Burgundy SXM-Info | SXM features

Burgundy has been my favorite wine ever since I graduated from rosé as I graduated from college. I thank my uncle for introducing me to some of the best (Musigny, Echézeaux, and Corton). After his introduction, I wandered around Burgundy on many vacations, seeking the lesser known vineyards and lesser known winemakers, looking for bargains. Burgundy stretches from Chablis in the NW, down through the Cote d'Or bracketing Beaune, through Rully, Mercurey, Givry, and Montagny, to the Mâconnais, to Beaujolais. The best wines come from the Cote d'Or and most people would further specify that the northern part, the Côte de Nuits named after the village of Nuits-St-Georges, has the very best. Here all red wines are made from the Pinot Noir grape and all white wines are chardonnay. Bordeaux producers were classified in 1855 mostly based on the prices fetched over the previous decade or so. This has generally held up well, possibly because it is self-reinforcing. If Chateau Nuits-St-Waga-Waga is top-rated, it will command a higher price, allowing the owner to hire the best winemaker. He will be able to have a swarm of experienced harvesters picking the ripest clusters and leaving the others. He can afford new oak barrels. And indeed, the premium one pays for the best four (now five with the elevation of Mouton Rothschild in 1973) has increased. That sentence, however, has a hint that the 1855 classification was not perfect in that Mouton was overlooked. Less well known is that M. Lavalle produced a classification of Burgundy in that same year, taking price into account, but basing it on location of the vineyard, not the producer. This is somewhat related to the fact that during the French revolution, the large estates in Bordeaux tended to remain intact while the large estates in Burgundy (frequently owned by the church) were divided among the revolutionaries. This in turn led to the rise of negotiants who would buy grapes or barrels of freshly squeezed grape juice and make wine with their name and the name of the location of the grapes. Thus, it becomes important to know both the ranking of the various locations and the reputation of the negotiant. Most of the Cote d'Or runs north-south on the eastern slope of a range of low hills. It is generally agreed that the vines must be stressed in order to produce the best wine. Rain runs down the hill carrying soil with it. The vines on the hill must send roots deeper to get rain and find nutrients in the sparse soil. The vines on the flats have an easier time of it, soaking up lots of water which dilutes their taste. Thus the best vineyards are generally on the hill where catching the first rays of the rising sun also helps to prevent frost. So which are the best vineyards? Chambertin, St Denis, Musigny, Echézeaux, Vougeot, Corton, Romanée, Montrachet, and a few others were named Grand Crus and given the right to put their name on the label. An even greater number vineyards were named Premier Crus and given the right to put the commune name and their vineyard name of Prenier Cru on the label. A third group of vineyards can use the commune name and even add a vineyard name in very small print. The last group cannot use the commune name but only call themselves Borgogne.

The World Atlas of Wine by Hugh Johnson, Jancis Robinson ($31.50, $22 used) - The World Atlas of Wine is something of a dream-team production. The names Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson alone recommend any book on which they appear. The fifth edition (in 30 years) of this astonishingly successful book lives up to, and surpasses, its predecessors. In 350 densely packed but never clotted pages the authors manage the extraordinary feat of characterizing wine production throughout the world, from Vancouver Island to Japan--Buddhists first planted vines in that inhospitably precipitous, monsoon-lashed land over a 1,000 years ago. After a substantial introductory section dealing with the history of wine, its making, storage, and enjoyment, we're off. Starting with (where else?) France and Burgundy, each wine area is summarized in terms of its geography, climate, and preferred vines and the appellations, laws, and traditions that govern production. The discussion of Pomerol, for example, tells you a great deal in one short page. Even since 1994, when the fourth edition came out, vast changes have swept the wine world, and many parts of the atlas have been correspondingly completely reworked. South America, Canada, Southern France, Italy, Greece, Eastern Europe, and the Eastern Mediterranean are among the areas that have benefited. The regional maps that form the core of the book are a triumph of clarity. The whole production constitutes a brilliant achievement of organization and synthesis, forming an indispensable resource for any wine lover at all interested in where the wine they drink comes from and why it tastes the way it does. There is an 2006 edition available for about $23 (new) and $2 (used) and a 2005 pocket edition for about $3 used.

The Great Domaines of Burgundy: A Guide to the Finest Wine Producers of the Cote d'Or, Third Edition by Remington Norman and Charles Taylor - ($23 new) I have a copy of Parker's Burgundy: A Comprehensive Guide to the Producers, Appellations, and Wines but I cannot recommend it at this time as it has not been updated since 1990 when it was first published. There is also the problem that Parker seems to like Bordeaux and Rhone wines rather than Burgundies. So, get this book. Subdivided into hundreds of domaines, often family-run and small in size, Burgundy can seem forbiddingly fragmented even to wine experts. Now, acclaimed wine writers Remington Norman and Charles Taylor help wine lovers unravel the mystery of this grape. In compiling this revised version of their much-praised book, they revisited all the domaines that appeared in previous editions, along with numerous rising stars, to select the very best-and remove those that no longer make the grade. Norman and Taylor spoke to the winemakers about their grapes, their soil, and their techniques and, of course, sampled their wines. In addition to a domaine-by-domaine guide with coverage of the region's microclimates, most important grapes, wine styles, there are tips on buying, storing and tasting wine and a rundown of recent vintages.

Burgundy: The Country, the Wines, the People by Eunice Fried - ($4 used, essentially you pay for shipping) From Publishers Weekly: Wine writer Fried views Burgundy, long celebrated for its fine wine and food, as a special, mystical place. She captures the spirit of the region so well that readers will forgive the occasional awkward and exaggerated moments in her prose. Fried begins with a profile of Becky Wasserman, an American who has infiltrated the wine business in Burgundy; through her experiences the reader is introduced to the world of winemaking, from its history in the area and techniques of the trade to the personalities of local winemakers and merchants. The historical perspective is intriguing, and Fried's comparison of a wine-producing monastery of the Middle Ages and its contemporary offspring lends weight to the French maxim "Plus ca change, plus la meme chose." This is enticing reading for the wine lover, Francophile, or Burgundy-bound traveler. On a personal note, I received this book from an executive at Harper & Row when it was published in 1986. Becky founded Le Serbet and became a most rare thing, a female, American negotiant in Burgundy. I wrote to her and visited her farmhouse in 1987 for pleasant lunch and an outstanding wine-tasting experience. The big farmhouse dining table was 4' by 16'. The six of us were dining at one end and the rest of the table was loaded with wines to taste. The farmhouse was located in Bouilland about ten miles further up the Rhoin River from Savigny-les-Beaune. It's a small town but has the Hostellerie Du Vieux Moulin, a lovely old mill converted into at hotel sporting a one star restaurant.

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