John LINDGREN
A TOAST TO BEAUNE and BURGUNDY
“I started out on Burgundy – but soon hit the harder stuff”
Bob Dylan
Place Darcy, Dijon, Burgundy. It is my second day, first morning in Bourgogne located in the central eastern France between Paris and the Swiss alpine valleys.
It’s the end of September, 2007. The mid morning autumn temperature reads 18 degrees Celsius, dry, crisp weather, and a clear deep ultramarine sky. No wind blowing and no planes in the sky. A splendid European autumn day.
From my large oval 2nd floor balcony I can see the environmentally friendly almost silent green city buses and bikers in business attires and students carrying rucksacks gliding rapidly by on super light carbon fibre high-tech velocipedes.
After checking out from the posh Sofitel Hotel La Cloche - I am on the road again in Peugeot van joined by a group of South East Asian magazine / newspaper wine and travel hacks heading south, out of Dijon town.
Once past the roadside tractor showrooms and agricultural depots
and the Carrfour hypermarche you’ll suddenly find yourself in a Technicolor postcard wine country named Côte d' Or (golden slopes) with a panoramic vista of vineyards and vines covering the golden brown soil. The Vitis vinifera planted every where, even beside the tarmac and on every single slope of this old legendary Burgundian land.
The village road signs reads like a three star Michelin restaurant wine list: Aloxe-Corton, Chambolle-Musigny, Chassagne, Meursault, Nuits-St-Georges, Pommard, Richebourg, Romanee,Vosne Gevrey-Chambertin,Vougeot and Puligny-Montrachet.
Behind the prestigious names of the small villages you'll find sedate, dull, though exceedingly prosperous, orderly and ultra clean villages. We did not discover one single filter tipped cigarette butt, no empty PCV-maxi bottles or discarded dirty plastic bags during two days of village-vineyard hopping.
These quiet dwellings of solid gray stone houses are inhabited by well-heeled vignerons (wine growers), international negociants (wine merchants) some European and North American high-net worth emigres who have purchased a two hundred year old stone walled house next to a small two thousand year old vineyard.
In the 19th century the French law, the ‘Napoleonic Code’ dictated that land had to be divided equally upon inheritance, which split the vineyards into increasingly smaller plots ‘parcels’ of land explaining the many the many appellations. (An appellation is a geographical-based term used to identify where the grapes for a wine were grown).
Unlike Bordeaux's 57 appellations and 9.000 wineries chateaux, producing 700 million bottles of wine Burgundy is composed of thousands of small-scale wine growers, domaine, and small vineyard owners each with tiny parcels of land on which they produce an astonishing variety of red and white wines.
Less than sixty kilometers from Dijon we arrive at the provincial town of Beaune pronounced (‘Bone’), Burgundy’s medieval wine-capital, with the iconic polychrome tiles of the Hospice of Beaune.The Hospice, which has been a working hospital since its founding, is actually two major buildings, the Hotel-Dieu and the Hospice de la Charite. The Hotel-Dieu is Beaune's most important attraction, with its perfectly preserved Burgundian-Flemish architecture and priceless art collection.
In November every year the Hospices de Beaune, the world's oldest charity wine auction takes place. The 2007 "Hospices" wine auction made a record UDS 6.million at the weekend.
The wine auction is held annually in Beaune and now in its 147th year, the auction sells Burgundy by the barrel from vineyards owned by the local Hospice, an ancient charitable hospital. Each barrel, locally known as a 'pièce', holds 228 litres or 288 bottles of wine. In central Beaune we find the The Wine School of Bourgundy” or L’Ecole des Vins de Bourgogne or Bureau Interprofessionel des Vins De Bourgogne (BIVB) a three story modern aluminum, glass building which like looked any Faculty of Organic Chemistry.
At the ‘Ecole’ the local wine expert, the wine lecturer Jean-Pierre Renard a born and bred Burgundian and a educator of the soil, the grapes, the vinification (the wine making process) and end product in the bottle.
“The Burgundians have always believed in the importance of le terroir. which refers to the combination of soil and sub-soil, climate and micro climate and position relative to the sun. The soil's composition of chalk, clay and flint can change dramatically within just a few metres, having a marked effect on the wine and the cost from 100 EUR – 100.000 EUR ” says Mr Renard.
Jean-Pierre Renard elaborates: “Burgundy is like a parent with two kids” says Renard, and explains the difference between the two grapes: “One is chardonnay, who we send out to explore the world and anywhere the happy Chardonnay seems to feel like home, especially in Australia and California. The other is Pinot Noir, who fussy and hard to please on her travels and only really feels at home in on the slopes in Burgundy."
Monsieur Renard says: “Burgundy is home to 100 of France's 467 Appellation Origine Contrôlée (AOC) vineyards.
The AOC being the prestigious sought after French government certification given to wines made only from grapes from a particular region.
The Burgundy AOC was established in 1935. A classification system, a labelling of regional, village, premier cru and grand cru wines was born - and the vintners had to stand by it.
Our press kit explains further:
Burgundy’s AOC’s are divided into four categories or levels:
Regional Appellations: Fifty-three percent of the total production.
Village Appellations: Thirty-five percent of the total production.
Premier Crus: Ten percent of the total production.
Grand Crus: Only two percent of the total production.
We have 26,550 of hectares of vineyards in production. And our annual production is approximately 200 million bottles wine per year based on only two grape varieties of the two legendary grapes: Pinot Noir (Pee-no Noa-aar) for the red wine and Chardonnay (Char- DONN-ee) for the white ” says Renard.
“ That makes 120 million bottles of white (Chardonnay) and 80 million bottles of (Pinot Noir) or 63 percent white and 37 percent red wine. The white wine wins. Voila!”
Our wines are considered among the best in the world thanks to our grape varieties, our climate, our soil “le terroir” and thousands of years of know how Burgundian “Savoir Faire”.
Next step on the agenda: Jean-Pierre Renard gives us a condensed wine tasters education:
J-P Renard says: “First of all wine Tasting is not a science. It is based on very subjective sensations and has nothing in common with scientific procedures. This is what makes it so interesting”
And he adds: “The aim is not to identify what is in the glass but to say if it is a quality wine or simply if we like it or not. Unfortunately, a large number of wine-tasters think that the ability to name, the grape, and the wine in the glass is absolutely necessary to be recognized by his peers. We must not forget that at present a list of over 3,000 grape varieties has been compiled and taking into consideration the number of wine makers, vintages, appellations and possible blending of wines, we have several hundreds of thousands different wines to taste.
Mon Dieu! Who can honestly say that they are capable of recognizing them all we recognize what we already know, so let us be modest".
“This is how we do it” J-P Renard says:
"So, anyone who is attentive to what he eats and drinks is a taster.In what manner you may ask, can we be attentive to what is on our plate or in our glass? By becoming aware of our senses. tasting is without a doubt the most sensual exercise there is.
First the visual inspection, then the nose and finally the mouth"
And the conclusion”
“Madame et Messieurs! This is how we do it”, says J-P Renard and shows:
"Introduce a draft of wine into your mouth, swill it across the tongue, roll it around the palate, churn it around, emitting the gargling sound so beloved of tasters, which is produced by slowly inhaling air through the centre of your mouth, and finally eject it. Voila!"
“ The ejection is what has to be learnt” adds J-P Renard as he spits out a mouth full of a very expensive Pommard 1er Cru Le Clos Micot 2003 Domaine du Chateau de Chassagne.
Equipped with laboratory size spittoons (vessels to eject the wine into) we listen to Jean Luis Renards as we start to go through three white wines and three red wines.
Pouilly-Fuissee 2004 Domaine Pascal Rollet
Chablis 1er cru Vaucoupin 2005
Domaine Alain et Cyril Gautheron
Puligny-Montrachet 2004
Domaine Vincent Giradin,
And the reds:
Mercurey 1er Cru Les Vasees 2005 Domaine Francois Raquillet.
Morey-Saint-Denis 2005 Domaine Alain Jenniard.
Pommard 1er Cru Le Clos Micot 2003/ Domaine Du Chateau de Chassagne.
After the exercise and notes ranging from crispy, fruity to full bodied with long aftertaste and with some getting a tad tipsy.
Mr Renard continues: “Let me tell your more about our wine and vines.” says Monsieur Renard in a charming French accent: “Vines are temperamental: frost on the wrong day, sun at the wrong time, too much water or poor drainage, and they won't come up with the goods. And they like a slope, which is why so many wines are called "Côte (hill, slope) de" somewhere. But not anywhere”.
Burgundy's best wines come from a narrow strip of hillside called the Cote d’Or (“golden slopes”) that runs southwest from Dijon Santenay in the south, and is divided into main two regions, Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune and further south Côte Chalonnaise and Maconnais (Makonn-nee).
This amazing 60 kilometer long “wine road” is only twenty minutes from the Burgundy's capital Dijon and 1 ½ hours from Paris.
“Anywhere in Burgundy, especially in Cote d’Or you can make a very good living on a patch of four or five hectares, the average-sized plot” says Jean-Pierre Renard. “The proof being that none is ever up for sale”.
Among wine aficionados, with few exceptions the reds of the Côte de Nuits are considered the best: they are richer, more elegant; they age better and cost more. Wines from Côte de Beaune are known particularly for their emblematic whites, the Meursault and the Montrachet which the US President Thomas Jefferson called the best white wine of Burgundy after having tasted it Beaune in 1787.
Jean-Pierre Renard: “The single most important factor determining the "character" of wines is the soil. In the Cote d’Or , the relative mixture of chalk, flint and clay varies over very short distances, making for an enormous variety of taste. Chalky soil makes a wine virile, masculine or corse, in other words "heady" – il y a de la mâche, they say, "something to bite on" – while clay makes it more feminine, elegant more agréable.
Our final stop on the “Route de Grands Crus”is Domaine Taupenot-Merme, a family owned winery in the heart of the small village of Morey-St-Denis. Morey does sport its fair share of great growth sites. In fact, over 50% of the acreage in Morey-St.-Denis is rated either Premier or Grand Cru, one of the highest concentrations of top sites in all of Burgundy.
Like a French medieval farm house with a setting fit a Gerald Depardieu movie. A grey cobble stone courtyard, with an old well standing in the middle. The still elegant three story main building must be at least a hundred years old.
The estate, domaine at 30 acres is rather large state by Burgundian standards.
The age of the vines is 50 years on average and all grapes are de-stemmed, and aged in medium or low toast barrels. 25 percent new French oak barrels are used for the village wines, 40 percent for grand and premier Cru, says Romain a forty something healthy and sportif looking French vigneron who works in the cellar with the vinification whilst sister Virginie looks after sales including export.
The Taupenot- Mermes and are typical of the new generation of Burgundian wine growers who are using the full potential of priceless family vineyard parcels by sensitive viticulture and thoughtful winemaking.
The roots of the family estate go back to the 1760 - eighteen years before Thomas Jefferson drank his first Montrachet in a nearby village.
Romain Taupenot-Merme explained that the cool nights during the 2005 vintage, and the end of the summer of beautifully warm days ensured that the acidity was retained. The grapes had developed thick skins, and sugars were high, so excellent extraction of flavours was possible.
Our tasting of the 2005 Taupenot-Merme vintages left a big smile on everybody’s face and many big empty wine glasses. Burgundy Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Beautifully structured, expressive wines! Very fine wines good to the last drop!
The 2005 Burgundy vintage has been called: “the perfect vintage, and the extraordinary vintage, especially for the reds” and the vintage of the (very young) century…”
However, unfortunately very limited bottles of the extraordinary 2005 Burgundy wines will reach the shelves of our wine stores in Thailand. If so - they will be sold at exorbitant prices.
“II think it is a great error to consider a heavy tax on wines as a tax on luxury. On the contrary, it is a tax on the health of our citizens.”
Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States of America
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