Maison Roche de Bellene Chambolle Musigny and/or Gevery Chambertin "Collection Bellenum" 2001 NV

Wine Type:
Style of Wine:	Earthy & Spicy
Country of Origin:	France
Wine Region:	Burgundy
Appellation:	Chambolle Musigny
Grape Varietal:	Pinot Noir
Bottle Format:	750mL
Case Size:	6 bottles
$515.70 Per Case ($85.95/btl) This is a special order item

Tasting Notes

An exclusive offer for a most interesting back vintage Chambolle-Musigny and/or Gevrey Chambertin Vieilles Vignes from Nicolas Potel's Collection Bellenum.
Vintages are both 2001 Chambolle Musigny and then also 2001 Gevrey Chambertin as another case option. Please specify on order.

Nicolas Potel makes his own negociant wine under the name Roche de Bellene, and has 15 hectares or so of organic vines which supply his own Domaine de Bellene wines (Bellene being an old name for the wine town of Beaune where he is now based). But his latest addition is the Collection Bellenum, a wonderful treasury of serious older burgundies.
In 2000, when he set up on his own, he had no stock, so he had to acquire some older wines for entertaining and so on. And the locals were perfectly happy to let him taste. This personable, hard-working 42-year-old reckons he has by now tasted a total of about 2,500 older burgundies, of which he has bought about 160, in lots varying from perhaps only 12 cases of the rarest up to as many as 200 cases of a single wine.
He is just starting to sell the Collection Bellenum, in the US via importer Loosen, in the UK via Berry Bros, and also in Germany, Switzerland and Japan. None of the wines has been rebottled, nor recorked, so although all the wines in the Collection Bellenum look the same, and their original producer is not cited on the label, cork spotting will presumably be an intriguing activity for burgundy lovers.
In fact, it takes only a second’s cross check between the list of wines and a decent guide to Burgundy to guess who, for instance, must have supplied the multiple vintages of the wonderfully named Chambolle-Musigny, Derrière La Grange and therefore probably all of the Grands Crus Latricières-Chambertin and Clos de la Roche. Perhaps part of the charm of the Collection Bellenum will be the detective work.

Potel has assembled his collection from a total of 26 different domaines, and is apparently also in talks with a couple of negociants over potential future acquisitions. “We deliberately decided to have different styles of wine in the Collection. And we’ve bought magnums where possible to use for tastings and dinners,” he says. In all, lucky Potel has about 3,000 magnums, but always tries to buy in bottle when he buys in magnum.

It is perhaps inaccurate to describe Potel as lucky. In theory, anyone with the right palate and connections could have assembled this collection. But it hasn’t been done before because so much administrative work is involved. Some producers are selling their wine to Potel over a number of years, presumably for carefully gauged fiscal reasons. “Some domaines have traditionally held back stock. Some kept old stock as a sort of pension. Some have been told by the brokers not to ask high prices for it. Many of them have had no one knocking on their door for 10 years. Some just don’t know what to do with it,” he explains.
Perhaps I’m the lucky one. I’ve now had two chances to taste wines from this unique collection. I’d say they magnificently reflect the reality of Burgundy in that they are very varied, provide a thoroughly useful overview of how different vintages are developing, and include some completely stunning wines that are not Grands Crus, not even Premiers Crus but are simple village wines. A 1959 Meursault and 1999 Volnay spring particularly to mind.
The youngest wine I tasted was an incredibly pure 2005 Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet; the oldest that 1959 Meursault, but most are red and from vintages in the 1990s and early years of this century – a treasure trove for burgundy lovers without a well-stocked cellar of their own.

Critical Praise

Jancis Robinson on Nicolas Potel & Collection Bellenum.

"I’ve now had two chances to taste wines from this unique collection. I’d say they magnificently reflect the reality of Burgundy in that they are very varied, provide a thoroughly useful overview of how different vintages are developing, and include some completely stunning wines that are not Grands Crus, not even Premiers Crus but are simple village wines. A 1959 Meursault and 1999 Volnay spring particularly to mind.
The youngest wine I tasted was an incredibly pure 2005 Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet; the oldest that 1959 Meursault, but most are red and from vintages in the 1990s and early years of this century – a treasure trove for burgundy lovers without a well-stocked cellar of their own."

Full Article by Jancis Robinson... happy reading.
So it seems that the fine wine buyers of the world are not too interested in the latest vintage of bordeaux. The 2011 Bordeaux primeurs campaign is one of the most sluggish so far. So how about something entirely different? Not bordeaux at the beginning of its long life, but fine burgundy at the end of its majestic, if often unpredictable, graph of maturity.
Whereas most bordeaux is made in relatively vast quantities – there can be as many as 700 barrels of Château Lafite and more than 800 of Château Pontet-Canet in a good vintage – anyone who has visited a typical Burgundian domaine will know that cellars here may be counting their total number of barrels in dozens. Sometimes there are just one or two barrels of a particular wine. Partly because of this, the secondary market for burgundy is confined to a handful of famous names that sell at jaw-dropping prices. It is extremely difficult for us mere mortals to get our hands on mature burgundy unless we buy the wine young and do the maturing ourselves.
If we were to map the location of every case of fine burgundy more than 10 years old, there would be a cluster of dots for various cellars in Switzerland, sizeable clusters on both coasts of the United States, isolated spots in the UK, France and the Australian state of Victoria, but the biggest blob of all would be in Burgundy itself. Wine producers on the Côte d’Or, the heartland of Burgundy, tend to be hugely individualistic, often answerable only to themselves rather than to a slew of shareholders. Many have tended to view their mature wines as others view savings accounts, though they have often been fiscally wily.
Put this together with the complexities of the French tax system – presumably currently undergoing a Hollandean shift – and you have an intriguing network of possibilities for supplying burgundy lovers around the world with bottles of mature wine that have been kept in perfect condition and are of impeccable provenance.

But the typical Burgundian wine producer is not the sort who is likely to entrust precious old bottles to a slick outsider. And, anyway, an outsider would probably not know where to look for them. Intensive local knowledge and personal contacts are needed, which is where Nicolas Potel comes in. Son of the late Gérard Potel, he was raised on the family’s property, the beautiful Domaine de la Pousse d’Or at the southern end of the village of Volnay, now in other hands. With a popular and respected wine producer for a father and a notable taster for a mother, Nicolas grew up with a keen sensibility for wine and an enviable network of contacts the length of the Côte d’Or.
He makes his own negociant wine under the name Roche de Bellene, and has 15 hectares or so of organic vines which supply his own Domaine de Bellene wines (Bellene being an old name for the wine town of Beaune where he is now based). But his latest addition is the Collection Bellenum, a wonderful treasury of serious older burgundies.
In 2000, when he set up on his own, he had no stock, so he had to acquire some older wines for entertaining and so on. And the locals were perfectly happy to let him taste. This personable, hard-working 42-year-old reckons he has by now tasted a total of about 2,500 older burgundies, of which he has bought about 160, in lots varying from perhaps only 12 cases of the rarest up to as many as 200 cases of a single wine.
He is just starting to sell the Collection Bellenum, in the US via importer Loosen, in the UK via Berry Bros, and also in Germany, Switzerland and Japan. None of the wines has been rebottled, nor recorked, so although all the wines in the Collection Bellenum look the same, and their original producer is not cited on the label, cork spotting will presumably be an intriguing activity for burgundy lovers.
In fact, it takes only a second’s cross check between the list of wines and a decent guide to Burgundy to guess who, for instance, must have supplied the multiple vintages of the wonderfully named Chambolle-Musigny, Derrière La Grange and therefore probably all of the Grands Crus Latricières-Chambertin and Clos de la Roche. Perhaps part of the charm of the Collection Bellenum will be the detective work.