Waiting For Maxime

Jancis Robinson meets Burgundy’s young new prodigy, and is impressed by his extraordinary story and tasty wines

- Jancis Robinson

In today’s crowded marketplace, every wine producer needs a distinguishing mark. So how about sloth? I’ve never had to wait so long for a visiting winemaker as for Maxime Cheurlin, the 25-year-old now in the saddle at the almost ridiculously well-endowed Domaine Georges Noëllat in Vosne-Romanée.

Jason Haynes of Burgundy specialist, “Flint Wines” in London, decided to institute a Burgundy Week every March for British wine lovers with masterclasses, dinners and tastings. He held a practice version last June and the star of the show was young Maxime. The plan was that he would co-host a dinner one night followed by a trade tasting and lunch the next day, all at the new, burgundy-focused restaurant, La Cabotte in London’s financial district. (Cabotte’s wine list benefits from good access to cellars of mature wine.)

I got there before 11 o’clock, early as I am wont to be ever since I moved to a new place in central London and have yet to re-calibrate journey times. Maxime had apparently been asked to turn up at 10 o’clock to check the wines, but there was no sign of him. Jason reported that the previous day he had been invited for 3.30 pm and arrived at 9pm. This did not bode well.

By mid-day all the attendees had arrived and about a dozen of us from the London wine trade and media were busy tasting a line-up of Maxime’s 2015s, but there was still no sign of him even though he was apparently staying just round the corner from La Cabotte. Jason observed ruefully that a single young man on a rare trip to London was unlikely to have gone to bed straight after his wine dinner so assumed he was still sleeping off the adventures of the night before. One of my fellow tasters, a young female wine buyer, was visibly shocked at the idea of anyone who might still be asleep at 11.30am and urged Jason to ring him and wake him up.