In Portland - Friday night Jan. 25th, 5-8p

In Carlton – Saturday Jan, 26th 12-5p

Once again this year, we’re closing out a bunch of great Burgs at amazing prices (like wholesale or below!) Great prices on some great wines, like selected Volnay & Pommard bottlings from star estate Comte Armand , the 2010 Meursault Vieilles Vignes from Buisson-Charles, all Taupenot-Merme in-stock, all remaining Chablis 2009 1er Crus from Frédéric Gueguen, and more! Supplies are limited, so get here early for the best selection.

Tasting Flight Friday night in PDX – 2010 Benjamin Leroux Auxey-Duresses Blanc (Was $45, now $32), 2010 Buisson Charles Meursault VV (Was $58, now $44),  2010 Michel Lafarge Bourgogne Passetoutgrain l’Exception (was $30, now $20), and the 2009 Jean-Marc Millot Côte de Nuits Villages (was $38, now $30)!

Tasting Flight Saturday in Carlton – 2009 Frédéric Gueguen Chablis 1er Cru Côte de Lechet (was $35, now $25), 2009 Buisson-Charles Merusault VV (was $59, now $44), 2009 Comte Armand Pommard 1er Cru (was $110, now $89), 2009 Comte Armand Volnay 1er Cru Fremiets (was $130, now $80), and the 2009 Jean-Marc Millot Echezeaux Grand Cru (was $145, now $100!)

Tasting fee is $10 for the smaller flight Friday night in Portland, and $20 for the full-monty in Carlton on Saturday – which includes our regular 4-wine tasting flight as well (refundable with 3-bottle purchase of the featured wines.)

Chablis rising star, Frédéric Gueguen

Join us for a special tasting at Renaissance Wines in Hillsboro (in the heart of Orenco Station) Friday night January 25th from 5-8pm. Scott will be pouring a great line-up, including Grower Champagnes from Marc Chauvet & Francis Cossy, white Burgundies from Domaine Thibert and Buisson-Charles, red Burgundies from J-J Confuron and Michel Lafarge, and of course some Scott Paul Pinot too! Scott will be on hand to pour and answer all your questions from 5-8pm. Be there!

We’re kicking off our 2013 series of Burgundy and Champagne seminars on Saturday Jan. 19th in Portland, with our popular Burgundy 101 class (seats still available.)

The night before, Friday Jan. 18th from 5-8p, we’ll be pouring a tasting flight that will take you on a mini tour of Burgundy, from Beaune to Meursault to Morey-St. Denis. Join us for a great tasting line-up and a sneak-preview of wines we’ll be sampling during the seminar. Tasting fee is $10, refundable with any 3-bottle purchase of the featured wines.

Allen Meadows’ new issue of Burghound was released this morning – always a key day in the life of a Burgundy geek. The report he releases each January is the first comprehensive review and analysis of the next vintage to be released, so all of us look forward to this one immensely.

The 2011 vintage is the next one in the chute, most of which have not been bottled yet, and they’ll be released in the 2nd half of this year for the most part.  It was a brutally tough year in the vineyards, with odd weather patterns (extreme heat in April, cold and rainy in July.) But as has been happening a lot lately, the “unusual” years have been producing some extraordinary and delicious wines, certainly much more so than they would have been under similar conditions 30 or 40 years ago.

This is mostly due to better-educated vignerons these days, most of whom have  traveled the world a bit and picked up the experience and skills to deal with difficult conditions more effectively than their fathers before them. Whatever the reasons, I agree with Allen that the 2011s are absolutely delicious, and will drink well in their youth and over the medium term. These will be wines to drink and savor while waiting for the 2005s and 2010s to mature in the your cellar. From the Burghound himself –

“The most successful 2011s are wonderfully fresh, seductively textured, generous and utterly delicious wines that offer excellent if not truly exceptional transparency. They have this beguiling sense of harmony, partially because they are so well-balanced but also because the tannins are so ripe and fine- grained. Add all of this up and you have a vintage style that will very likely drink well young but also improve and reward mid- term cellaring. The fine-grained tannins offer another benefit as well, which is to say that when the more rustic appellations such as Fixin, Marsannay, Côte de Nuits-Villages and certain sectors of Gevrey and Nuits are good, they tend to be notably more refined than usual. There simply isn’t much not to like about the 2011 vintage except for one key factor: there is less of it than would be the case in a typical vintage, though to be sure, it’s certainly larger than the tiny 2010 and 2012 vintages. Total yields were off between 20 and 40% and thus notwithstanding the continued favorable movement of many currencies vis-à-vis the euro, there will be little incentive on the part of the growers to reduce prices.”

This report covers only the reds of the Côte de Nuits-based producers, with coverage of the Côte de Beaune and the whites to come in the following two issues. Of note in this report are the nice scores for our guys at J-J Confuron and Marc Roy. Also, this report includes a number of in-the-bottle reviews of the excellent 2010s, which Allen is now calling even better than originally reported, and in some cases even potentially longer-lived.

I tasted over 250 2011s on my visit last November, and concur with Allen’s assessment. I found the Côte de Beaune to be more consistent perhaps than the Côte de Nuits, but across the board they are lovely wines that deliver a lot of upfront drinking pleasure, and have better balance than the 2009s (which were a touch too fruit-forward in some cases, to my taste.)

Of particular note are the glowing reviews of the J-J Confuron Grand Crus - the 2010 Clos Vougeot (94pts) and 2010 Romanée-St. Vivant (95Pts) – both of which just happen to be in stock…

Also, in recent years Burghound has started reviewing Champagne as well. Here’s a stellar review of our Marc Chauvet Brut Sélection (also coincidentally in stock) –

“An impressively complex and broad-ranging nose offers up notes of brioche, yeast, green apple, lemon rind and discreet spice nuances. There is excellent volume to the attractively rich and distinctly savory medium-bodied flavors that really fan out on the intensely yeasty finish. I very much like this but it will most please those who enjoy full-on Champagne as the appeal here is for the intensity of the flavor profile rather than refinement. 92Pts./now+”

More updates on the 2011s in the weeks and months to come. For now, just know that the quantities will again be very limited, so start zeroing in on the wines you’re going to want. Once they’re here, they won’t be around for long…

In Portland - Friday night Jan. 11th 5-8pm

In Carlton – Saturday Jan, 12th 12-5p

Since taking over the winemaking at the ultra-prestigious Domaine Comte Armand in 1999 at the tender age of 22, Benjamin Leroux has been on the radar of Burgundy lovers everywhere. He started his own domaine in 2007, and has been hailed as the best young winemakers in Burgundy and one of the best winemakers in the world by critics around the globe.

We’re thrilled to pour and offer a selection of Ben’s seamless, elegant wines. UPDATE – Here are the flights for this weekend:

Friday night in Portland - 2010 Auxey-Duresses Blanc, 2009 & 2010 Savigny-lès-Beaune, and 2010 Chambolle-Musigny. ($10 tasting fee)

Saturday in  Carlton – 2010 Auxey-Duresses Blanc, 2010 Puligny-Montrachet, 2010 Chassagne-Montrachet, 2010 Savigny-lès-Beaune, 2010 Volnay, and 2010 Chambolle-Musigny! ($20 tasting fee)

Tasting fees are refundable with any purchase of three bottles or more of the featured wines.

Come join us for some of the best wines being made in Burgundy today!

Join us at Scott Paul PDX Friday night Jan. 4th from 5-8pm to kick off the new year with a flight of great Burgundies under $35! “Bourgogne” is the entry-level classification on Burgundy, but in the hands of masters like Michel Lafarge, Benjamin Leroux and Huber-Verdereau the wines can be stunningly delicious, not to mention amazing values. We’ll be pouring the 2010 Bourgogne Blanc from Benjamin Leroux, the 2010 Bourgogne Passetoutgrain from Lafarge, the 2009 Bourgogne Rouge from Huber-Verdereau and the 2010 Bourgogne Rouge from Benjamin Leroux, plus our current-release Scott Paul Pinots too. $10 tasting fee, refundable with any 3-bottle purchase of the featured wines.

Thiébault Huber

While the New Year is a time for new beginnings and creating our own future, it’s always fun to look back on the past 12 months and see what really stood out, especially when it comes to great wines and food and travel!

I am so blessed that my work life takes me to France several weeks each year, and that I get to make a living spreading my passion for the great wines of Burgundy and Champagne (not to mention out killer Oregon Pinots, of course!) Perhaps the biggest thrill of the year was having one of our wines selected for the year’s Top 100 best-in-the-world list. I was truly barely able to breathe when we heard that our 2009 Dix Pinot Noir came in at #9 for the year in Wine Enthusiast, out of over 15,000 wines they had tasted and reviewed in 2012! Something like this is not likely to ever happen to us again, and it really hasn’t even sunk in yet. But I will try to savor it for a good moment, before getting caught up in the rush and daily grind once again. I wish I had more bottles of the ’09 Dix, but alas we have just a scant few in the library for future verticals and special tastings.

So many glorious wines crossed my lips in 2012. I have gone back through all my notes and come up with my top 10 treats of the year. In no particular order:

2004 Brut Nature – Georges Laval (one of my fave bottles of Champagne of all time!)
1966 Richebourg – DRC
1985 Richebourg – DRC
1992 Corton-Charlemagne – Roumier
1929 Montrachet – Bouchard Ainé
1999 Chevalier Montrachet – Leflaive
1978 Bonnes Mares – Drouhin
1992 Vosne-Romanée Cros Parantoux – Meo-Camuzet
1969 Musigny – de Vogüé
1966 Richebourg – Noellat

There were so many more candidates it was tough to pick a Top 10, but everything on that list was absolutely outstanding.

My adventures in Champagne continue to get more and more interesting, and my immersion into the depths of the Aube last spring was my favorite trip of the year, exploring all the tiny villages and micro-producers down there who are making some of the most exciting wines on the planet right now. I’m headed back over in March again – if I don’t return, come look for me somewhere near Ville-sur-Arce or Buxeuil, or perhaps I’ll just be lost in the maze of one-way streets in the ancient city of Troyes. Better yet, you might start by looking for me at Aux Crieurs de Vin in Troyes, my new favorite wine bar on earth…

We are so blessed here in Portland to have an abundance of amazingly talented chefs and superb restaurants. There have been so many great meals this year, but if I had to single out a few they would be:

Le Pigeon
Little Bird
Paley’s Place
Imperial
Wildwood
Bamboo Sushi
Pix & Bar Vivant

Special mention to Little Big Burger, home of the greatest truffled Fries ever, and a blue-cheese burger that I crave daily!

In Burgundy, I continue to be knocked out by Auprès du Clocher in Pommard and Le Benaton in Beaune, and my go-to spot over there any day is Caves Madeleine in Beaune – ask for Lolo, and tell him we sent you!

Here’s wishing you superb wine, food and travels in 2013, and loved-ones and friends to share it all with. Thanks for the tremendous ride – let’s do it again. Cheers!