Chanterêves - Les Tuyaux 2019
We drink from Nuits Saint Georges a bottle of Les Tuyaux 2019 from the Chanterêves estate.
Actually, a different wine was planned as the conclusion of the small Burgundy series, but that unfortunately did not work out as planned. Why that did not work out is another story for next week. So it became this bottle of Pinot Noir and I can already say in advance that I am anything but sad about it in the end. And somehow it also fits visually as a continuation of last week thanks to the vintage 2019, because from 2020 the label of Chanterêves does look different. I personally like these reduced, font-focused labels very much and find them more chic than the newer labels. But that is, like the whole wine thing, of course a matter of taste. Chanterêves are Tomoko Kuriyama and Guillaume Bott, who have been making wine together in Burgundy since 2010. Starting as a micro-negoce with grapes from purchase, the two were able to acquire a larger area of just under 5 hectares in 2020. The grapes for this bottle grow in the appellation Nuits-Saint-Georges in the north of Burgundy and I am not quite sure whether they come from purchase or from their own plots, but I suspect from purchase. In any case, the grapes are fermented spontaneously with stem and stalk and then aged for a year in used wood. It is filled with minimal sulfur and without filtration or fining. Winemaking with very little intervention it says also on the label, so another reason why this wine fits well into this series.
Right after opening, the wine is a bit rustic in the nose. Despite the 14% alcohol, it smells very cool, light and elegant. There is fine structure, a very elegant fruit that starts as fresh berries and then, the longer you inhale, becomes a bit like candy, only to become fresh again with the next breath. At the same time, the rustic appearance is replaced by red currants. When drinking, there is a lot of pull and juiciness and also a lot of freshness with very fine tannin far back on the tongue. That starts off really well.
Over the evening, the Pinot becomes softer, when drinking and when smelling. Earthy aromas are added, that bit of forest floor that I like very much is now also there. The roughness from the beginning has now retreated so far into the background that you can’t be quite sure whether it is a fading memory from the start of the evening or really still in the wine. You don’t miss anything, as it drinks more beautifully with every sip. There is the fruit, red and berry-like, slightly floral, a bit of smoke here, a bit of lilac there. And that together with the velvety tannin, the juiciness and the finesse creates once again a kind of inner balance and calmness. If this wine were a person, it would probably sit in such a yoga cross-legged position on a jetty somewhere by the lake, at the sight of which alone all my joints want to run away, and glimpse relaxed into the distance. But it’s just wine and so I sit, quite happy, but quite normal in my chair and enjoy every sip.
Overnight, the wine becomes both softer and somehow spicier. The berries and the slightly floral ethereal remain, only the 14%, it doesn’t hide them as well as it did the day before. At least in the nose you can feel them now. Maybe that’s also because everything in the wine has become a bit more intense. And yet it feels fresher when drinking now than yesterday. Funny how this development sometimes seems to contradict itself. You have more acidity on your tongue and also more structure, which then becomes softer and softer at the end of each sip with the fading of the fruit. There is a bit of aniseed, some wood and everything else that was already there before. This is a beautiful wine and maybe my favorite of the last few weeks. I really like this right now, which is a bit annoying because I bought this bottle in a mixed package and a quick internet search shows that buying it again might not be so easy. I’ll try anyway.