So far, I’m enjoying this Tour de Vin, tasting nothing but French wine for the full month of July during the Tour de France. I normally favor Californian and Italian wines, so it’s a good excuse to push me into trying new things. And drinking wine is so much easier than cycling 2,200 miles.

For today’s wine, I splurged a bit and spent $30 on a red Burgundy: the Duvergey-Taboureau Pommard 2006 ($30 US). The Pommard region produces Pinot Noirs that are on the heavier side. You can tell this one’s going to be a more robust wine as soon as you pour it into the glass. It’s not quite as dark as a New Zealand Pinot, but it definitely has dark cherry hues. I sniffed out tart cherry and cedar on the nose. My first swig revealed more cherry, raspberry and pepper, and other taste brought out damp forest leaves and some hickory smoke. The wine’s racy acidity could use some smoothing out with a few more years in the bottle, but it does have some backbone of complexity that makes Pinot Noir such a special grape. It’s a palate-pleaser, but I expected more magic for this price. Try it with roast pork.

Quaffability Rating: 88

Labels: Burgundy, red wine review, Tour de Vin

This entry was posted by Michal The Joggler Kapral, on Thursday, July 16, 2009. You can leave your response .