I have been shamefully remiss in writing about the wines that I’ve been diligently drinking. Turns out it IS hard to balance two kids, a part-time job, exercise, housework and well, life!

The Côte de Nuits is the area south of the Côte de Beaune, and this is red wine country. The red wines here tend to have darker color than those of Beaune. The wines also tend to be of consistently high quality.

I tasted the 2008 Côte de Nuits Villages “Le Vaucrain” from Domaine Louis Jadot. (If you remember your French label lesson from earlier, you’ll know this means that unlike the last Louis Jadot I had, this one is made from grapes owned by the famous negociant). This was one of the wines K&L offered at the Burgundy tasting I attended, so I’d had it before. I’d been wary of buying a villages wine for Burgundy, so finicky is the pinot noir grape, I was convinced there was no way it could possibly be good enough (read: good pinot noir cannot be purchased for under $20 from anywhere in the world). It was pretty good though, so I picked up a bottle.

The wine was a pinkish-red and slightly translucent. On the nose it was very fruity, red cherries and raspberries with a hint of baking spices. In true Old World style, however, the wine didn’t taste particularly fruity. It had some light red fruit, but was earthy, had good minerality and some light wood.

The Score: ★★★

Next up was Vosne-Romanée, the area of Burgundy I was most familiar with for various reasons. 1) DRC, 2) Myles and I’s first Burgundy we enjoyed at Village Pub last fall 3) DRC. DRC=Domaine de la Romanée Conti, arguably the most famous of all red Burgundy producers. These are the wines that fetch incredibly high prices (thus I will likely never taste them). Their two most famous wines of all comes from two small vineyards: La Romanée-Conti and La Tâche. See here for one of the crazier stories in the wine world lately- the criminal who decided to blackmail this famous winery by threatening to poison the vines used to make some of the world’s greatest wine!

I tasted the 2006 Domaine Ann-Marie Gille Vosne-Romanée. It was very light in color and had deep aromas of dark plums, dried cherries and a little smoke. It was brambly and earthy, but I couldn’t really place the flavors. I jotted down “dark and mysterious” as the best descriptor I could think of. It had a light body, but still very full flavor. I’m sure it’s no DRC, but was quite good.

The Score: ★★★½