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TerroirSense TeamGeantet-Pansiot 2021 Gevrey Chambertin Premier Cru Le Poissenot Burgundy 93
by Robert Millman
This is tasting season in New York. Over the past of two months there have been or are about to be at least 15-20 presentations from the many distributors who sell wine in the greater New York market. I attend as many as I can always with the same goal: To find a dozen wines which I would gladly purchase and which I can enjoy at home and/or write up for the TerroirSense audience. My palate runs to white and red Burgundies, German and Alsatian Rieslings, Austrian Grüners, Barolos and Barbarescos (especially with some bottle age!) and lately to Portuguese white wines. But I am open enough to try wines from many regions always in the hope of finding a few gems. This report is about a marvelous red Burgundy from a high-elevation site in Gevrey Chambertin. The name of the grower is Vincent Geantet-Pansiot whose family has been making wines mostly in Gevrey Chambertin since the 1950s. About 10-15 years ago the wines were highly regarded and much sought after. But things have moved so quickly in Burgundy with so much emphasis on bio-dynamic farming and non-tilling of the soil that a number of “old-fashioned” estates have been left behind or ignored. This has happened to some extent everywhere but nowhere as much as has been the case in Burgundy—especially the Cote de Nuit vineyards.
Vincent has been running his vineyards pretty much the way he has since assuming full control of Geantet-Pansiot in the late 1980s: The vineyard management is called lutte-raisonée—a flexible, commonsense form of organic farming. No attempt at organic certification much less bio-dynamics. As in the 1990s, the grapes are destemmed and receive a long cold soak of 10 days. All the wines see 30% new oak. Current trends and changes have little to do with the way things are done at Geantet-Pansiot. In fact, I have not tasted or collected the wines since the early 2000s. I always liked the wines and was happy to see them at a tasting. There were four wines on the table culminating in the 1er Cru Poissonet, a vineyard high up in the Combe Lavaut in the center of Gevrey. There are only three growers making wine from this tiny—2.2 Hectares–singular, coolish site. It was deeply instructive to taste the two village Gevreys before the Poissonet. If I wanted to illustrate to someone the significance of location/terroir I could not do better than by serving first the village wine then the Premier Cru. Suddenly we are transported to a level of exactitude and refinement which is what differentiates village from Premier Cru level. The Geantet-Pansiot wines were very much as I remembered from earlier vintages: An excellent synthesis of bright, aromatic fruit, delicate texture and an overall sense of lightness on their feet. (This is partly due to the 2021 vintage I suspect, which was the only cool vintage in Burgundy since 2014.) The dark side of Gevrey-Chambertin is not a part of the Geantet-Pansiot aesthetic. Vincent has acquired a considerable amount of vineyard land in Chambolle Musigny which surely shows where his sensibilities lie. I found the 2021 Poissenot to be invigorating, delicious and ballet-like in the way it moved across the palate. Some may prefer a denser style of Gevrey. Chacun a son Gevrey! Drinking Window 2025-2035.
Soldera 2019 100% Sangiovese Toscana 98
by Ian D’Agata
There are fewer names more iconic than that of Soldera in Italian wine. Gianfranco Soldera started out in insurance from Treviso and Milan before buying an old farmhouse in Montalcino in 1972 and beginning to make wine. His first vintage was of a Rosso di Montalcino (bottled in a cream coloured plain label) a wine he made from 1977 to 1982. However, he made his name with Brunello, which he first released in 1982 (of the 1977 vintage) but began reaching stardom levels (in Italy at least) with the 1982 and especially the 1983 Riserva, to this day still one of the best two wines the estate has ever made. A very talented if not especially likeable man, Soldera had a knack for making great Sangiovese wines and along with the invaluable help of Giulio Gambelli, churned out a number of memorable wines over the ensuing decades. In later years his wines dropped the Brunello di Montalcino designation and were labeled only as 100% Sangiovese, a manner by which for Soldera to highlight that his wines were truly what they were supposed to be and did not contain any other grapes in the blend.
The 2019 100% Sangiovese is certainly nothing but, and it’s by far the best wine the estate has made in years: It is, in fact, stunningly, memorably good, one of the top five or six Brunellos of the outstanding 2019 vintage. Bright pale red with a garnet tinge. Very rich ripe and perfumed aromas of decadent red cherry, plum jam, raspberry coulis, orange peel, faded violet and rose re complicated by hints of tobacco and forest floor. Then just as rich, dense and ripe in the mouth, with a creamy mouthfeel and lingering sweetness of bright ripe red berries and cherries that really helps u understand how great Sangiovese wines made from talented producers and from decent terroirs are actually world-class wines that need no help from nothing else. This 2019 Bruinello is an absolute knockout and stands heads and shoulders above most other 2019 Brunellos, even some others that are similarly fantastic, but the Soldera is something else. This 2019 wine is ready to drink but will age; it’s also a nice return to form for the Soldera estate given that neither the 2017 (gamey, funky) nor the 2018 (too simple and fruit-challenged, in keeping with the year) wines were especially memorable. But there’s no arguing with the 2019, abiout as clo9se to a work of art as wine can get to. Well done. Drinking window: 2027-2040.
