Actually, for those of us who have entered into a co-dependent relationship with Burgundy, this is half the fun. Anybody can buy a good bottle of wine for $50 from other regions.
Though I can’t comment on whether what Kevin paid/got is “good value”, as I don’t know, I do think the price of Burgundy is all about demand (vs. supply) and potential. You pay according to both when buying Burgundy, and have as long as I’ve been paying attention.
Vs. other great regions, the supply is much smaller…and the demand great, so prices will never be cheap, even for unimpressive (whatever that means) wines. But, similarly, in my view, there will never be payback for the cost of that potential when experiencing an almost-5 year old from a good producer//appellation. So…one’s expectations do have to be realistic about what you’re likely to get, particularly if you don’t prepare it (ie, aerate it a lot) and are tasting it (ie, not having it with food for an overall experience). That’s not to say you can’t enjoy a 5 year old from the Cote de Nuits, but you have to try hard and have realistic expectations: that it’s not what the “fuss” is all about. The fuss is about a mature, complex wine…again, open to definition. So, looking for it can be futile and frustrating. (Though some people who post here clearly enjoy the wines they taste that are ages from “maturity”; I feel bad for the wines whose lives are cut so short…and so far from their potential. ![[cry.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/853b6e76c6e8406be77a6727c2a27ad1672678b3.gif "cry"){kind=small}
If someone buys this at 55$ and holds it for 15 years…so its “potential” comes out…I guarantee it will have seemed a good value. But, for quick, pop and pour consumption…there are many many better candidates at lower prices…that will be more enjoyable, too.
And, finally…this “nostalgia” for “back in the day” when Burgundy was better priced…is just that: nostalgia…and glorifying those days. Burgundy was always , relatively, very expensive…even when I first bought , in the early '80s… and climbed from there, as the market allowed.
Question: I generally ignore critics, but I know nothing about Meadows so I don’t want to lump him in with my disdain for others. Is anyone who follows BH surprised that he claims a 2014 drinking window for this wine? Or are his drinking windows typically as meaningless as those I’ve learned to ignore from other critics?
Troll? No, just a one-track mind. And I wonder how many $1000-1500 bottles Nathan has drunk…
By the way, I’m returning to the store and buying another bottle to cellar. This is now a science experiment.
In my humble opinion ALL estimation on full maturity for Burgundies are “too early” - no matter if by Meadows, Gilman, Parker/Rovani/Schildknecht or whomever …
Also Meadows writes:
“As with anything this subjective, there is no substitute for your own experience and I offer these estimated maturities as a general guideline, not gospel and as the saying goes, your mileage may vary.”
Moreover when discussing the 2009 vintage here I predicted that the wines are far more structured than it seems, that they are not only fruity-foreward beverages to drink early, but that they may shut down (more or less) - and can evolve for quite a long time, at least decades (I was quite alone with this prediction …)
The same applies to 2012 - BTW !!!
Most 2009s were drinking very nicely (if extremely fruit-driven) in early 2012 … but 6 months to a year later they already showed quite considerable structure … and last year several had changes quite a lot … so I left them alone since then most of the time.
I still don´t know if your bottle was really ok - but if you´d like to buy an early to enjoy Burgundy I recommend to buy an easy 2012 - e.g. a Bourgogne or Hautes-Cotes-de-Nuits - and also drink it until next spring/summer …
It´s a good idea to buy another Chambolle 2009 and cellar it … I recommend at least until 2019, if not 2022+ … you should be positively surprized …
Well, Gilman’s recommended drinking windows are typicLly much farther in the future for both beginning and ending dates so hard to lump him with others.
Your analysis is omitting the price of PRICE.
The world’s central bankers [especially Greenspan and Bernanke and now Yellen] have been inventing so much fake money for so long that the fake money doesn’t even know what to do with itself anymore, and it ends up polluting the price structure in luxury goods sectors like GC Burgundy.
What’s really fascinating here [and what ought to be theoretically impossible in classical free market economics*] is that the elites have set up a dual-currency [dual-pricing] system, where the fake money gets invested in the widgets which mesmerize the elites [like GC Burgundy or Alibaba IPO shares], so that if a widget mesmerizes the elites, then its price soars off into the stratosphere; otherwise, though, you get relative price stability of boring commonplace pedestrian widgets [if not outright deflation in those everyday sectors].
As an example of this, witness octogenerian Warren Buffett’s sudden and very animated interest in the ancient & ignoble con game of Real Estate Agency. Buffett is aware of the phenomenon of 100% cash purchases of actual mansions where actual billionaires live [GC Burgundy] and would-be 5000+ sq ft McMansion pseudo-mansions where the wannabees live [PC Burgundy]:
[u]A Stunning 60% Of All Home Purchases Are “Cash Only” - A 200% Jump In Five Years[/u]
[u]A Stunning 80% Of All New York, Florida And Nevada Condo Purchases Are “All Cash”[/u]
And so after all these years, 84-year-old Warren Buffett suddenly wants to get in on the 4-point to 6-point Real Estate Agency rent extraction thievery on the all-cash transactions.
But don’t expect Berkshire Hathaway Home Services to be peddling properties in old town Detroit anytime soon [unless Buffett has rigged an FHA scam which guarantees that he’ll profit handsomely on the transaction].
And if you’re drinking Burgundy Villages, then you’re consuming the Section 8 rentals which don’t mesmerize Warren Buffett & friends - Section 8s which ought to rent for $15 but instead you elitist-chasing fools are pushing the rents out to $75 and beyond.
I saw this same sort of thing on the recent [u]Italian thread[/u], the sibling [the twin, even] of this Burgundy thread. I was going to recommend Giacomo Conterno Barbera d’Asti as a big fruity well-crafted affordable Italian wine, but suddenly it isn’t a $30 wine anymore - like it was as recently as four or five years ago - now it’s a [u]$50 to $75 wine[/u].
Which I guess means that the junior partners at the Hedge Funds are all drinking G Conterno Barbera d’Asti every night with dinner, so that they can pretend to be [or practice for the day when they become] the senior partners who drink Monfortino Riserva.
*Again, the really fascinating thing here is that this ought to be impossible - money is supposed to be fungible, like water - it ought to spill out evenly everywhere and end up in a relatively flat distribution covering the entire floor of the economy. But the elites have figured out how to rig the system so that the world has [at least] two different and very segregated tubs of water - the tub from which the elites drink [think of a pristine mountain stream in the hills above Aspen Colorado], and the tub from which everyone else drinks [think of putting on some boots and wading through a septic tank].
Either that, or else the elites are experiencing a very serendipitous point in time, right before the balloon which holds all their water finally bursts.
All great wines are fruit driven when young. I do not get the theory that Burgundy should show a strong structure (acid and tannins) when young. Many people said the same thing about the 1990 vintage. But with some age the good 1990 wines were among the most delicious ref Burgundies one could buy for money. The same will happen with the 09. I love most of the 09 Burgundies I tried. But today it is not the best time to open any. Wait 5 or better 10 years from now.
And yes – Burgundy is far too expensive these days in every category. Unfortunately.
I like Chandon de Briailles, Jadot and Bouchard. These wines need age; don’t drink them young.
Frankly, if you want to increase the odds of finding something to like I would not do it in Corton. They are tougher wines, not really for newcomers. I would go down to premier crus, esp from Volnay and Morey st. Denis. Try a Morey premier cru or village wine from Stephane Magnien or Jouan. Easy to like.
I think you are wasting your money frankly. I don’t really like Sangiovese. I don’t buy Chianti. I don’t buy Brunello. I don’t Think I am right and others are wrong. I don’t think others are right and I just need to spend tons of money until I find the one wine I love that will somehow be an epiphany and change my life. Instead, I buy Burgundy because that is what I like.
I am absolutely dilettante regarding Burgundy, and I have learned time & time again NOT to throw $$$ at an unfamiliar or unrecommended bottle of Burgundy, because you most certainly will be disappointed at best, and ripped off at worst…
That being said I’ve had very good luck finding reasonably priced, and quite tasty Red & White Burgundys from Boisset such as
Jean-Claude Boisset Chambolle-Musigny Les Charmes 2009 at around $60 on sale &
Jean-Charles Boisset Gevrey-Chambertin Lavaut St.-Jacques 2009 about $45 on sale…
Even tho I’m ITB (in NorCal) we just don’t have access to the French Wines that we’d like, and have to stumble around that minefield just like everyone else…
All wine regions are minefields. Imagine going into a store or looking at a wine list and buying California Pinot blind or based on this is Russian River so it must be good. Finding what you like takes experience and time.
But don’t you find that true in most regions? I’ve had oodles of disappointing Bordeaux, Californian, Spanish and Tuscan wines at that price point. I think Germany (or at least the German wines that are imported to the US) are the only ones where I’d feel confident paying that amount that I’d be getting an outstanding wine.
What crap. I complain all the time about what has happened to Burgundy pricing, but comments such as this are either an exaggeration aimed to rile people up or simply inane. But there is so little point in trying to convince someone like this that there are good deals to be had. Every wine type presents a minefield, including CA Pinot…there are many times more producers than good producers in every area. But Burgundy is expensive and getting more expensive, and I am sad that some great producers I used to buy are now increasingly out of reach. So what. For those of us who love it, it is worth the effort. For those who do not see the point, don’t buy and drink it. If someone is serious about learning about Burgundy, everyone’s advice here is useful. If someone wants to condemn an area because of an unwise and uninformed purchase, then that person refused to use a map and then complains that he is lost and is angry about it. If someone just has an agenda and wants to spout crap, they are best ignored.
Nathan’s been posting suchlike views for a while, hardly worth getting your dander up about. Might as well advocate Keynsian theory to the Tea Party.
Well, I ended up buying the additional bottle the following day as promised. Then I decided to open it immediately to make sure my original bottle wasn’t off. It wasn’t; same results. I had used the Pungo to open the second bottle, so I put in a stopper in and stashed the bottle. I just re-tapped it for the first time since September. Two observations:
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I continue to love the Pungo. There is zero evidence of degradation after nearly two months – and keep in mind that’s with use of the stopper and swapping the device on and off the bottle.
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I concede that, for whatever reason, my impression has changed and I’m now finding a lot more to like about this wine. In my view it’s still not a $50+ wine relative to what else I can buy in the price range. But the alcohol that dominated before has softened, and the wine’s other characteristics are showing. This is exactly why I continue to experiment.
Okay, that’s all for now.
By the way, the finish tastes weirdly of red licorice. By “weirdly,” I mean spot-on. I might as well be eating the candy. Is that normal?
Kevin wrote:
“the price/quality ratio is wildly out of step with other régions”.
Gosh, I’m so used to hearing this about Bordeaux that it’s a surprise to see that consumers now feel this way about Burgundy. I was aware that trade prices have shot up in the Côte d’Or, and I see that the effects are now being felt by retail customers.
However, the difference in pricing between Europe and the US cited above is well worth pointing out.
I think that some parallels can be drawn with Bordeaux i.e. consumers focusing on a limited number of producers, especially in politically correct vintages, and ignoring the huge scope that the region can offer beyond that limited spectrum.
Value for money, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. Some people (a disproportionate number on this forum) see Pinot Noir from Burgundy as the ultimate wine, and would drink essentially that if they could afford it, as some indeed can do. To die-hard Burgundy lovers, there is no substitute. Et quand on aime, on ne compte pas…
What about “substitue wines”? Some Pinot lovers are quite pleased with varietal wines from other regions and countries, others sniff out good values from the “lesser” appellations of Burgundy. I’m willing to bet that the top wines have crossed the Rubicon and will never be as affordable as they once were.
Best regards,
Alex R.
I got one for you to try if you are willing to take a second shot. Some places have it below $50.
2012 Hudelot Noellat Vosne Romanee.
A gorgeous bottle and shows what a really nice village wine from a good year can provide. If you are convertible, this will convert you!