I’m a big fan of Allen Meadows, and access to Burghound has really helped me expand my knowledge of Burgundy and target the wine profiles that I think I’ll like. One area that confuses me is Allen’s use of the word “sauvage” as a descriptor. He generally uses it in a positive way, but what I can’t decide is whether he’s using it to signal earthiness, gaminess, forest floor, or (my worry) barnyard funk. I’m particularly adverse to any kind of barnyard funk in my wine, though I do very much enjoy earthy and forest floor notes, and I don’t at all mind gamy notes in my Rhone reds or Burgundy.
In your experience, do Allen and other wine writers use sauvage to refer to something more akin to barnyard funk, or more of those “wild” notes that might be gamy, forest floor, earthiness, or something else?
The Burghound website has a “glossary” (go to the Member/Log In dropdown tab and look for “Glossary.”) I won’t cut & paste here out of respect for his copyright, but the short answer is that he doesn’t mention barnyard in the “sauvage” entry, and does mention the other stuff you list (earthiness, gaminess, forest floor), and I can’t think of instances in which I’ve come across Burgs that he described as “sauvage” or “animale” that smelled specifically like the back end of the animal. (But my sample size is surely smaller than the Burgundy experts here, so take that as one small data point only.)
I think sauvage is often used more in the sense of untamed and slightly rambunctious. Maybe a slightly rustic as in it’s a little rough around the edges. It’s a fine line that could be blurred but I think when people like Allen are using French words in an English description they’ll use animale when a wine leans into barnyard territory.
That’s what I’m worried about, mainly because Allen does reference “animale” in his glossary, now that I’ve checked that. The animale reference doesn’t necessarily mean anything related to Bar
That’s definitely a good point, the only issue being that he does have possible “animale” in his sauvage definition. But that’s also a standalone term he defines, so I think you might be right there.
That’s where the fine line is. I think sauvage could include animale but it isn’t necessarily the case. I’m not that familiar with his writing. His experience with the region goes back to when animale was more widespread in the region than it is today so possibly he is less critical of it than some but I imagine if it was an issue he would use language more precise than sauvage to describe it.
and we wonder why outsiders view wine enthusiasts as pompous / elitist. That we’re struggling to define what it means, shows it as really unsuitable if we care about welcoming people into our hobby. I can just picture someone wafting their hand around whilst putting on an extravagant faux French accent as they say it.
I don’t really see it as an elitism problem in this case. Every hobby, sport, activity has terms of art that people not in that community don’t use or understand. Terms of art are used to produce a more exact, precise description of something. In this case, it is hard to capture all those scents (forest floor, etc) in one word, and sauvage does a decent job at summing it up (despite my need for clarification on one minor point).
So you’re saying it’s rather monolithic, lacking the context of who wore the thong, at what beach, at what time of day, and whether there’s any hints of sunscreen and street taco.
It’s an interesting question. Can wine made in clean vessels with clean, ripe grapes ever taste of game birds/animals without the action of spoilage yeasts or bacteria? Certainly, pinot noir can be naturally spicy, especially when vinified with stems; it can be funkily reductive in its youth; and certain barrel toasts can impart a carnal, meaty quality; old barrels can impart woodsy, chestnutty flavors. However I tend to think that it isn’t in the nature of pinot to smell of e.g. hung game bird, no matter where it comes from. This is, of course, at odds with lots of the conventional literature that suggests that e.g. Gevrey should be “wild” (or “sauvage” in French), whatever that means, whereas Chambolle should be floral, and so on. In so far as there is any truth in this (and that is very limited, in my view, as the extraordinarily floral Truchot Charmes 1992 in my glass last weekend would have agreed), I think it comes down to the fact that some terroirs and sites, like some winemaking approaches/traditions, are more susceptible to brettanomyces than others, even if that might strike some terroiristes (especially any who have never made wine or sent it off for analysis) as reductionist.
