Singular, Humble, Extraordinary
2007 Bachelet Côte de Nuits
Small Production - Huge Following
"The Denis Bachelet style is for wines of intensity, great elegance, and subtlety." -Clive Coates
Today, blue-chip Burgundy veers over into a realm more familiar to the Beaujolais drinker, to the fan of Loire and Jura reds.
This is a place where moderately priced bottles radically overperform; where the pleasure is the spectrum of flavor, the truth of the place, the truth of the wine. Rustic? Very often, yes. But also delicious, quivering with acidity, see-sawing between earth and fruit, dancing with about any dish you could put on the table, aside from maybe asparagus drowned in vinegar.
Denis Bachelet is the one-man band in Burgundy, working with under four hectares and, from a cellar the size of a sitting room, producing wines that, despite the elusiveness of the term, are soulful. There's no way around it.
Today, for the price of Foillard's great Côte du Py, for about $15 less than what the entry level Clos Rougeard costs, we present a parcel of Bachelet's 2007 Côte de Nuits.
(At $35 bucks, we're also $10 below where pricing starts in the U.S.! A number of places have this bottle at $50+)
2007 has to be the most mis-understood vintage of the last decade. Or perhaps it's perfectly understood but its qualities are strangely overlooked? As if everyone had to cellar a bottle of wine for a decade to really enjoy it?
The reds of 2007 are short-termers - that is their curse, this is their blessing. The best flaunt wide-open midpalates, ripe juicy fruit that is plush and saturating. Yet these are not big wines, they are suave. Our sommelier friends call them "restaurant wines" - wines to pop and enjoy.
Denis Bachelet's Côte de Nuits is sourced from vineyards in Brochon, the town just north of Gevrey - the average age of the vines is 30 years. The wine tends to show a bit more nervy than the Gevrey, a lil' more nervosité, though its actually a pretty serious wine and it can age over the mid-term, as a recent visit with a delightful 2002 Bachelet Côte de Nuits proved (3 left!).
Still, the pleasure of this wine, the pleasure of 2007, really is that it is here and now. All winter, all spring, all summer. Whenever you pop it, it'll be great... and the value can't be overstated.
Give us your maximum order, and we'll do our best to allocate fairly. To order, please email us at offers@crushwineco.com or call the store at (212) 980-9463.
Stephen Bitterolf
Wine Director
Crush Wine & Spirits
2007 Bachelet Côte de Nuits