Auxey

I was in Burgundy for six days mostly to drink the cheap cuts. I treated Burgundy like a pig and looking for bargains drank the tail ( Auxey-Duresses) and the snout (Marsannay). I’m a long time fan of Auxey-Duresses, an appellation I used to call Alice-in-Distress because I was selling one in my short stint as a sales person for VOS. I adored the wine. No one could pronouce it, however, so it didn't sell. Looking at the Cote de Beaune map, Auxey is in the upper left corner. Adjacent to Mersault, down the road from Volnay. Being so advantageously placed the terroir produces excellent, excellent steely whites and potentially deep, intellectual reds....but the kind of intellectual that after the hair comes down has a wild sex life. The best of show was the 1988 Michel Prunier Auxey-Duresses Clos du Val was the winner. Michel's sweet, shy daughter brought out the bottle --all wrapped up in moldy fuzzies--without wiping any of the gunk off, she popped the cork, poured the wine and made me guess the age. I failed miserably. Not because it didn't taste evolved. it did. but I didn't know Auxey could age THIS well. Deep, on target, plum, aromas you could swim in. Estelle and her dad. I took a look at what Bob (Parker) had to say about it---IF anything. He had reviewed it in 1990. He gave it a feeble score of 85 and these little wine notes. "This wine from Auxey-Duresses exhibits good winemaking. The Auxey-Duresses-Clos du Val is elegant, and the tannins fine. It is an attractive, medium-bodied, spicy, earthy wine, ideal for drinking over the next 5-6 years. So much for his take on the aging potential of Burgundy. He was off by at least 20 years. I wanted to take the bottle back to my room.....where I was staying in Puligny. But didn't. Big mistake. I took dinner at the Inn with a touristy Russian couple, their interpreter and the manager of the hotel. They were in the middle of a Leflaive tasting. I had the 1997 Volnay (compared to what I had at the tasting on Sunday, really not bad)..the couple were not sure whether they loved Burgundy. THhey loved Bordeaux. THe woman's eyelashes batted and said inthe only English she knew.."1995 Clement Pape!" And then they asked--through their interpreter what I thought of Putin. Off to Maranges