly nice’ stuff. The flavor is rich, with full mouth. The acid is nice. There is some residual fruit (apple, quince), that has mellowed a bit with age. There is some stone minerality and a hint of oak. Not very much to complain about but also not extraordinary. Overall a very drinkable and lovely wine.

To go a bit into the three body problem (you, the wine, the hangover) – we have a good amount of body on this wine. Swirling in the glass we can see prominent legs, which indicates a decent alcohol content. This is where when the wine is swirled you can see little rivulets or the wine sort of ‘sticking’ to the side of the glass in little ‘peaks.’ This is hard to explain – I’ll do my best. The alcohol inside the liquid wreaks havoc on surface tension as it evaporates around the edges – this creates a ‘pull’ of the remaining liquid up the side of the glass. Ok – even if that science is wrong, what does this prominent clinging of peaks of liquid to the edge of the glass tell us? Well it indicates higher alcohol, which is typically in white wines reflected as ‘bigger body.’ These wines, alongside higher sugar wines, tend to taste fuller, thicker. I won’t go so far as to call them milky in consistency, but others sometimes do.

Continuing with our prior post let’s run through some of the basics of this wine label. This is a French White Burgundy, so we are automatically cutting over to the Burgundy system of scoring land/vineyard – which is the same for Reds & Whites. We also automatically know this is almost certainly Chardonnay (though a small amount of Aligote [<1% of volume] is going to market). Looking at the label this is a ‘1ᵉʳ cru’ – so that translates to a ‘premier cru’ or secondary designation. For Burgundy (such as this wine) that refers to the ranking of the vineyard from which the grapes were harvested, again these are quite dated and can be of limited information. Frequently, Grand Cru (top rating) command a premium, but Premier Cru can offer some better value and sometimes better wine. This is especially true in the hands of great winemakers.

Onto the next bottle