Vin Noé - Pattaya 2022
We are drinking a bottle of Chardonnay Pattaya 2022 from Vin Noé from Burgundy.
What a label with animals on it is for the better half, the little note “Only one bottle per customer” just below the product image is for me. I’m not particularly proud of it, and I regularly regret it. But I’m a simple person. If I can buy wine in limited quantities, I often buy wine in limited quantities. That’s just how it is. I’m not even sure if self-reflection makes it better or much worse. As I said, that’s just how it is. It also doesn’t help that you can easily recognize these labels in the endless stream of bottles passing by in trendy feeds. The agency or the winemaker did a good job there. Burgundy, in any case, seems to be fertile ground for tiny producers despite the absurd land prices, and they quickly end up in the “Only one bottle per customer” category. Both because of the small production volumes and the number of mentions in hip feeds. And then, perhaps, they’re not available at all anymore, or only at astronomical prices on the secondary market, and thus disappear from my radar as quickly as they appeared. But sometimes, I do snatch one.
Vin Noé was founded in 2016 by Jonathan Purcel. Originally from California, he moved to France in 2012 to make wine. After a few years with Philippe Pacalet, it was time for his own estate. At first, like so many tiny producers there, he worked only with purchased grapes. Since 2020, he has also had his own leased vineyards, which he was able to take over, along with the cellar, from Jean-Jaques Morel. He vinifies his wines with minimal intervention. Fermentation is spontaneous, no sulfur is added, no new oak is used, the wines are neither fined nor filtered, and no electric pumps are used. In return, the wines are given time. Pattaya is a Chardonnay from the Mâconnais, the southern tip of Burgundy. However, it is bottled as Bourgogne Blanc. The grapes are pressed directly and matured in 500-liter barrels. A small portion of the berries undergoes carbonic maceration before these grapes are also pressed and blended back with the main part of the must.
The wine smells very nutty, with lots of puffed grain and a woody note, and still seems relatively closed. There’s a big gap between nose and palate, because on the tongue there is a lot going on. I can’t even say exactly what, but whatever it is, there’s a lot of it. It grabs hold, sweeps across the entire tongue from tip to the end, is salty, textured, and a bit smoky at the top of the palate. The sensation of smoked paprika spreads, just without the paprika. Overall, there’s little fruit, maybe some citrus and the idea of sour apple rings. Once the palate has had a few sips to acclimate, it gets juicier, and you feel the acidity more, which was initially hidden beneath the structure. Tonight, the Chardonnay is one hundred percent a mouthfeel wine, what you smell can’t keep up at all. I’m curious whether air will change that.
The next day, it smells like tea, tea with a splash of rum. Maybe this association comes from the fact that the wine still seems really nutty. The puffed grain has almost completely disappeared, the wine has become softer, darker. You still won’t find any offensive fruit, but now there’s buckwheat and some slightly fermented apple cores. Without seeming “natural” in any way, even though the production method would suggest it. No volatile acidity, no mouse, nothing unclean. I can imagine the wine would blossom even more with the right food than it already does on its own. I can well imagine a tarte flambée or a Dinnede (a kind of swabian pizza), which would absorb some of the smoke, balance the structure, and perhaps open the door a bit further behind that structure. Maturity could also achieve this, but with no experience of how these wines age, I won’t make any predictions. Don’t get me wrong, I like the wine, a lot, in fact, but tonight, on the second evening, it’s more on an intellectual level and not so much on an emotional one. I’m missing the urge to immediately go hunting for another bottle, but at the same time, I’m very interested to see how it might age. It’s complicated between me and the wine tonight. And actually only between me and the wine, because across the table I’m only getting questioning looks. The glass over there is already empty again and wants to be refilled.
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