Isn’t there a reason why grapes/wines are declassified? Surely if they are good enough they will bear their cru on their label.
Obviously there will be plenty of exceptions, but aren’t declassified grapes/wine often just not that good despite their lofty origins?
Isn’t there a reason why grapes/wines are declassified? Surely if they are good enough they will bear their cru on their label.
Obviously there will be plenty of exceptions, but aren’t declassified grapes/wine often just not that good despite their lofty origins?
That isn’t the case. It’s a village appellation that just happens to apply to vineyards from several villages. See the BIVB’s website here: Bourgogne wines, crafted in an exceptional winegrowing region - Bourgogne wines.
Well, it´s a bit more complicated:
technically it´s a regional appellation - and not a Village appellation, because one can blend wines from the Northern Villages (Brochon+Fixin) with Southern Villages (Premeaux, Comblachien, Corgoloin) - and most negociants do so.
But practically a Cotes du Nuits Villages from an individual small grower will come from one or few plots quite close to the hometown, and then it represents a single Village (but one not entitled to an own AOC - due to less fine terroir).
The Cotes du Beaune Villages AOC is different - because you can blend wines from all Appellations in the CdBeaune together.
Depends… most should age well and gain from btl age. The truth is, too much Burgundy just like too much BDX is drank too young. Too many btls are not held long enough. Burgundy at every level has more structure than most CA PNs. Most of us start out drinking CA Cabs & PNs and expect Burgundy to peak just as quickly as those wine. It doesn’t. That said there are likely exceptions like an ultra ripe year like 2003 not lasting as long. My biggest problem used be not allowing my Burgs the time they need to age. For example I haven’t touched one btl of my 2005 D’Angervilles because it takes that producer along time to shed its youth and oak treatment. Same thing with Vogue. I stopped buying Vogue and D’Angerville because of prices escalating beyond their value but also because they both need a lot of time to absorb the oak.
Long story short, I’d have zero concerns about aging village level Burgundy for a minimum of 10 years and allowing many btls to go longer. It really comes down to patience & storage space more than anything.
Not technically: the INAO officially classify Côte de Nuits Villages as an ‘appellation communale’ even though it comes from multiple communes. See Pitiot (p. 353 of the 15th ed. of Les Vins de Bourgogne). It’s an arcane point, however.
Next hard part is figuring which village wines are going to age in a way you will like. My rough rule of thumb is: if I like it young, I’ll probably like it aged (not for all wine, but for red burgs from good producers/vintages).
I’ve been buying village wine like this for the last few years, plus trying to buy aged village wine when I can find it. Actually fairly challenging. I assume because people drink them young? But when I have this has validated my hypothesis.
There’s an Alain Burguet ‘99 GC on winebid now that could be a good sample.
Sometimes the producer has so few vines in a particular vineyard that they can’t vinify that fruit separately. That is particularly likely to happen in vintages with small crops.
And often there simply isn’t enough demand for wines at the higher classification/price. That happened at the Produttori di Barbaresco, for instance, with the excellent 2006 vintage. They didn’t bottle the single-vineyards in part because there was a lot of single-vineyard wine in the distribution pipeline from earlier vintages. This happens all the time now in Germany, where lots of Kabinetts qualify as Spatlese, and Spatleses as Auslese.
If you can’t sell out at the higher classification, you may be better to downgrade some of the wine and generate cash flow rather than tie up capital in inventory.
So there are various reasons why excellent fruit/wine may end up declassified even though, other things being equal, the producer will want to sell the wine at the highest possible appellation or classification.
Feel free to correct me if I am wrong,
I seem to remember that the powers that be put a limit on the amount of juice that could be produced per hectare, so if a producer exceeded that in a big vintage then the grand cru excess juice would go into their premier cru until they hit their limit and then into their village wines and so on down the chain.
I buy Burguet’s Gevrey “Mes Favorites” one out of every two or three vintages and usually think it’s a very good value. I’ve liked the two '99 “Mes Favorites” I’ve had and have another bottle waiting to open, this year. If that Winebid bottle is in proper condition, I think it’s well-worth more than its current bid price.
Opened this today based on this thread. This one has aged very well.
Older village wines that have aged well and developed into something 1er and GC level are 78 Roumier Chambolle Musigny, and late 80’s and mid 90s Dujac MSD.
Put this back in the fridge uncorked, ran some errands and came back 5 hours later.
I know scientifically 5 hours of oxygenation does nothing but this was a totally different wine. There is now sweetness and a lot more weight. Evolves into a pleasant surprise and still very drinkable. Not much complexity but some secondary characteristics make quite good alone and even better with food.
Posted from CellarTracker
Below picture shows how much wine was put back into the fridge for 5 hours.
I was in K&L today, remembered your post, so I picked one up. Unfortunately, I didn’t remember it quite right, and got the Cote de Beaune instead. But it’s nevertheless a pretty nice wine for the money, nice darker cherry fruit, some dried black cherry, decent fine structure. Enjoying it, but now I need to try the Nuits
Alan,
The staff helping said the Nuits is much better than the Beaune.
Drouhin Cote de Beaune is a different wine than a Cote de Beaune Villages
The Drouhin wine, IIR, is limited to a few vineyard sites outside of Beaune