Wine Wednesday: Girardin Les Vergelesses

I'm very fond of 2008 Vincent Girardin Savigny-les-Beaune Premier Cru Les Vergelesses (quite a mouthful), which sells for $29. It's a terrific wine with which to usher in autumn.

First, a bit of geography: If you deconstruct the bottle label, you’ll see that this red wine is a product of the wine region Bourgogne (Burgundy). Savigny-Les-Beaune is the village the wine comes from, which sits in the shadow of the more sizable Beaune, to the south. Les Vergelesses is a vineyard on the northern side of Savigny-Les-Beaune. The wines from that vineyard tend to be intense and focused.

Intense is a good way to describe the 2008 Les Vergelesses. It’s a bit young and I think it will improve considerably with some bottle time. The 2006 vintage, for example, is just beginning to come around. Even it could use another year or two of aging.

So, if you choose to drink this wine now, I suggest decanting it a few hours before drinking to allow the wine to open up a bit. The tannins mellow out some when the wine is aerated.

This is a very earthy, somewhat barnyard-y wine with firm tannins, good minerality and lots of classic Burgundian fruit (Pinot Noir) -– dark flavors of black cherry, blackberry and chocolate. It’s also a little musky and smoky -- as I say, a tad rough around the edges. At present, I would drink this muscular Burgundy with your favorite red meat or game. But, you’re better off laying it away and coming back to it in a few years.