Bourgogne Hautes-Côtes de Beaune ROUGE

With this “little red wine”, Valentin impressively demonstrates that he is not only good at whites, but reds too. It's not a great red, no, but it is one of those reds that I enjoy drinking one, no, rather two glasses of – I first wanted to write bottles here, but that would have been a bit of an exaggeration – any time. The wine grows directly above Auxey-Duresses, a corner of Burgundy from which I have been able to taste some excellent wines in both colors over the past two or three years. This red one smells wonderfully fruity of ripe light cherries, of the oil of the Tarocco orange peel and very, very delicately, just a hint of rose petals. Perhaps there is also the odd herb or two in there, or is it liquorice after all? Hmmm, I'm not quite sure, I'll leave it to you to judge. The wine feels like fluffy satin on the palate, with fine-grained tannins that are quickly washed away by saliva at the end. The finish of this wonderful Pinot Noir is so juicy, elegant and charming that every restaurateur who values their wine selection and the wines they offer their guests by the glass would be hard-pressed not to include it.