A Visit to Henri Bourgeois, 2016: Recent Vintages
Arnaud Bourgeois, Stéphane Gerardin and I tasted through a range of wines. The idea was to first look at some of the latest vintages currently in the process of being released onto the market, before we proceeded to taste the older wines. I have thus divided my tasting notes up into two, and on this page I concentrate solely on the more recent releases (with older wines on the next page).
We started off with two from 2015, a perfectly serviceable entry-level cuvée in the shape of Les Baronnes, followed up by the superior Le MD de Bourgeois, which showed lovely fruit and energy. The vintage, to my palate, tends towards rich and pure fruit, white peach in particular, with acidity that leans towards the softer side. These wines, however, still showed a vibrant, tense, taut and acid-fresh character, and I felt they were much more typical of the Bourgeois style than they were of the vintage. The house style also came through in 2014, although here the acidity, tension and vigour seemed to a little more in keeping with what I expect from the vintage. Both La Côte des Monts Damnés and La Chapelle des Augustins were impressive wines that will give genuine drinking pleasure.
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