Red Burg Lovers, Which Category of Drinker Are You?

WINE TALK
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Which Category of Red Burgundy Drinker Are You?

  • A) I drink robust and juicy red wines. I don’t want to mess around with light, under-nourished wines. Give me something I can get my teeth into, not your namy-pamby wishy-washy burgundy
  • B) I look for the ethereal side of burgundy: fragrance and elegance. I don’t want to be sandbagged when I drink my burgundy; delicacy is what I am searching for
  • C) I like red burgundy of all styles; stop trying to pigeon-hole me
  • D) Red burgundy? I might drink it, if someday brought it, but you’ll never catch me buying it
  • E) Flawed poll

0 voters

In the new version of Jasper Morris’ Inside Burgundy, he provides a new take on a burgundy vintage chart. He splits red burg drinkers into two groups, as described in A and B in the poll. As Peter Chiu pointed out, I am firmly in one camp, but I offered category straddlers an option in the poll.

Since 2000, if you are in Category A, Jasper suggests you’d really like 2003, 2005, 2009, 2010, 2015, 2018, and 2019. All were rated 8/10 or above. He suggested you might like these vintages less: 2000, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2013, and 2014. All rated 5/10 or below.

If you are in Category B, he suggests you’d like 2001, 2002, 2008, 2010, and 2016 and you might avoid 2003, 2004, 2009.

2010 is the only vintage rated very positively for both categories, though 2005 and 2016 came close. 2004 is the only vintage rated somewhat negatively for both categories, though 2000, 2006, and 2011 were close.

The biggest disparity was 2009, rated a 9/10 for Category A and 5/10 for Category B.

Anyway, this is just one tiny chart, in a 798 page book. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who loves burgundy.

Jasper has white wine split categories, too, if anyone wants a second poll.

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2

I like the majority of burgundy vintages between 2000 and 2020, except 04 and to some extent 11. I think 00 is quite underrated.

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I must admit, I find these vintage breakdowns somewhat puzzling. I don’t really know any Burgundy drinker that likes 2003s generally (or that finds it in any way similar to 2005 or 2010!). I also don’t understand suggesting fans of riper wines wouldn’t like 2007s - that was a fairly warm vintage.

For me, personally, I think other than 2003 and 2011 (and mostly 2018), I do think it mostly breaks down by producer. I have a friend who’s convinced that pouring people 2006 red (and white) Burgundy is an insult, for example, but I’ll drink all the 2006 Fourrier, Mugnier and Mugneret-Gibourg you’ll pour me. On the other hand, I had the 2003 Mugnier Musigny blind last week and couldn’t finish my glass.

4

Interesting; I feel like 03 I’ve had lately have been coming around; I had Drouhin Baudes, charmes Chambertin, 03 bertheau bm, and some others which were quite good. Even Latour RSV wasn’t awful.

5

I enjoy red Burgundy in a variety of styles, from light and elegant to rustic and gutsy. This is in contrast to some other regions - like Piedmont, the Rhone - where my preferences are much more narrow. This helps me, because I can be more flexible in my purchases. Given the increasing cost and limited availability of many of these wines, I’m thankful for this.

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I’ve said this before in other threads. I’m not that picky. Sure, there are wines that I like more than others–those are the ones I choose to buy, but even my favorites don’t neatly fall in one category or the other. I enjoy variety. And more broadly, you can pour me Burgundy across a huge range of producers, vineyards, and vintages and more likely than not I’ll find something to enjoy in it. My favorite wines, of course, are the wines that combine elegance and fragrance with a concentrated, powerful, complex body. I suspect almost everyone agrees with that.

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Such as 17 Rousseau cdb…

8

I chose no pigeon-hole and probably am close to what Ryan has said, but I might tilt slightly in the direction of ethereal and delicate if you pushed me down the plank and made me choose.

9

I’m some sort of weird hybrid I guess. In the abstract anyway I’d pick robust over ethereal and elegant, but I’d pick earth and spice over fruit.

10

Ditto. All things equal, my favorite producers/vintages/wines tend toward the elegant/ethereal. But even there, many wines that are famously on that end of the spectrum don’t in reality fit neatly into one category or the other. Hell, even famously oaky wines can be marvelous. Drinking some aged Dominique Laurent will lead you to back off the jokes about 200% new oak.

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Thanks for Polls - lovely. I side with Mike and voted with him.

12

I’m firmly in the B group as well and agree with Jasper’s general guidance. Yes, as others mentioned there are of course exceptions and producers which may handle some years better than others.
I pretty much avoided 2018 in red apart from some cooler clay dominant sites or entry level wines. Opened an '18 Chavy-Chouet la Taupe Bourgogne on the weekend which was not my bag.

Big fan of the book.

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I chose no pigeon-hole also. I agreed with a lot of what Ryan said, although like you I lean in the direction of ethereal and delicate, probably more than slightly. My ideal wine is one that combines tons of flavor, length and complexity with sort of a weightless quality. This can be seen in some of my favorite red Burg producers like Truchot, Ramonet, Dublere, Jouan, d’Angerville, Lafarge, Drouhin, etc.

That said, I also like richer wines by producers like Rossignol-Trapet, Hudelot-Noellat, Jadot, Bouchard, etc., that combine richness and flavor complexity. So, I don’t think I want to be pigeon-holed.

Except that, I actually think of people in category (a) as more likely being California or Oregon pinot lovers (many of whom find Burgundy maddeningly inconsistent because they cannot find the body they want consistently in Burgundy) while category (b) drinkers are Burg guys who cannot find the ethereal and delicate flavors they want in domestic pinots. This probably is why there are so many threads where American pinot lovers and Burg lovers really talk past each other. We are looking for different things. I admit that, while I don’t want to be pigeon-holed with respect to Burg in terms of either producers or vintages, I have to be honest enough to say that if (a) were American Pinot and (b) was Burgundy, I would have voted (b), strongly.

14

I like 2010 the best, the only vintage in both lists, so I guess that makes me non-binary, or would that be binary.

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My two favorite vintages probably are 1999 and 2010, which probably confirms my not being pigeon-holed vote.

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16

Perhaps fluid?

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Is anyone else noticing that Jasper Morris doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge the 2017 vintage? (I would put that in the “camp B” grouping)

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17 imo would fit in both; it’s like 10, a Goldilocks vintage imo, if not quite as good.

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Makes sense. Seems to me to be a successor to vintages like 2000, 2001 and 2007. One thing these vintages have in common is very long drinking windows. Almost never a bad time to drink them.

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Except he seemed to dislike the 2000.

I think 2000 and 2001 are superb vintages; 2007 more average but good for early drinking.