Sold a few bottles of this golden nectar last night. A lovely couple from Jersey were entertaining some old friends for dinner. I had taken them on a cellar tour earlier that afternoon as they had expressed an interest, and considering that the night before they had drunk a bottle of Mouton 96 in La Brasserie, I was hoping that I might entice them onto something nice.
As they had chosen a fairly wide selection of starters, I suggested that they might want to look at a white burgundy to start off with. This idea was well recieved and the choices were narrowed down to either a Puligny or a Chassagne Montrachet. The lady host expressed her preference for Puligny so they opted to leave the choice up to me. With four Puligny's to chose from I plumped for the Girardin "Referts" 03. It is the youngest Puligny on our list, but it is one of the most forward in style, and besides once it has been decanted it opens up very nicely indeed. When opened the bottle emitted a very attractive sherbetty vanilla aroma that entranced my cold addled nostrils. Looking back on it, with the state of my sinuses at the moment, the nose must be bloody strong on that wine. The colour was a lovely golden yellow colour with a tinge of green about the edge. After decanting the nose still carried the dominant aromas of vanilla, toasty oaky flavours, but there was more fruit there too - greenish apples and membrillos with a kind of unripened stone fruit maybe peaches. I couldnt really taste anything, but I could get a sense of spicyness no doubt coming from the oak influence. The customers were loving it, so much so they ended up drinking five bottles. For a 2003 it was very forward - Ive got 2002's and 2000's that are tighter and less expressive than that one. It will be interesting to see how that one develops over time. Maybe I ought to secure a bottle or two into our holding stock so that I can see!
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