Help with Burgundy

[DarylL]

Hi Brian & all,

I’ve recently released a wine map that has been in the works for quite some time, it has been and still serves as a great learning experience for myself. I hope it can help you out, most of the functionality is deactivated on the public server, but its coming around.

https://burgmap.com/

Daryl Lau

[Jeff_Vaughan]

Daryl, Nicely done! I look forward to playing with it some more.

[JBlock]

I think the best thing to do is find a retailer you trust that can help you get started. I agree with everyone’s suggestions here about extensive research but in my opinion this could lead to a lot of trial and error when you should be buying with confidence and slowly learning step by step along the way. You can read all you want to but the real knowledge can only come through consumption.
Barry Lipton’s idea is great in that regards, but with all due respect, 07 Chevillions are a little dumb right now. I would suggest something simpler like 3 different premier cru Savigny les Beaunes from Camus Bruchon or Pavelot that are equally as different in their terroir expression.

Go to a retailer with an extensive Burgundy selection and tell him your dilemma. He/she will be ridiculously ecstatic that he has found a new customer for the greatest wines in the world. He will give you several wines that exhibit different styles to which you will report back your findings about what you like and didn’t like. He will take it from there and have a whole list of wines for you to buy within your style and – most importantly – budget. This is how I have obtained some of my best customers to date and very few things in this world make me happier.

[Phil_Stice]

@DarylL

Hi Brian & all,

I’ve recently released a wine map that has been in the works for quite some time, it has been and still serves as a great learning experience for myself. I hope it can help you out, most of the functionality is deactivated on the public server, but its coming around.

https://burgmap.com/

Daryl Lau

Cool map Daryl. I’ll be a user for sure. FYI Cros Parantoux in Vosne is mispelled as “Clos Parantoux”

[Phil_Stice]

And of course I misspelled Parentoux

[JOHNM94]

@Dave McCloskey

@adrianwu

Burgundy is a very complicated region. The vineyards are rated, based on their potential quality they can produce. This however very much depends on the viticulturist. Most of the hard work is done in the vineyards, and a lot is dependent on experience. e.g. canopy management, planting density, pruning, how much green harvesting, when to pick etc. In difficult vintages, tirage is very important, and based on the quality of the harvest, one needs to adjust the winemaking technique. e.g. length of cold marceration, how much punching down to do, how much stems to leave in etc. Some vintages can withstand more extraction, others can’t. One must also to pay attention to the ripeness of the phenolics. All these decisions require a lot of experience, and most Burgundy winemakers grew up making wine, so by the time they take over in their 20s and 30s, they would already have a dozen or more vintages under their belt.
Even with the same climat, different domaines might produce different quality of wines due to where their vines are situated. Just like in real estate, which is always location, location, location, this is never more true for Burgundy. The steepness of the slope, the drainage of the plot, the thickness of the top soil, the hours of sun exposure (some areas might have shadows cast by trees or a wall, for example), even wind exposure, average temperature all matter. Vintage is also very important as Burgundy climate is pretty marginal for ripening of Pinor Noir. At the end of the day, the winemaker trumps all else. In the hands of a talented winemaker, even supposedly inferior plots can yield great wine (e.g. Grivot Clos de Vougeot), whereas even great climats can yield unsatisfactory results due to poor attention to detail (e.g. Lamarche La Grande Rue in the 1980s and 90s). As they say, there is no bad vintage in Burgundy, only bad winemakers.
Therefore, I tend to buy wine from great climats made by great winemakers in supposedly poor vintages (since they are more affordable than usual), and village or even Bourgogne from great winemakers in great vintages (since they are usually no more expensive than usual). Hence, I have lots of grand crus from 2001, 2006, 2007 and 2008, and tons of village cru from 1999, 2002, 2005, 2009 and 2010.

I didn’t go through your entire post, but from what I gather most of what you’ve said can be applied to any wine maker around the world!

Dave,

This is truly a great post. I think it gets to the heart of the matter of why there is so much conversation surrounding Burgundy in general. I also think it is part of an on-going conversation between “nature vs. nurture”-type of analysis of Burgundy’s more touted terroirs vs. ones which perhaps do not have a “tendency” towards greatness. I think your choice of buying many grand crus from years like 2001, 06 etc… show that you have cracked the Burgundian code…which is to say…Producer, Producer, Producer and that better terroirs are better in a theoretical sense and have more potential from an academic sense. However, these terroirs have also proven themselves as through empirical evidence/performance as well…but perhaps not always, 100 percent of the time. I suppose you could say that the better terroirs have a “tendency” towards greatness…and throughout history, this has been the case.