Betsy made pork chops with shiitakes, plus quinoa with kale, I opened
the 2005 Dominique Laurent Cotes de Nuits Villages Vielles Vignes.

Despite Laurent's rep for oak (and I've had some DL village and PCs
that I thought terribly overoaked), I've generally found good QPR and
little oak with his lower end bottlings, especially the "Bourgogne
#1." So decided to bite when this bottling (which I'd never seen
before) was a $10 closeout at PC.

Nice sappy black cherry fruit, moderate acidity, some tannins. I'm not
getting any apparent oak, just nice juicy Pinot Noir fruit. Weighty
for CdNV, doesn't have the complexity or depth I found in the '06
Bachelet CdNV recently, but a very nice Burg that might even improve
over the short term. B+ for the wine, A for value.

Grade disclaimer: I'm a very easy grader, basically A is an excellent
wine, B a good wine, C mediocre. Anything below C means I wouldn't
drink at a party where it was only choice. Furthermore, I offer no
promises of objectivity, accuracy, and certainly not of consistency.