There’s also been a regime change around 2013/2014, so discussions regarding the wines being too oaky or extracted are probably with respect to older wines rather than the more recent stuff. The newer wines show a lot better than the Clair wines did at the verticals.
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Howard’s point about history is a good one. The grand crus were just where grapes ripened best. But in terms of what’s in the glass, it definitely goes beyond ripeness. Premier crus should have more finesse than village wines - tasted after the village wines in a producer’s lineup, they’re sometimes leaner or more slender but no less intense in flavor. The better ones should have more personality too, for example the difference between Cailles and Vaucrains is at least as big as the difference between one village and another. At the grand cru level you expect bolder flavors but also even more finesse, tannins like silk or cashmere (except the ones where the personality is more about power than finesse). Without necessarily seeming weightier (although some are characteristically weightier), they will have more breadth and even feel like they’re reaching parts of your mouth that the 1ers don’t. The personality should be definite and pronounced with characteristic flavors (e.g. Vosne spice), structure (some more flowing, others more robust), and texture. And then once you figure all that out, you get the RSV and Richebourg backwards in a blind tasting and a random old Savigny trounces both of them, and you go back to square one.
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A lot of the qualities you describe here feel more like winemaking and viticulture qualities than soil/site qualities. Although admittedly the difference is mysterious
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I found it started earlier but maybe it’s wine by wine.
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If you feel these are differences more attributable to producer than site, what are those you would attribute to differences in site? Honest question, and if you already answered above and I missed it, my apologies!
Ripeness and thickness of skins etc I guess? Like the raw materials of the grape. Then tannin management and finesse would seem to be winemaking. But I probably shouldn’t be making any claims here, these are just my preconceptions as a total non-expert
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Happy to be corrected!
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There are winemakers, like Fourrier, who are believed to treat all their wines the same, and though they all show a certain Fourrierness, the wines do differ. And as much as it pains me to say it, they differ most at the CSJ and then then the Griottes levels. Especially in non-super ripe years, those wines have been easy to differentiate from the others in blind tastings. Both were significantly more complex and generous than there 1er cru compatriots, with the Griotte having significantly finer tannins than the CSJ.
So if you buy that Jean Marie makes the wines the same way, the difference is likely due to terroir. Right?
For the record, I failed miserably identifying the CSJ and Griottes in warmer years like ‘02’.
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While I can’t speak to other winemakers, this is not true at Fourrier.
Hi Greg,
The new Jasper Morris Inside Burgundy says, “All the wines, whether village or grand cru, are matured in 20 percent new wood the idea being to keep renewing the barrel-cellar rather than to influence the fruit with any oak flavours. The wines are are not racked at all until transferred to tanks about two months before bottling in the spring, 18 months after harvest.”
I know he’s an experimenter, trying amphora, etc… but I don’t know that these experiments are blended with the released wines.
What do you know about his winemaking technique to make your assertion? This isn’t an attack, I’m genuinely interested.
There is a difference in the oak regimen.
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Historically Fourrier has used the same oak regimen across all wines. The negoce Bourgogne and the Gevrey VV are treated the same as the CSJ and Griotte. Jean-Marie states this in several interviews including I’ll Drink to That episode 76 where he goes pretty in depth on the wine making. As Brady mentioned, the only deviation might come from his experiments with the use of Amphora on the CSJ and Combe aux Moines which started in 2017. I’ll be tasting there in May though so I’ll make sure to confirm 
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To those who are sceptical reg. the importance of terroir in Burgundy : I really wonder how often they have tasted from casks in Burgundian cellars? It’s so obvious how much better is (usually) a GC than a Bourgogne, or a Village … and most of the times than the 1er Crus … compared in the same cellar of course …
Granted not all producers treat all their wines equally, it would be foolish to use 100% new oak for the Bourgogne, but with good reasons, but even from an old cask the better Cru is usually more complex, more substantial with more character and length than a lower Cru.
There are exception … with reasons like older vines, better clones … a weaker spot (e.g in Clos Vougeot) or top 1er Crus like CSJ, Amoureuses … but even in Emmanuel Rougets cellar the Echezeaux was slightly superior to the Cros Parantoux …
(… we don’t have to discuss that mean winemaking won’t make great Grand Crus … right?)
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I total agree.with Gerhard, Lieu-dits was born because the persons farmed same plot of land for generations and generations.
Funnily we have a winery in Oregon that does exactly this. Cameron makes their entry level Dundee Hills wines with their new oak, making all their top wines in barrels four years and older.
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yes funny, but it’s no Burgundy, I suppose it’s Pinot noir …
Wil, have a great time on your visit to Fourrier! Jean-Marie and Francois are great.
I can’t recall if I’ve heard the interviews on this particular subject with Jean-Marie, and he certainly prefers a lower intervention method of winemaking. But to me, those are broad statements that evince a philosophy rather than practical implications of what’s in the bottle/barrel. For example, Jean-Marie typically makes around two barrels of the Clos St. Jacques cuvee centennaire. Unless he’s using feuilletes (which he’s not, to my knowledge), it would be hard to get it to 20% new oak. Similarly, there’s only one barrel (at most) made of the Sentiers - it can’t be made with 20% new oak. Similarly, though with less extreme numbers, the Griotte is made in much smaller quantities than many of the 1er crus, let alone the village. So while the philosophy at Fourrier is broadly the same across the cuvées, the Griotte sees more oak.
And this is just one purely practical consideration. I think oak is a bit of a red herring in many of these discussions; as someone once said to me, how oaky a wine tastes is often not directly related to the difference between the amount of old/new oak used.
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Hey Greg, thanks for the thoughtful reply. You have several good points, especially on the practicality of how he treats his smaller holdings such as the Sentiers. I would agree that people care too much about oak percentage, and the trend towards less oak leaves people making missguided statements like “I do not like oak in my wine” - pass that individual a glass of Rousseau for a quick 180!
Comparing two of my favorite village Gevereys (Mortet Mes Cinq Terroirs VS Fourrier Gevrey VV) is a great exercise in how oak can be stylistically applied. Mortet’s use of oak is much more present on the pallet despite the fact that the theoretical percentage is fairly similar at the village level.
Cheers!
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This was a rather informative thread. So much depends on specific plots and producers that a lot of overlap seems to occur in perceived quality between village, premier and grand.
This spurred me on to inquire about doing a tasting which I’ve been considering for our wine club, The Grapenuts Wine Group of Tampa. I’d like to do a single producer for all three classes. That being said, any suggestions on a producer with a broad lineup and hopefully the ability to find aged GC in the lineup at not exorbitant prices (by that I should quantify that as perhaps under $900 for GC) would be extremely helpful. Hudelot-Noellat comes to mind right away.