Tasted over 50 wines today and my palate is destroyed. Drinking a beer now at the end of the day. Started with a producer in Mersault. Pulled up to some dudes house; you would never guess that he had a cellar with a few thousand bottles of wine. Brutal 9am tasting there. You spit it out, but for some reason it was rough. Would rather have been in bed. His 1er cru Mersaults were nice, but I didn’t feel like spending 35 euros for a bottle. I’m here for another month, so I can wait to find something special. The reds were not very good. Was happy to leave and go…back to Bouchard! Tasted with Michael, head of operations in the USA and the man himself: Luc Bouchard! We want back to the lovely cave and I could retake pictures (I had a fucking nightmare issue with a memory card). This time we tasted 2002s. About 15 reds and 7 whites. The reds were great and the whites were lovely, especially the Puligny-Montrachet. Then we went upstairs and had (yet again) another lovely lunch…about two hours. This time we were in a sunny little room overlooking the garden. It was kinda hot in there, but we had a welcome breeze every now and then. Ate the most beautiful crayfish salad…exquisitely fresh! I had to take a photo of it like a dork. Drank a 99 Mersault and an 85 red. Lovely conversation about whine, travel, life. Lots of laughs. So wonderful. Ended the day in Pommard at Comte Armand barrel-tasting 03s that were MEGA tannic and seared my gums. Ow! He cracked a 1/2 bottle of 1993 and I thought my gums would get some relief. But NO! It might have been even more tannic. But it was great to be in a cool cellar while outside it was roasting. The winemaker, Benjamin, was maybe a few years older than me and extremely mellow. I loved his tiny cellar with oak barrels that were all wine-stained.