I laughed out loud too.
Yeah I totally and completely disagree with that statement.
If your tastes in wine (or music or art or any other similar pursuit or interest) do not change over time, I’d say at a minimum you would be an outlier.
But as others have said, there is no reason to “force” the issue. Open yourself to opportunities to sample the wines in the future, and follow where that leads.
One other thing: while I agree with Howard that the vast majority of burgundy wines are going to “show their best” with age, if you like riper wines, that won’t help you much. The wines gain complexity and nuance as they age but tend to lose whatever lushness they had in the bargain.
Marc, after our Italian-themed party last night, would you agree with that statement relative to Italian?
![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
If so, I am a fundamentalist.
Gosh, I hope not. Would I have to totally turn into Alfert, complete with socks, shoes and watches? [Oh, no, it is happening. I bought a Shinola watch in January. I hope I am not on a slippery slope to the socks!!!]
I am sure I don’t. It is utter nonsense.
+1 to Howard and Marc.
Just two cents from my own wine journey. Just contextualizing a region and why people enjoy it. I’m aware this is way too generalized, but severs as a guidance.
New world wines (Napa cabs, oz Shiraz): Intensity of fruit, power and concentration in the mouth. This is where most people begin as the first step in wine journey is to appreciate fruit.
Bordeaux, (could add Brunello): Multi-Layered, structured with fruit and secondary flavors. Many enjoy them, including me, not for the fruit but for the layered nuances and interplay of flavors.
N. Rhone, N.W Spain: Sheer drink-ability, I’m still learning and exploring here. Others can weigh in.
Burgundy, Piedmont (Nebbiolo): Its mostly in the aromas and delicate nuances. I found many people who enjoy just tend to enjoy the smell more than power. Many of my friends who “don’t get burgundy”; don’t value (pay attention) to the nose. It’s not about intensity or structure or power in the mouth. The captivating/ seductive part is in the smell.
Perhaps start paying more attention to the nose. You need an aged wine, which is past its closed phase that has opened up. If its not your thing, then don’t force it. Very good recommendations here. H-N bourgone rouge is a great place to start. If you can find, 07 Volnays are singing right now!
Fairly diverse set of perspectives above. The advice from Anton, Brian G, Rauno and Scott B resonates the most with me personally. Definitely don’t only pursue the big labels and top years. Burgundy is rewarding up and down the hierarchy.
One other crucial point. For me, ‘getting’ Burgundy isn’t solely about appreciating what is in the glass, it’s as much (or more?) about the pursuit of greater understanding. There simply isn’t a geekier region in the wine world (that I’ve encountered). And pursuing deeper understanding and knowledge of the villages, vineyards, lieu-dits, vintages, producers, etc. is an incredibly rewarding part of the Burgundy journey.
Fine to disagree. From my experience and point of view I think appreciating Burgundy is a matter of kind rather than degree. You need to come to the point of recognizing that there is something different and wonderful about the wine. Until that point you are simply drinking wine over time and getting to appreciate different aspects but you are not quite there.
I drank Burgundy as well as other wines over time and appreciated wine - but I never quite thought there was something special. Until - I tried a very specific wine which was an epiphany to me. I also think others who become enamored with Burgundy have similar experiences when experiencing specific wines.
This strongly suggests that you don’t agree with your own original post.
maybe start drinking loire or jura pinot for a while and then try a burgundy to see what you think 
Billy, back to your original post:
Drinking wine isn’t an assignment, where Burgundy is a syllabus topic to master, like, say, redox reactions in chemistry. If you’re just messing around and trying different wines from time to time, seems to me you already get it.
Speaking personally, Burgundy meant nothing for a long time; I was a confirmed cab guy. Once I picked up some mixed cases of low-end regional and village wines cheap on auction, and sampled them over several months. As time passed, I found that, when I wanted a red wine, my thoughts tended back to those from Burgundy, as being the most interesting to drink. No epiphany or life-change (except to my discretionary income ![[swoon.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/f/f425e8dac3e7344bee264da02e55428971be23a9.gif "swoon"){kind=small}
), and well-made, under-$30 regionals are still among my favorites to quaff with weekday fare.
The intense interest among some with fine-scale parsing of Burgundy terroirs is a bit like doing crossword puzzles or chess problems: it appeals to a certain bent of mind, and may improve the tasting experience for those who roll that way, but you don’t need this focus in order to appreciate the wines. Speaking for myself, I enjoy this kind of pastime, and am looking forward to teasing out the nuances of Champagne country (with Peter Liem’s assistance) but it’s the aromas, textures, and flavors that really matter.
As to epiphanies, you will often read among the texts of evangelical Burgundists that theirs came with a well-aged 1er NSG, rather than one of the super-exclusive grand crus. Mine was with a village Cote de Beaune. IMHO, FWIW, these moments have as much to do with the company you are drinking in, as with wine you are drinking. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Great thread - question to those experienced with Burgundy… There’s a perception (possibly false) that good Burgundy is more “hit or miss” than other wines. Meaning, the highs can be very high, but the lows can be very low. Is there any truth to that?
Look, for me, Burgundy was easy. I fell in love with one that my father opened before I really knew much about what Burgundy was all about. I started drinking wine a long time ago when great wine meant Bordeaux and Burgundy (and German whites). California wine was essentially BV Reserve, Inglenook Cask and cheap stuff. I guess I heard about Rhones and Barolo, but why bother with that stuff.
From early on, I really liked Bordeaux, but I fell in love with Burgundy.
So, I am not at all an expert in how one comes to Burgundy. I did it without knowing I that I was doing it.
The idea that Burgundy is a minefield may have made some sense 40 years ago, but not really today. One has to work pretty hard to find awful Burgundies. If you find most Burgundy awful and only like a handful of high-priced Burgundy, you are not a Burgundy lover.
What makes Burgundy hard is that they differ in taste so much from winery to winery. Some of this is terroir - certainly, a Volnay can taste very different from a Pommard - but more importantly, IMHO, different producers make wines in a different style. Two wines can objectively be of equal quality but you may like one a whole lot more than another because the wines taste very different from each other.
This is why I find threads like this one very difficult. The OP has very different taste preferences from me, so by definition I am trying to recommend to him wines from producers who make wines in a style that is not my type of wine. I have tried to make good recommendations, but am less sure of them than I would be with making recommendations for people who like the same style I do.
Then, one thing I think everyone has wrong. I think where people like California Pinots and don’t like Burgundies, their issue is not the lack of ripeness or body. I think the issue is that many wine drinkers today like low acid reds and are not used to the higher acids in Burgundy. Some come to like the freshness this acidity provides, others never do. By contrast, I find a lot of Calfornia Pinots to be too low in acidity - to me, they taste flat, no matter how rich they are. I also find this a problem with most 2003 and 2009 Bordeauxs. In most cases, I like 2010 Bordeaux more than 2009s because even though both vintages have tremendous ripeness, the 2010s tend to have much more acidity than the 2009s and thus I find them more balanced.
This vintage difference also moves over to Burgundy. The 2009s are ripe with less acidity, while the 2010s are ripe with more acidity. As a result, I love the 2010s and am not sure about 2009s. But, I recommended that the OP buy 2009s because I am not sure how he would react to the acidity I love in the 2010s. Did I make the correct recommendation? I really am not sure.
I think that people who like only the expensive really high-end Burgundies are not real Burgundy lovers, as I said, based on this as well. They don’t really like a lot of acidity, but these wines tend to be riper (maybe even having more new oak), which can offset the acidity. At lower levels, they don’t like the acidity, while I think most true Burgundy lovers like the acidity, even in wines at somewhat lower levels of ripeness. Does not make the person a better or worse person or more or less of a wine lover, but certainly does play into the types of wines one likes.
One more thing. Burgundy is not a cocktail party wine. It comes alive with food. You can drink Burgundy with a lot of types of food from salmon to steak, but it really comes alive with things like Duck and Mushrooms.
Just my thoughts.
Ian’s post is interesting to me, because it confirms that one does not have to born to like one type of wine or another but rather tastes change over time. See, from having met Ian a couple of times but even more from having read his posts here, I think of Ian as a guy who not only likes Burgundy, but who likes the geekiest (and I mean this in the best way possible) types of Burgundies. You know, the types of Burgs with tons of complexity, etc., but without that much body and with lots of acidity like Chandon des Briailles, for example (which I very much like as well). Makes giving advise to a newcomer to Burgundy even harder.
Try just about any 2007 Volnay…
TTT
Oh, and the complexity of Burgundy is what makes it fun. If you do a search, you can find threads on differenciating between different Boillots, including two named Jean Boillot.
Thanks, Howard … I think …
You make an excellent point about preferences and acidity, IMO, where Pinot-based wines from Burgundy and most of the US are concerned. I’m an outed acid-freak in general, and, even in Burgundy - as you intimate - generally prefer Beaune to CdN wines, because of their sense of high-flown, acid-driven lightness. The acid divide between nearly every Cal Pinot I’ve tasted and red Burgundies, as a group, is very much more pronounced.
(Maureen, feel at liberty to correct me if I’m mischaracterizing - or misunderstanding - the contrast 'tween CdB & CdN, in your view. Or oversimplifying it. Or am just basically wrong. 
)
Opened an '07 Caillerets recently from the above mentioned Chandon-de-Briailles and felt it was more than a little too young - but, I think, little or no destemming there. What have you been drinking in this category?
Not Volnay, but recently opened 07 Grivot Boudots and Potel Petits Monts have been delicious.