Albert Bichot (Domaine du Clos Frantin) Nuits St Georges 2019 - YouTube

Hello, welcome to another Burgundy with Tweenie video. You may note the change of tree, my favourite tree. There were some other people filming near there, not right in front of it, but close enough to sort of be in earshot. I think they were doing some sort of student project or something, so I just left them alone. Bit of a gloomy, grim sort of a day. It is a Sunday afternoon though, unfortunately, so despite the slightly drizzly, very grey, somewhat cold weather, there are a lot of people about. There's also a lot of mud. It's been raining a lot this week, I think, hasn't it? And the mud is really building up in the surrounding area. Anyway, you're not here to get a soil report as though we're about to start horse racing. I was down in Soho earlier this week. I had lunch at an old favourite of mine, St Moritz, the Swiss restaurant. Is that the only Swiss restaurant in London? And while I was in the area, I quickly scratched my head for where nearby, in the vague vicinity of Soho, I might be able to pick up an interesting bottle of wine. I remember there was a shop called Soho Wine Supply. I'm not sure if it's really in Soho. It's sort of getting on more for Fitzrovia. Anyway, that level of detail is probably unimportant. I think they're actually better at spirits than they are at wine, despite the name. It's a very good shop for whisky. Again, this is more off topic stuff. I happen to be into whisky. I remember buying some really interesting bottles in there years ago when I was a bit more interested in whisky. But they have a reasonable wine selection on one side. It's not a huge shop. The Burgundy seems to be somewhat dominated by this mega producer, Albert Bichot. I think, does it even say domain with an S? I know you don't pronounce the S in French, but I believe Albert Bichot is this sort of umbrella that owns a whole bunch of domains dotted around Burgundy. And this particular one is called Domaine du Clos Frantin. I don't think I've had anything from them before. And it's a Nuit Saint-Georges. That is the village. And it's a 2019 vintage. So I don't know that I've had a great experience so far with Albert Bichot as a producer or as a sort of meta producer, a company that owns other domains. But I'm willing to maintain an open mind. And 2019 is a vintage I really like. Somebody left a comment earlier today saying I should try a bit more Nuit Saint-Georges. That is actually the second most visited village, most drank village for me in Burgundy after Gervais-Chambertin. And I think this will be probably the 50th Nuit Saint-Georges I'll have tried on screen. I'll put a link to the playlist if you're into that sort of thing. No one ever seems to click those playlists. I don't know why I bother. Too much preamble. I don't know if you're getting a bit of wind noise on the microphone. I've had to put on this, what do you call it, dead cat thing. Sorry, that probably should be on screen, shouldn't it? It's a little bit breezy as well as the drizzle and the grim grey weather. As I say, it's not really putting enough people off. That is the colour. Well, somewhere in the middle, as I seem to often end up saying. With a slight hint of browning. It's definitely not way over to the black side. It's towards the red side, but also with a hint of brown. This is more of a kind of a triangle really, isn't it? I talk about the spectrum as though it just goes from left to right in terms of colour between red and black, but sometimes they end up sort of slightly more brown and there is a bit of browning there, I think. Again, could just be the terrible gloomy lighting. Initial pre-swirl nose there is sort of red berry fruit, but not necessarily my favourite type of red berry fruit. I don't mind it when it's sort of strawberry raspberry. That off the bat is giving me a bit more of a sense of redcurrant and cranberry, those slightly more austere red berry fruits, but sometimes that's something that improves with a bit of aeration. It gets fresher and more bright and lively. I don't know what that is actually. I'm seeing a bit more sort of licorice wood. All those very old-fashioned licorice sticks that actually were off a tree. Very woody type of licorice. Something like that, yeah. I think some other kind of fruit is trying to poke through there, but a bit of sandpaper or sort of woody notes, I suppose. Something you'd find in a woodworking shop. Is that the right word? You know, a woodworking... I think that's the right word, isn't it? Shop. I don't mean, you know, a place where you know what I'm talking about. An indoor venue in which woodworking takes place. What's the word I'm looking for? That sort of woody kind of sawdusty sort of smell. Yeah, and still the fruit there I think is red berry, but it's sort of redcurrant and cranberry. Not a fruit style I particularly like generally. Okay, perhaps it will improve with a sip. Okay, yeah. I like it more on the palate. It is a sort of slightly more dry, slightly more mineral style, but it still has a kind of a depth to it that I quite like. And there I'm noticing a bit more fruit that's quite different actually. I don't think it tastes of redcurrant or cranberry. That just seems to be how it's expressing on the nose. Possibly even slightly plummy on the palate. I haven't encountered plums for a long time. Dark plums I'm talking about here. Slight hint of that Chinese plum sauce you have with duck pancakes that I often referred to, but in a quite a dry restrained way. Tannins are sort of very gently silty, not unpleasant. Overall, yeah, a bit mineral, bit savoury, but with a bit of depth to it, a bit of plummy depth. A bit of that Chinese duck sauce, which I'm very fond of. Yeah, and there is a sort of cleanliness and a purity to that that's quite appealing actually. Again, sort of savoury, sort of umami-ish. Definitely better on the palate. Perhaps that nose will wake up at some point. Well, that's some first impressions there. Perhaps I should mull over this for a bit and come back with an update. Just given that a few minutes of mulling. Sounds like I'm eating it and putting spices in, doesn't it? I think the nose is rounding out a little bit. The initial sort of slight severe berry fruit character that I was picking up before, those hints of cranberry and redcurrant, are sort of morphing into almost a distant cousin of cherry, but possibly I'm noticing a bit more kind of plumminess on the nose as well now. And a tiny bit of earthiness veering into subois, gentle there. Still more of that licorice as well. That's definitely improving actually with just a little bit more aeration. This is still glass one. Again, that palate has a nice kind of cool minerality to it that I really quite like actually. The fruit there is again somewhat subtle, but what there is there is plum and again there's those hints of licorice there and tiny little bits of mushroom. It's not bad. I don't know that it's exactly massively blowing me away, but I'm quite enjoying it and I suspect I will continue to enjoy it more on subsequent glasses. I may be running out of time here today, so I may have to just be a brief first glimpse, which was a little bit lukewarm, but I think overall I do quite like that. It's a little bit more of a restrained, I could even say refined version of Louis St George based on what I'm used to. A bit more mineral, a bit drier, not quite as sort of big, full-bodied and powerful as some Louis St George's can be. It seems I do have a little bit more time and I've been able to reclaim my favourite tree. Whatever that student filming project was, they've moved on. We can try a second glass. I doubt there'll be any major developments, but who knows, perhaps I missed something first time round. It's a Diam cork isn't it, if it matters. A tiny bit less traditional, but you know I do think they're actually quite a good idea in terms of preventing wine faults. I still think there is a bit of cranberry red current there, but the more I nose it, the less bothered I am by it. I think having that kind of side order of plum really makes all the difference for me. Earthy, plummy, licoricey. I think I'm just saying the same things again aren't I? You know what, I do quite like that palette. That cool minerality has a sort of pebbly quality and a nice bit of savouriness there, but still definitely some fruit character and I think it is coming back to that much overused note that I keep going on about the Peking duck sauce. Slightly salty, preserved plums, a little bit like umeboshi, Japanese pickled plums, but without the sourness. It does have a decent amount of acidity, a normal amount of acidity, but you know umeboshi can be quite mouth puckeringly sour and salty. I'm definitely warming to that. Right, well I've pretty much just repeated myself for another, the camera's saying four minutes, hopefully I can cut it down to less than that. I think I probably have run out of novel things to say about this, but really not bad, definitely warming to it. Cheers.