Beaujolais – a misunderstood region

Beautiful vineyards on the south western border between Fleurie and Beaujolais-Villages.

 

Recently I had a quick trip to Beaujolais as the guest of Henry Fessy and it was a really uplifting experience. I have only been to Beaujolais once before and had come to the view that, with exceptions, the place was generally nicer than the wines. Now I am not so sure as I tasted some fabulous wines from this Cinderella-like region.

Too many Beaujolais wines in my younger days had almost no aromas or flavours at all except that bubblegum and candy floss character that shows the grapes were not crushed and instead the fermentation was carried out by the maceration carbonique process. I can enjoy wines made this way, but usually do not, especially if they are made from Gamay – the black grape of Beaujolais.

Too much of Beaujolais in my past was Beaujolais Nouveau too. This new wine is released in the year it is harvested – on the third Thursday of November. I am sure there are good examples, but on the whole it is very light, very thin, very acidic and, again, tasting of bubblegum, candy floss and cherryade. It is not everyone’s idea of fun and has tainted appreciation of the whole region for many of us, including me. Which is a pity because Beaujolais is about so much more.

Beaujolais can be a surprisingly complicated place for a region that has traditionally achieved most of its fame from producing very approachable wines.

Firstly, although the focus is on the reds, there is a tiny amount of white Beaujolais produced. Made from Chardonnay these white wines are very good quality and well worth seeking out.

Wine Map of France showing the position of Beaujolais just to the south of Burgundy, but only semi-detached in some ways – click for a larger view.

Secondly, Beaujolais has traditionally been regarded as part of Burgundy, in the UK anyway. So much so that in a former life when I sold Georges Duboeff’s Fleurie, in tiny letters it stated “Grand Vin de Bourgogne” on the label. Nowadays Beaujolais is mainly regarded as a region on its own and not a sub-zone of Burgundy.

However this isn’t entirely consistent as there is no such thing as Crémant de Beaujolais for instance. Instead they produce Crémant de Bourgogne. The northern border is somewhat imprecise too with the Mâcon appellation / PDO encroaching all the way down to Romanèche-Thorins in the north-east of the region and even overlapping the Beaujolais Cru of St Amour.

Just to confuse matters a little bit more of course there are some odd labelling laws that permit some producers to label wines made from their Beaujolais vineyards as Appellation Controlée / Appellation d’Origine Protégée Bourgogne whilst denying that to others – this is why you can have Gamay de Bourgogne for instance, and very good it can be too as the grapes have to come from the Cru vineyards of Beaujolais – see below.

Putting all that to one side and looking just at the reds that from Beaujolais, there are three quality levels:

Wine map of Beaujolais showing all 3 quality levels and all 10 Crus.

Basic AC Beaujolais – this is generally grown on chalky limestone and produces very light reds with high acidity.

AC Beaujolais-Villages – from the northern part of the region where the soils can produce richer, rounder wines.

The 10 Crus. The Cru wines are named after the village – with 2 exceptions – within whose boundaries the grapes are grown. The appellation / PDO makes no mention of Beaujolais, just the village name. The most famous of these is of course Fleurie, but there are ten in all – see the map above.

The mill in Romanèche-Thorins after which the wines of Moulin-à-Vent are named.

The two exceptions that are not named after their village are Côte de Brouilly which is named for the slopes of Mont Brouilly, an extinct volcano, and Moulin-á-Vent which is named after the distinctive old windmill that stands amongst the vines of Romanèche-Thorins.

With classic French regions it is quite a good idea to visit a producer who makes from the entire area, because you get an overview made by the same hand and mindset. That is what I got at Henry Fessy and it really made me revaluate my thoughts on Beaujolais.

Laurent Chevalier, the charming director at Henry Fessy.

Henry Fessy was a family run estate from 1888 until it was purchased by the great Maison Louis Latour of Burgundy’s Côte d’Or, who are still family owned after more than 200 years. The 70 hectare Fessy domaine has been run by the genial Laurent Chevalier ever since, with some help from members of the Fessy family, and it provides a wonderful snapshot of what Beaujolais can do.

They own land across the region and produce every single appellation contained within Beaujolais, as well as wines from the Mâconnais in southern Burgundy and even a very attractive Rosé de Provence. Currently they farm in 9 of the 10 Crus with Chiroubles being the exception. They do however produce an excellent Chiroubles from an estate with which they have long term contracts for supply and control of the vineyard.

Laurent explained that they handpick the best sites and destem 80% of the grapes, leaving 20% whole bunches. Old fashioned Beaujolais is not destemmed as the grapes have to be whole for maceration carbonique, so is fermented on the stems. 30 or 40 years ago those stems would not be as ripe as they nowadays, for many reasons, and so the results could be stalky and green. Nowadays greater control means that using stalks is a real choice because it can help with the manipulation of the must and also in the development of fuller wines and silkier tannins – providing those stalks are ripe.

So, by definition here they are not using maceration carbonique. Instead they do very light macerations with not very much wood, just a little for the top crus. What they are looking for is the taste of Gamay, rather than the more recognisable taste of bubble gum from the maceration carbonique.

The big differences between the different parts of Beaujolais are soil and aspect – isn’t that always the case! In the south the gentle rolling hills of most of the AC Beaujolais are lighter, chalkier limestone which produces lighter more acidic wines. The north however has a more complex arrangement of mainly granite with some schist, volcanic basalt and manganese. These all produce richer, rounder, more complex wines. Add aspect into the equation and you can quickly see why the Crus are so different from the rest of the region.

Fleurie’s Chapelle de la Madone was built around 1870 to ward off vine diseases. It seems to have worked!

We talk about the slopes of Burgundy’s Côte d’Or and some other places too of course, but generally the Crus of Beaujolais are not spoken about in the same hushed ones. Well they should be. They are easily the equal of the Côte d’Or to look at, more beautiful if anything, with lovely dramatic slopes often angled towards the sun. In fact where the Cru of Beaujolais score over their neighbours to the north is that here the slopes do not only face one way as they often form a ridge with a reverse slope too. So you can have south, east and west facing Fleurie, and other Crus, vineyard slopes for instance.

That rounded hill is Morgon’s Côte du Py lieux-dit. Fessy blend the fruit from their part of the Côte du Py into their Morgon rather than bottle it separately. The soils here are a mixture of granite and schist, decayed slate.

The different soils of the various Crus are important too as the best wines can be very mineral and make you certain that you can taste the various soils in the wines. Some people believe that happens, but most science points to something else explaining minerality in wine. A function of acidity perhaps? My own feeling is that it is a mixture of acidity and a lack of dominating, rich fruit. We are used to so many red wines being big and bold with rich primary fruit characters nowadays. Well, however ripe a Beaujolais is it will be a relatively light style of wine, so the fruit will not totally overpower the palate. Instead it will leave space for acidity and those other flavours that are not fruit, but come across as more savoury – and indeed earthy or mineral.

So the Crus have more poise, more depth and more elegance than the more basic wines because they have components competing for attention on your senses. It isn’t just red fruit, you also get some black fruit from time to time, the earthy and herbal mineral characters and yes sometimes that sense of granite or slate introducing savoury aspects and tension into the wines.

Mont Brouilly, an extinct volcano, the soils are blue volcanic basalt. Right at the peak you can just see La Chapelle Notre-Dame-aux-Raisins.

They are balanced and complete and yet again the truth is much more interesting than what we are normally told about Beaujolais. These wines can last. They don’t need to be drunk young, in fact just as with most good quality red wines a few years in bottle will settle them down and draw out the more complex and satisfying attributes. The things that actually make them good wines as to opposed more simple fruit bombs.

I generally go around telling people to ignore vintage with most modern wines – for wines to drink anyway. Normally the freshest vintage is the one to go for, but obviously with classic red wines that is not the case and good Beaujolais, especially the Crus, must join that band of elite regions where vintage is a really important consideration.

2003, 2005, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2015 and 2016 are all brilliant vintages down in Beaujolais, with 2017 being great as well. There might still be some 2015 around in the shops and I would advise you to grab those bottles while you can.

I really enjoyed everything I tasted at Henry Fessy, but some of the real standout wines were:

2016 Beaujolais Blanc
AC / PDO Beaujolais Blanc
Henry Fessy

Less than 3% of the plantings in Beaujolais are Chardonnay and Fessy only have 1 hectare, but on this showing I cannot imagine why as this is a terrific wine.

100% Chardonnay with no oak but 6 months ageing on the lees.

It has a lovely texture, satisfying mouthfeel, ripe apples and peach fruit and even a touch of something more exotic like pineapple and grapefruit. Lovely freshness keeps it poised and pure and the length is fantastic too.

This is a really good alternative to anything at the more affordable end of white Burgundy – do try it if you can – 89/100 points.

Available in the UK for £12.99 per bottle from Mr Wheeler & Hay Wines.

2016 Morgon
AC / PDO Morgon
Henry Fessy

Fessy only have 2 hectares of Morgon and so blend the Côte du Py with the Corcelles fruit. They believe the Côte gives the body and the other part gives the sumptuous fruit quality.

I found this lifted, aromatic and very attractive. There was a seductive raspberry and smoke tinged perfume to it while the palate was silky and refined yet rounded and weighty with cherry strudel sorts of flavours and a crack pepper together with some lovely delicate structure from the refreshing nature of the acidity and the light touch of tannin playing around the finish.

Fresh, lively and fruity for sure, but supple and concentrated too. – in fact the concentration and balance was a revelation to me – 89/100 points.

Available in the UK for £12.99 per bottle from Fareham Wine Cellar.

2015 Brouilly
AC / PDO Brouilly
Henry Fessy

The abnormal character of the vintage really showed here with rich fruit that still shows that playful, fresh character.

This was 80% destemmed with 6 months ageing in stainless steel tanks.

The nose offered plums and violets, orange peel and that mineral earthy je ne sais quoi. The palate was full and ripe, succulent, juicy with a lovely, lively combination of red and black fruit, spice too and a touch of firm tannins. This was not so immediately about fun as the Morgon, there was a very serious, brooding wine lurking in there with an earthy, slate minerality, there was even a touch of Côte du Rhône about it. Great wine – 92/100 points.

Available in the UK for around £15 per bottle from Crump Richmond Shaw,F L Dickins, Wine Utopia, Cellar Door Wines.

2016 Régnié Château des Reyssiers
AC / PDO Régnié
Henry Fessy

I have always had a soft spot for Régnié as it was the last of the 10 Cru to be created and I remember where I was the day it was announced back in 1988.

This was made from 40 year old vines grown on a single site at the base of Mont Brouilly. The Châteai itself dates back to 1706 and wine has been produced here for over 300 years prior to Henry Fessy taking over the management of the estate. As usual with Fessy 80% of the vines was destemmed and the wine was aged for 6 months ageing in concrete tanks.

Lovely bright, but deep cherry aromas with a touch of something smoky and savoury. The palate had lovely weight, fruit density and concentration that made me really like this wine.

There was lots of classic fresh red fruit, but plum and blackberry too. There was something wild about the wine at times that was most attractive and all the while a sense of tension, something taut, offset the softness of the fruit and was enhanced by the gently firm earthy finis – 90/100 points.

2017 Saint Amour
AC / PDO Saint Amour
Henry Fessy

Sadly I have experienced precious little Saint Amour in my life – on this showing it was my loss too.

Fessy only farm 1 hectare in Saint Amour but they put it to good use as this was stunning and I was not alone in raving about it at the tasting.

The wine showed its youth with milky, lactic notes and then a vibrant melange of red fruit, cassis and delicate spice notes.

The palate was beautifully concentrated, but bright and pristine all at the same time. The fruit was just joyous and bright and well, downright pretty. It was supple and and ripe even though the winemaking esters were very apparent at this stage. There was a lovely supple, rounded, almost creamy texture and more tannin than you would expect, although it was not aggressive in any way, it just helped give the wine definition. One to watch I think- 91/100 points.

Available in the UK for around £15 per bottle from Crump Richmond Shaw,F L Dickins, Wine Utopia, Cellar Door Wines.

By the way just in case you like to age wines, you can relax as these wines can age really well, from the great vintages anyway. At Lunch Laurent served us his 2009 Moulin-à-Vent and it was sensational. It had aged beautifully into a supple yet profound wine with silky tannins and concentrated earthy, savoury, light leather and dried fruit characters. In many ways it resembled a Gevrey-Chambertinn but with more sensual fruit and a slightly brighter nature.

So there you have it, a little cross action of what one very fine Beaujolais producer does. These are wonderful wines that deserve to be taken seriously and enjoyed often. They would go with so many different dishes and be suitable for just about any occasion. Who knows perhaps the balance between concentration but not heavy, ripe fruit and freshness might be just right for now? Perhaps Beaujolais’s time has come? Laurent certainly felt that he was “taking Beaujolais back” and showing just what Beaujolais can be.

The realisation may have struck me late in life, but there is no doubt that Beaujolais does make some lovely wines and I really must start enjoying them instead of avoiding them – and so must you.

 

New Wine of the Week – a lovely and great value red Burgundy

Life is a funny old thing. We do change in small ways over time and our tastes develop too. During my early years in wine – 32 years ago now – the industry was much more prone to platitudes than it is now and wine knowledge was much more about generalisations and announcements from on high. Well, one of the things that the great and the good would say was that people develop a taste for red Burgundy and Pinot Noir as they get older. And wouldn’t you know that has happened to me.

In all honesty it has been coming for a long time. For many years I have liked and appreciated Pinot Noir without loving it, while at some point over the last eight years I seem to have almost developed a passion for it.

Unfortunately I do not have a Burgundy income, so I am always keen to find better value examples. Wines that offer real Burgundy character, but at  good price are relatively few and far between, so they must be cherished and recently I tasted a very good example and I was so pleased with it that I have made it my Wine of the Week.

At least I know where I took the photo.

Mercurey surrounded by vines. En Sazenay is just above the village on the far left on and forms the slope between the 2 groups of trees – if I remember correctly!

Map of Burgundy – click for a larger view – non watermarked PDF versions are available by agreement

2011 Mercurey 1er Cru En Sazenay
PDO / AOC Mercurey 1er Cru
Domaine Jean-Michel et Laurent Pillot
Mercurey
Côte Chalonnaise
Bourgogne / Burgundy
France

Mercurey is one of the most famous wine villages of the Côte Chalonnaise, indeed the whole place is sometimes informally known as the Region de Mercuey and Mercurey is one of the most famous wines – I always like to remark that it is very user friendly as it is the only wine that if you spill it, you can pick it up with your fingers.

The Côte Chalonnaise is sort of a continuation of the Côte de Beaune, in that it is mainly the same limestone soil. However, the En Sazenay vineyard – which is just to the south of the village – has heavier clay soils that produce a slightly richer style of wine. A bit like Santenay in the Côte de Beaune, you would swear you could smell the clay. The vineyard is at 250-280 metres above sea level, a little higher than the village and faces south-east – which helps with ripening of course.

The domaine is run by Jean-Michel and his brother Laurent Pillot out of  several small beautiful vaulted 13th and 17th century cellars. Their family have been making wine for generations and their expertise shows. As for winemaking they are very traditional, only using indigenous yeasts for the fermentation and ageing the wine for 18 months in oak barrels, only 25% of which are new as they want good integration of oak with the delicate characters of the Pinot.

The nose is wonderfully redolent of undergrowth and fruits of the forest with a light touch of spice and coffee too.

The palate is concentrated, although the wine is delicate with a lithe, fresh vitality to it. The fruit is an interesting combination of deep fresh raspberry and the intense sweetness of dried raspberry – although of course the wine is dry. There is also the richer character of cherry, a little spice and a lovely kiss of rich texture to the palate. That Pinot mushroomy savouriness is there too, underscoring the fruit and giving more complexity. The tannins are there, but they are very supple, ripe and nicely integrated with the fruit, as is the oak indeed. This is a delicious bottle of Burgundy with enough fruit to charm anybody and enough complexity to please the most diehard Burgundy obsessive – 90/100 points

Utterly delicious with such Burgundian specialities as boeuf bourguignon and Coq au vin, but I enjoyed it with a rather fabulous steak and kidney pie.

Available in the UK at £14.68 per bottle from 3D Wines – other buying options are available from 3D which make the wine even better value.

For Us stockists, click here.

Wine of the Week 58 – the other wine from Chablis

Chablis town, you can see vineyards on the slopes beyond.

Having just returned from a week in Chablis I am all fired up with enthusiasm for the place and its wines. Most wine drinkers will feel that they understand what Chablis is, a classic, crisp dry white wine, normally unoaked and made from Chardonnay. Well, as usual I discovered that most of what we believe to be true about the place is not true. There are in fact may different styles of Chablis, many of them much richer than most consumers realise.

However, I will write about Chablis another day and restrict myself to Chablis’s poor relation today – Petit-Chablis.

In truth Petit-Chablis is no poor relation of Chablis, it is just a different wine. The wine of Chablis, wine that is given the appellation Chablis in line with the appellation contrôlée / PDO is named after this famous town, but defined by grape variety and the local soil. Chablis can only be made from Chardonnay vines and must be grown on the Kimmeridgian soils that are found on most of the slopes around Chablis. Kimmeridgian is named after Kimmeridge in Dorset and it is a calcareous clay and is a very fossil rich soil that contains the fossilised remains of ancient oysters and ammonites. The lime content of the fossils helps give acidity into the wine and, it is believed by some, to impart the typical minerality too.

On the outskirts of Chablis, the Kimmeridgian soil is hard to find and makes way for the harder Portlandian soils that are not so rich in clay or fossils and generally produce wines that are less mineral, but more fruity. More importantly Portlandian soils are also found on the top of the Chablis slopes, the plateaux between the valleys, so is often right by some of the very best Chablis, Chablis Premier Cru and Chablis Grand Cru vineyards. The only wine produced on this Portlandian soil is Petit-Chablis.

Chablis vineyards, looking North, the town is hidden in the valley. Some of the vines at the very top of the opposite slopes are Petit-Chablis. On the slopes it is Chablis Grand Cru.

To many of us the name Petit-Chablis implies that the wine is somewhat lesser, although I understand that this is not so in French. With extensive tasting though, I discovered that this simply is not so. Although many of Petit-Chablis I tasted were pretty ordinary, others were far better than the dull generic Chablis wines that grace many of our supermarket shelves.

Wine map of Chablis, Petit-Chablis is in pale yellow.

Frankly I was spoiled for choice as to which Petit-Chablis to write about today, Domaine Mosnier‘s was bright, focussed and very good, Domaine Moreau-Naudet‘s was richer and more mineral, La Chablisienne‘s Petit Chablis ‘Pas si Petit’ (not so little) is fresh with a touch of minerality. The Petit-Chablis from Jean-Paul & Benoît Droin is an extraordinarily fine wine, as is the one from Domaine Vincent Dauvissat. However as these last two are pretty pricey, although well worth it if you feel like treating yourself, so I have chosen a different producer’s Petit-Chablis to be my Wine of the Week – William Fèvre.

Didier Séguier (left) winemaker at William Fèvre. Alin Marcuello, hospitality manager is on the right.

By the by, I often take the view that a top producer’s lesser wine, or appellation, is a better bet than a lesser example of a top wine, so think Gigondas rather than Châteauneuf, Coteaux du Giennois rather than Sancerre, Monbazillac rather than Sauternes, Côte de Castillon or Fronsac rather than St Emilion if you want good value.

2014 Wiliam Fèvre Petit-Chablis
AC Petit-Chablis
Burgundy, France

Unoaked Chardonnay with 10 months lees ageing in stainless steel tank.

The colour is very pale, silvery and clear with a touch of green.

The nose offers green apple, green apple skin together with some blossom and floral notes.

The palate is surprisingly soft and round with appley and pear fruit. A steely, fresh quality balances the fruit with its lovely green acidity that is just off tart. This makes it a nice drinkable wine as the acidity is not too dominant, while little flourishes of chalky and seashore minerality add complexity and finesse. It has a lovely long finish.

This is an excellent classic French dry white and much  better than most of the basic Chablis in the supermarkets – 88/100 points

The 2013 is currently available and is a little richer and rounder. The 2014 will be available around October / November 2015.

This makes a perfect aperitif, or serve it with soft cheese, shellfish, grilled fish and white meat.

For UK stockists look here and contact Fells and Co.

Wine of the Week 55 – a delicious and great value white Burgundy

If you are after a white wine with weight, succulence or viscosity as well as elegance and freshness, then white Burgundy might well be the style for you. Certainly no where else quite gets that balance between richness and acidity so right. The only problem is that most good white Burgundy nowadays is eye waveringly expensive, so I am always on the look out for great value examples.

Not long ago I was fortunate enough to taste a white Burgundy that I found really exciting and that did not overstretch the budget too much, so I made it my Wine of the Week.

Burgundy of course is one of the really great wine regions in the world, right up there with Bordeaux and Champagne. To wine beginners Burgundy – or Bourgogne to give it its proper French name – can appear very complicated and unsettling. There appears to be a lot to learn and I can well understand that many people give up and return to wines whose labels and names seem easier to understand. However, it is worth persevering as the wines of Burgundy can be sublime.

Vineyards around the southern Côte de Nuits.

The names on the labels are simply the place where the grape is from, some come from anywhere with the region and are labelled as Bourgogne, while others come from a specific district – such as Mâcon – or from a particular village – such as Meursault. If you are interested you could do worse than read my piece all about Burgundy by clicking here.

Map of Burgundy – click for a larger view – non watermarked PDF versions are available by agreement

2011 Côte de Nuits-Villages Blanc
Domaine Désertaux-Ferrand
A.C. Côte de Nuits-Villages, Burgundy, France

This tidy little estate really captures the spirit of French wine to perfection. Family owned and family run since 1899, the Désertaux family tend most of their wines around their winery in the sleepy village of Corgoloin. This is right on the border between the Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune and, like nearby Comblanchien, it has no appellation of its own, but instead sells the wines as Côtes de Nuits-Villages. The Côte de Nuits is overwhelmingly red wine territory and white Côte de Nuits-Villages are rare, indeed the Désertaux family were the first people to actually sell one. The estate was founded in 1899, but sold their wines to a negociant until 1965, so the label did not exist before that date. Until recently they just farmed the 12 hectares around the winery, but have added to that in recent years with parcels in Beaune 1er Cru, Pommard, Meursault 1er Cru and Ladoix. The family also have some charming gîtes, so think of them the next time you are looking for somewhere to stay in Burgundy.

We are so often lazily told that all white Burgundy is made from Chardonnay that many people are astonished to discover that actually a fair amount of the wines also contain some Pinot Blanc – and even sometimes some Pinot Gris (or Pinot Beurot as it is known locally). That is exactly the case here though, 20% old vine Pinot Blanc lends a succulence to this wine that it would otherwise lack, while the 80% Chardonnay supplies the backbone of acidity and minerality. One third of the wine was barrel fermented and briefly aged in in new oak barrels, the rest had a cold fermentation in stainless shell tanks.

Everything about this wine works nicely. The aromas are very gently nutty and creamy together with a dash of citrus. The palate has a touch of seductive richness, some light cream, nuts and vanilla, while the texture is succulent and really caresses your palate. There is plenty of fruit too, white peach, nectarine and melon vie with each other, while the acidity has a touch of lemon about it as well as a little apricot zing. The freshness of acidity and minerality (read my piece about minerality here) keeps the wine focussed, pure and refreshing. The finish is long and elegant and the balance between richness and freshness is very good indeed – 88 points.

I think this wine is a terrific white Burgundy and would serve it with some classy fish, grilled sole if I could, or a fish pie perhaps. It would also work well with pork or chicken and would be an excellent partner to softish cheeses.

Available in the UK for around £14 a bottle from 3D Wines.
Available in the US for around $25 a bottle from K&L Wines.

 

Burgundy – it just seems complicated

Santenay Clos des Cornières

Recently I was invited over to Burgundy as the guest of a campaign called Discover the Origin whose job is to promote traditional European products that have a clearly defined place of origin – Burgundy is a classic example. It was a wonderful trip and gave me a realinsight into this incredible wine region.

Beaune, Burgundy’s main town, is a delightful place to explore.

All those medieval building still need looking after, so the old skills still exist here.

Many of my students find the sheer variety of Burgundy wines intimidating and the array of labels bewildering, which is presumably why some of the easier to understand examples are the best sellers.

I agree that at first glance Burgundy can look complicated, but actually it isn’t hard once you strip it down to basics and learn to trust Burgundy rather than fight it.

Of course that does depend on how much you really want to get to grips with the place and its wines. Becoming a world authority on Burgundy will be fiendishly difficult, but the good thing is that no one really needs to understand everything about it. Most of us just need enough information to enable us to enjoy the stuff without worrying too much about the potential pitfalls.

Here is my best advice to those of you who would like to get to grips with Burgundy, but find the complications off-putting – oh and if you do know about Burgundy, look away now, this is for the many interested, but nervous wannabe-Burgundy drinkers I meet.

Please remember to click on all the links.

The basic thing to get to grips with, perhaps more than any other wine region, is the geography. The wines are not big, rich and fruity, but dry and savoury because they come from somewhere cold with short summers. The fundamental dimensions and weight of most of the wines are similar as you would expect given that almost all the white wines are made from Chardonnay and the reds from Pinot Noir – both these grapes originate here. The winemaking is pretty similar too and the grapes are grown over a relatively small area, so the climate does not change much and variations are subtle. Every time I taste a lot of Burgundy I find myself writing many of the same words. I know the wines are different, but those differences are so subtle that they are very hard to sum up in a simple way.

Tradition

Frédéric Drouhin, urbane and charming director of Maison Joseph Drouhin which was started by his grandfather. The visit here was delightful and the wines had all the elegance you would expect.

En garde – the delightful Alain Hasard with his pigeage plunger. Note the small scale of the vats at his wonderful little domaine Les Champs de l’Abbaye. All his viticulture is organic and indeed biodynamic inspired – I liked him and his wines.

Jean-François Chapelle of Domaine Chapelle in Santenay – his wines are superb too.

Marion Javiller of Domaine Patrick Javiller. They made 2 of my favourite wines from the trip and rather wonderfully I could (almost) afford them too – 2010 Bourgogne Blanc Cuveé Oligocène and their wonderfully silky 2010 Savigny-les-Beaune 1er Cru Les Serpentières.

The tool rack at Domaine Joseph Voillot, note the Tastevin. I loved their Volnay wines, especially the sumptuous, yet mineral 2010 Volnay 1er Cru Les Caillerets.

Patrice Olliver of Domaine Fougeray de Beauclair in Marsannay. Amongst many other lovely wines he makes an intriguing and rather good white Marsannay from 100% Pinot Beurot which is the local name for Pinot Blanc.

Remember that Burgundy is a deeply traditional wine region where most of the producers are really just small family owned farms. This is not a place of big brands and industrial sized wineries and this traditional outlook shows in the wines, probably more than any other place in the world today. These wines are made by people who passionately believe this is the best place on earth to make wines and that the wines of their region are the best in the world.

As a consequence the idea of a wine being bright, bold and very fruity is almost an impossible concept for a traditional Burgundian to understand. Therefore expect elegance not weight, delicacy not power and the wines to be fundamentally savoury rather than sweetly fruity. As a consequence Burgundy wines really are best suited to being drunk with food. Most Burgundians would never think to drink a glass of wine on its own, that is what a Kir or Kir Royale is for. Wine, Burgundy wine anyway, accompanies food.

Vineyards

Santenay again

Marsannay

Something else that is a little different here. Very few vineyards in Burgundy have just one owner. Usually a single vineyard site is owned by several different growers and producers all making their own version of the wine. That is why a wine that appears to come from a specific vineyard often has many different labels. That is why wines that perhaps ought to be the same can sometimes taste more varied. If there is a single owner of a specific vineyard it will usually say ‘monopole‘ on the label to show it is that grower’s monopoly.

Geography
To enjoy and appreciate Burgundy you need to either be vaguely aware of the geography or at least choose to accept it or find it interesting rather than intimidating. All the important information on the labels is geographical, it’s all just place names, the region, district names, village names or vineyard names. Personally I find it useful to embrace the unknown on a wine label – if you have never heard of the place or grape on a label, try it. What is the worst that can happen?

Understanding the Labels

A good quality Bourgogne from a famous producer – this one informs us that it made from Chardonnay, most Burgundy labels do not mention grape variety.

The more basic wines from Burgundy are labelled as Bourgogne, which is French for Burgundy and is the catch all appellation for the whole region. Bourgogne is an appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC or AC), which is a system of guaranteeing provenance to the consumer. Similar controls are found throughout the EU – and beyond – to regulate traditional products like ham, cheese and spirits, but wine is the most famous.

Some seemingly humble Bourgogne wines are very good and will give you an idea of the fundamental style of the region. These wines tend to be the more affordable ones – but that is not always the case and knowing the exceptions is where your hard won experience will eventually count.

Districts

The district names of Burgundy appear on many labels as a more specific place of origin than Bourgogne. These show that the wines comes from a distinct part of the region, rather than  the region as a whole. Chablis and Mâcon are districts, as are Bourgogne followed by the name of an area, such as Bourgogne Côte Chalonnaise, Bourgogne Côtes-du-Couchois, Bourgogne Côtes d’Auxerre or Bourgogne Hautes-Côtes-de-Beaune. No one knows them all, well I don’t anyway, but once you understand the principle this sort of labelling is quite straightforward.

After a while you will start to notice the subtle differences in how these various wines taste. For instance the wines of Mâcon are clearly softer, fruitier and taste as though they come from somewhere warmer than the cold northerly slopes of Chablis. While Chablis wines are more mineral, taut and crisp than a Mâcon – the cool climate shows in the wine.

Villages

This white wine comes from the village of Puligny-Montrachet

Quality in Burgundy is supposed to be all about the vineyard site – remember those subtle variations – so in the quest for quality it is always good to know where your grapes were grown. Therefore the benchmark for Burgundy is the wines that have the name of a village on their label. The grapes that the wine is made from were grown in vineyards that surround that particular village, so we know where the wine originates. Meursault, Beaune, Nuits-St-Georges, Puligny-Montrachet, Mercurey and Givry are examples of these village wines.

Premier Cru & Grand Cru
You have to remember that grapes have been grown and wine has been made in Burgundy for hundreds and hundreds of years. Over that time certain places have come to be regarded as having the inherent ability to produce better wine than others. This accounts for why some villages are so famous.

Some specific vineyard sites within the villages can also be thought of as producing better wines than others, or at least to be capable of producing better wines. To celebrate and affirm the potential quality of these vineyard sites many have been awarded Premier Cru /1er Cru status and if the fruit all comes from a single 1er Cru vineyard the name of that site will appear on the label together with the village name.

This white also comes from Puligny-Montrachet, but more specifically the 1er Cru site called Les Folatières.

The very pinnacle of Burgundy production though is the Grand Cru vineyard sites. These are places that are thought to be capable of producing the very finest and most concentrated Burgundy wines of all – there are not many of them and they do not produce much wine at all, so are often eye-wateringly expensive.

The Montrachet vineyard is shared between the villages of Puligny and Chassagne and has been added to the name of both villages.

So many UK wine drinkers brought up on wines labelled by grape variety seem to want to rant, rail and kick against the traditional French way of doing things. It makes life much easier to just accept it, pay attention to the information on the label that is useful to you and ignore the rest. I always warn my students to never go looking for consistency or logic in French wine regulations as they often mean subtly different things from region to region even when they use the same words.

On my trip I visited a wide range of producers, from big names with grand cellars and lots of employees to tiny, hands on vigneron who scratch a living from a tiny patch of vines. All were passionate about Burgundy though. They all loved their land and thought the site mattered. None of them in their hearts believed they were producing Pinot Noir or Chardonnay wines. They were merely using those grapes to express the character of the land they farmed – they were bottling Meursault, Volnay, Savigny-les-Beaune, Mercurey or Montagny. Their wines were capturing and celebrating the subtle differences and variations that make each of these wines unique.

It is precisely these differences that make Burgundy so interesting and worthwhile to the wine enthusiast and over time the very real, but subtle variations between wines from the Côte de Nuits, Côte de Beaune and the Côte Chalonnaise become apparent.

The beautiful cellars of Domaine Heresztyn who make lovely wines in Gevrey-Chambertin.

What makes the differences is best shown by using the Côte d’Or as my illustration. This part of Burgundy is the most celebrated and contains most of the really famous wine villages of the region. Of the truly renowned Burgundy areas and villages, only Pouilly-Fuissé and Chablis are not found in the Côte d’Or.

Map of Burgundy – click for a larger view – non watermarked PDF versions are available by agreement

At first glance the Côte d’Or, made up of the Côte de Beaune and the Côte de Nuits, would appear to be so small that the wines it makes must surely all be pretty similar – after all it is sometimes less than half a kilometre wide. However, this is the place that really demonstrates the French concept of ‘terroir‘. The soils and conditions really matter here and make for the differences between the wines, although nuances might be a better word than differences as they are slight. The limestone ridge or escarpment that is the Côte d’Or consists of layers of different limestones, some more porous than others, as well as marls made up of clay, sand and gravel.

That makes sit sound as though it is all uniform, but it really isn’t. The limestones have weathered and decomposed at different speeds and are pierced by small rivers and dry valleys making for great variation as to which limestones dominate different parts. The topsoil also varies, as some are flinty and some a more chalky scree and the collapsing of the limestone ridge leaves different types and depths of topsoil.

Another variable is aspect, there are fissures, gaps, ravines and valleys in the limestone which change the direction a little, so some vineyards face more directly south than others – these will generally produce bigger wines as the grapes get more sun and so have more sugar which produces more alcohol and extract in the finished wine.

Luckily for us we don’t have to learn what the soil composition is of each and every village, let alone vineyard site, which is good because there is a great deal of overlap and variation making it very difficult to generalise to any useful degree. No, we only have to try the wines and see which ones we particularly enjoy.

So the next time you fancy some good charcuterie, try a red Burgundy with it, or it would be perfect with Boeuf Bourguignon or Coq au Vin too, those wonderful classic dishes of the region. White Burgundy really comes into its own with soft, squidgy cheeses or a simply cooked piece of fish.

If you really want to open your eyes to Burgundy though I would really recommend visiting the place for yourself, there is so much to see and enjoy.

Reluctantly leaving Beaune behind.

2012 – a look back at the best bits

Me with my favourite vintage of Tsantalis Rapsani, Greece – Photo by kind permission – ©Brett Jones http://www.thewinemaestro.co.uk

2012 was an amazing year for Quentin Sadler’s Wine Page. I tasted some wonderful wines, visited some amazing places, was shortlisted for an award and my readership doubled – all trends that I hope continue in 2013.

Me & fellow traveller Patrick Maclart hard at work on Mount Athos, Greece – Photo by kind permission – ©Brett Jones http://www.thewinemaestro.co.uk

To celebrate all this I thought that I would start the new year with a backward glance at some of my highlights of 2012 – so you can click on the links to read the pieces if you missed them first time around, or just enjoy them all over again.

Those of you who know me well know how much I relish new wine experiences and 2012 got off to a cracking start for me with a tasting of wines from the Ukraine. It was a fascinating glimpse at a fledgling wine industry just setting out on the path to producing quality wines and there was much promise there.

Champagne

Richard Goffrey at the Dom Pérignon launch

Champagne
One of the most sophisticated and stylish experiences of 2012 for me was the launch of the 2003 Dom Pérignon. In many ways the whole piece of theatre of the launch was bonkers, but the wine was sublime and there is no doubt that my sparkling wine of the year was the 2003 Dom Pérignon, it was possibly my wine of the year too – I just wish I could afford it.

2003 Dom Pérignon
The aromas were astonishingly lifted and perfumed with fresh floral notes, lemon zest and lemon peel as well as richer tones of lemon curd and the flaky pastry that shows yeast autolysis as well as pine nuts hinting at a creamy ripeness to come. Running through the whole bouquet were strands of minerality, iodine, saline and wet stones that promise well for the acidity on the palate.

The palate was a revelation, this was not simply fresh and lively, indeed it was subtly the opposite, being textured and intense. The mouthfeel was silky with the merest hint of creamy ripeness, while the acidity was in a supporting role and never dominated. Rather wonderfully there was a twist of deep green olive bitterness to the wine’s finish, even a touch of tannin which accentuated the mouthfeel – those phenolics perhaps? This makes it a real wine to appreciate and enjoy rather than a straight-forward Champagne to frivolously guzzle. It offers soft richness and poised balancing acidity. It has ripe fruit in abundance, but nothing that overpowers or dominates as a single flavour and it has taut minerality – in short it has tension. The competing sensations vie with each other for your attention, which makes it fascinating to drink.

The finish was of epic proportions, I was still tasting it more than 2 minutes after I had drunk it. I would without doubt give it a gold medal in any wine competition I was judging, so cannot help but award it a very high mark – 94/100 points.

English Wine

Vines at Plumpton, Sussex

Even less likely inhabitants of the Sussex countryside!

One of the things I really enjoy about writing my wine page is the scope it gives to stray far and wide. Well in 2012 I used a few chances to taste some wines made nearby, but that in many ways seem off the beaten track – English wine. I have enjoyed English wine on and off for 20 years or more, but I have never been more thrilled by the quality or more confident in the future than I am now. You can read the beginnings of my optimism about English wine here.

Pruning at Stopham – photo by kind permission

This delight in English wine continued with a pair of exciting wines from the Stopham Estate, in Sussex, that seem to be a possible pointer to the future. Their 2010 Stopham Pinot Blanc and 2010 Stopham Pinot Gris struck me as being excellent quality and sensibly priced, so were able to hold their own against wine from anywhere – and indeed they did sell out pretty quick as production is small.

My English experiences contiuned later in the year when I was able to taste this amazing wine:

2006 Eglantine Vineyard North Star

which is a stunning dessert wine made in Leicestershire of all places.

And while Welsh wine is clearly not from England I thought this the right place to mention that I tried some excellent Welsh wines in 2012, read about them here.

Hungarian Wine
My ongoing quest for different styles of wine and unusual grape varieties caused me to try a couple of fascinating wines from the tiny region of Somlo in Hungary and I would highly recommend them as something a little different, but very high in quality.

My Italian Trip

The charming Eva & Leonardo Beconcini

Pinzimonio – one of Eva’s many lovely cats

My first trip of 2012 was a personal pilgrimage to Tuscany to visit an estate that not only makes Chianti, but grows some Tempranillo as well. What’s more it isn’t just a marketing ploy, they have always grown it here. I got excited by this and wanted to see the place for myself and try the wines. In the end I had a fabulous time walking the vineyard and tasting the terrific wines that Leonardo Beconcini makes at Pietro Beconcini Agricola. This was followed by the most glorious lunch made by his charming wife Eva before finally being introduced to their many cats.

Cinque Terre

Manarola one of the Cinque Terre

Cesare Scorza’s shop in Manarola

I was loathe to leave Italy, so took the chance to visit a nearby area that was completely new to me. The Cinque Terre is a short train ride away from Pisa and is an amazing place to visit. I highly recommend it for its wildly beautiful landscape with an air of mystery as well as the incredibly attractive towns that give the region its name, of course it also produces some lovely wines and I was fortunate enough to meet two passionate local wine makers.

My Vinho Verde Trip

Me dressed for the weather in Vinho Verde

In all my years in the wine trade I had never visited Vinho Verde, buts as the sheer quality of the wines had impressed themselves on me of late, I was determined to put that right and in May I was able to do just that. I learnt a lot, not least why that region of Portugal is so green. Boy does it rain there, I was quite relieved that my hotel room was on the twelfth floor as I expected all the lower ones to flood at any moment. However, in the brief moments when it wasn’t raining the scenery was lovely and I visited some terrific winemakers and tasted much more variety in the different Vinho Verdes than most people expect – the place makes all colours and styles.

My Spanish Trip

The Riojan landscape

No sooner had I returned from Portugal than I returned to Iberia with some colleagues for a trip to northern Spain that took in Rioja, Navarra and Ribera del Duero. We were guests of Bodegas Faustino and it was a delightful experience and one of the many highlights was the tapas bar crawl of Logroño, it was a memory to cherish and I enjoy reading about it every now and again.

Stylish pintxos – Basque Tapas – in Bilbao

My Greek Trip

Looking from the Rapsani vineyards east towards the sea

The border between Mount Athos & Greece

In a fabulous year for trips one stood out from all the others. In June I visited the vineyards of northern Greece with some fellow bloggers as the guest of Tsantalis and it was an incredible experience. We visited quite a few regions and beautiful places and had experiences that will stick in my memory for ever. The wines were fabulous, as was the food and the hospitality of the people. The one downside was that it was an all male trip as we went to the closed monastic settlement of Mount Athos and you can read about that here..

New Experiences

George Sandeman – complete with halo

In June I was invited to an amazing dinner that paired Sandeman Tawny Ports with Japanese food. I only went because the idea seemed completely mad and it was hosted by George Sandeman, but it was a delightful experience and really opened my eyes as to what is possible and enjoyable with food and wine pairing. I hope to repeat it with American barbecue food as it seems to me that could be a brilliant match with Tawny Port.

Southern Italian Delights
I have never been to Sicily, but hope to put that right soon, as I have become utterly captivated by the exciting wines of southern Italy, including Sicily. So far I have more experience of the whites and they are so good they deserve to be more widely appreciated. I wrote about some fantastic white wines here.

http://www.domainejones.com

Shades of Grey
In November I was moved to write about some more unusual grape varieties that have ‘gris’ in their name. It seems that most people know Pinot Gris or Pinot Grigio, but I have become very excited by Sauvignon Gris and Grenache Gris and decided it was time to speak out about some of the lovely wines made from these grapes – you can read the piece here.

Chile Branches Out

The wild side of Chile at Luis Felipe Edwards 2003

This year I was delighted to be able to taste some really excellent Chilean wines made from blends and slightly more unusual grapes, so Chile remains a wine producing country to watch – read about some of the wines here.

Classic French Regions

My Loire Valley Trip

Angers from the Castle ramparts

The Loire valley personified

It was quite a year for trips and one of my unexpected highlights was a visit to the Loire Valley. I visited the area around Angers with a group of fellow bloggers and we tasted some fabulous wines and enjoyed some superb meals, but for me the centrepiece was a visit to Savennières whose wines had never really impressed me in the past, so I wanted top see what I was missing.

Burgundy

The delights of Beaune

Aloxe-Corton

In my rush to experience the new, I didn’t leave the classics behind though and in October I presented a sumptuous tasting of red Burgundies from the house of Louis Jadot. It was aterrific experience and a wonderful insight into how these great wines develop. Read about it here. I also enjoyed a wonderful visit to Burgundy as a guest of the Discover the Origin campaign and I shall be writing about that soon, however I did taste my white wine of the year on this trip:

2010 Bourgogne Blanc Cuvée Oligocène
A.c. Bourgogne Blanc
Patrick Javiller
Do not be misled by the humble appellation, this is a great wine. The vineyard –  les Pellans – is only not Meursault by a technicality, in fact half of it is within the appellation as this piece of land is in the village of Meursault, but not all of it has the A.C., which is why this wine comes in at a fair price. This really shows what white burgundy is about. It illustrates terroir and offers plenty of richness as well as elegance and tension. What’s more it is absolutely delicious and great with almost and elegant fish dish or white meat. 91/100 points – it gains points though for being stunning value for money.

Available in the UK from James Nicholson and Goedhuis & Co at around £20 a bottle.

Bordeaux

As French as tarte aux pommes

As if that wasn’t enough, I was then invited to Bordeaux as the guest of Yvon Mau and was able to visit a great swathe of impressive Châteaux and try some superb wines that made me finally realise that there is some wonderful wine from Bordeaux available at non stratospheric prices. I will write more about some of these soon, but this piece gives you some of the flavour and tells you about a stunning wine from Montagne-St Émilion that has my vote as my red wine of the year, if for no other reason than it so exceeded my expectations of what a wine from this appellation can offer:

2009 Chateau Guadet Plaisance
Montagne Saint-Emilion
The colour was an intense opaque purpley black that managed to be vivid and bright as well as dark.
The nose was dominated by cedar, spice & singed meat aromas, together with brooding deep plum and fresher redcurrant and a touch of a ripe sweet, almost creamy note.
The palate was luscious, round and concentrated with a smoky sweet ripe fruit quality together with sweet ripe tannins and firm oak structure, all balanced by a taut freshness. All this gives a gloriously succulent texture and a spicy bite to the palate. Even the oak tasted nice, like mocha mixed with toasted coconut. There is an attractive and elegant opulence to it and I suspect it will age superbly, but it really is delicious now too. I consider it deserving of a gold medal if I was judging it in a competition, so award it 91/100 points – it gains points for being great value and seductive.

All in all 2012 was a great year for Quentin Sadler’s Wine Pages. I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts and that you found it useful and some of you tried the wines that I wrote about. Please keep coming back in 2013 and do leave comments – it is always nice to hear from you.

 

Louis Jadot at The Criterion

The delights to come – © Quentin Sadler 2012

At their best the wines of Burgundy are without peer, but the region produces such a relatively small amount of wine with high world demand that they can be very expensive indeed and even then can frequently disappoint. When they are good though they really let you know it.

It is interesting that the wines of Burgundy do get to you over time. I well remember that twenty odd years ago their beguiling beauty passed me by. Not any more.

As good as many others are, no where on earth uses Chardonnay to make such exquisitely poised and balanced white wines with tension between the richness and freshness. The red wines of Burgundy though are more tricky to get your head around. I think this is because they defy the wine norms of our time. We are used to big wines, full-bodied wines are widely favoured over other styles, yet Pinot Noir grown in the coolish climate of Burgundy simply does not produce truly full-bodied wines. They are generally lighter and more savoury than most other famous types of red wines and I think they really do need food to show at their best.

I have been fortunate to visit Burgundy a good few times over the years and am slowly acquiring a good working knowledge of the place and its wines. In addition I have been involved with Louis Jadot, one of the great producers of Burgundy on and off for some 25 years. In a region which is usually a patchwork of very small vineyards and producers it is very hard to get an overview of the place from this array of tiny farmer-winemakers. So a producer like Louis Jadot who is the largest landowner in the Côte d’Or really serves a useful purpose in providing a wide range of Burgundy wines.

There are other famous districts of Burgundy, Chablis, Mercurey and Pouilly-Fuissé amongst them, but it is really the Côte d’Or that sets the tone and provides much of the region’s fame. It is home to some of the most famous and sought after wines in the world including Meursault, Pommard, Gevrey-Chambertin and Nuits-St-Georges.

At first glance the Côte d’Or would appear to be so small that the wines it makes must surely all be pretty similar – after all it is sometimes less than half a kilometre wide. However, this is the place that really demonstrates the French concept of ‘terroir‘. The soils and conditions really matter here and make for the differences between the wines, although nuances might be a better word than differences as they are slight. The limestone ridge or escarpment that is the Côte d’Or consists of layers of different limestones, some more porous than others, as well as marls made up of clay, sand and gravel.

That makes sit sound as though it is all uniform, but it really isn’t. The limestones have weathered and decomposed at different speeds and are pierced by small rivers and dry valleys making for great variation as to which limestones dominate different parts. The topsoil also varies, as some are flinty and some a more chalky scree and the collapsing of the limestone ridge leaves different types and depths of topsoil.

Another variable is aspect, there are fissures, gaps, ravines and valleys in the limestone which change the direction a little, so some vineyards face more directly south than others – these will generally produce bigger wines as the grapes get more sun and so have more sugar which produces more alcohol and extract in the finished wine.

The other day I was asked to put on a fine red Burgundy tasting in The Criterion Restaurant in London’s Piccadilly. I had never been there before and what a place it is. Founded in 1874 hard by the Eros statue in Piccadilly Circus the restaurant is a sumptuous confection of such exuberance that to my uneducated eye seems a heady combination fin de Siècle and art nouveau styles. The shiny gold mosaic tiles made me feel I was inside a Klimt painting and the general ambience made it seem possible that Oscar and Bosie would walk through the door at any moment.

The glorious interior of The Criterion during my tasting – © Quentin Sadler 2012

Jean León – wine & stardust

Even if you have never heard of him, Jean León is one of those people who enjoyed an infectiously interesting life. He was a Spaniard, from Cantabria, but by way of Barcelona, then France and stowing away on a ship to the United States he lived the American dream and created a legend.

Frankly he was also one of those people who seemed to either have good luck or knew how to make it. He survived with a series of menial jobs before joining the US Army to serve in the Korean War, and it was this service that entitled him to US nationality.

After finishing his stint in the army León got a job as a waiter at Hollywood’s trendy Villa Capri restaurant that was part owned by Frank Sinatra and Joe di Maggio. He must have been an affable and outgoing soul who made friends easily, as he developed a close friendship with James Dean and together they agreed to create a new luxury restaurant in Beverley Hills – La Scala. Dean died before it opened, but León went ahead and the new restaurant quickly became the Hollywood place for celebrity diners.

Jean León later created a boutique winery in Spain’s Penedès region and was the first to use Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay vines there in the early 1960s. This bodega is now part of the Torres group as León and Miguel Torres were such great friends and admirers of each others work that when Jean León became ill in the 1990s Torres bought the winery. His daughter Gigi meanwhile took over the restaurant and runs it to this day.

The view from the Jean León winery

It is a terrific winery and I was very taken with some of the wines I tasted there while attending the Miguel Torres Wine Course, it is that rarity in Spain, a true estate – or pago and the attention to detail shows. They produce some very good Chardonnays indeed, both the top end barrel fermented Jean León Viña Gigi (vineyard named for his daughter) Chardonnay and the fresher Jean León Petit Chardonnay were excellent quality.

Real quality on the outer reaches of Burgundy

Stephen Taylor (on right) with Pascal & Veronique Therain

When we think of Burgundy it is almost always the famous names that goes through our mind – names like Gevrey-Chambertin, Nuits-St-Georges, Chablis and Meursault. Sometimes I think this is a pity as there is a wealth of other, less famous areas that are well worth exploring. We are all on the look out for less expensive Burgundy that gives attractive drinking and some of these places provide precisely that.

Less famous than these are the wine districts on the outer reaches of Burgundy; Irancy, St Bris – this village applellation makes only white wines made from Sauvignon Blanc. There is also a host of areas that produce wines labelled up as ‘Bourgogne’ plus the name of their area or village; Bourgogne Côte d’Auxerre, Bourgogne Côte Saint-Jacques, Bourgogne Coulanges-La-Vineuse can all be worth a try.

Chardonnay & Pinot Noir – contrasting terroirs

The Côte de Beaune at Pernand-Vergelesses

The other day I was invited to present the Burgundy half of a masterclass tasting to contrast Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines from two very different regions.

In order to have a control and a focus we were using wines from a single producer in each country; Chile’s Viña Ventisquero and Louis Jadot from Burgundy.

My job was to give an introduction to Louis Jadot and to explain the terroir and conditions of Burgundy before leading the tasting. Ventisquero’s winemaker, Alejandro Galaz provided the same function for their wines.

The event took place at Vinopolis and Tom Forrest, their chief wine educator, prepared some food that we tried with the wines.