The Booklovers' Guide to Wine

by Patrick Alexander

  Grand Cru AOC indicates one of the three vineyards in the village that have earned Grand Cru status. In this case, the label does not even show the name of the village—just the vineyard itself. So the grand cru vineyard of Bâtard-Montrachet labels its wines “Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru Contrôlée.” If you don’t already know that this wine comes from the village of Chassagne Montrachet, then you shouldn’t be drinking it!

  Chassagne Montrachet has about one hundred vineyards in total; other villages may have more or less, but the same classification applies to them all: the village AOC, premier cru AOC, and finally the grand cru AOC. Chassagne Montrachet is unusual in that almost 50 percent of its vineyards qualify as premier cru. By contrast, the village of Santenay lies just a few miles south, but has only twelve Premier Crus and no Grand Crus. At the other extreme, in the Côte de Nuits, the village of Gevrey-Chambertin has nine grand crus and the village of Vosne-Romanée has six.

  There are many hundreds of different wine labels from Burgundy, each with their own unique artwork. However, in order to clarify the different levels of AOC classification, three of the five labels shown above are deliberately selected from the same négociant, Louis Jadot, and thus display a consistency of design.

  Five years after introducing the 1861 classification system, the wise men of Burgundy went even further and decided to add to each wine-producing village the name of its most famous vineyard. So, for example, the village of Gevrey became Gevrey-Chambertin; Chambolle became Chambolle Musigny; Vosne, Vosne-Romanee; and the village of Chassagne became Chassagne-Montrachet.

  Unlike the large estates of Bordeaux which are often owned by American banks or Chinese adult toy manufacturers, the vineyards of Burgundy are usually small and owned by individual farmers. A very small number of winegrowers, known as Domaines, are large and wealthy enough to bottle their own wines, but most winegrowers are too small. Consequently, because few vineyards produce and bottle their own wine, over the centuries a system of négociants has evolved. Négociants are wine merchants who buy the grapes from smaller growers and bottle it to sell under their own label. Many négociants have built the family’s reputation over several generations, and names such as Maison Louis Jadot and Joseph Drouhin are as well-known and respected as the famous vineyards from which they make their wine.

  The major wine regions of Burgundy, from south to north, are as follows:

  Beaujolais: The one place where the rules against Gamay were ignored was in the very south of Burgundy in the hills around the city of Lyon, where the rivers Saone and the Rhône are joined. So much Beaujolais wine was produced from the Gamay grape for the thirsty silk workers of the city that it was often called “the third river of Lyon.”

  Beaujolais is a light-red wine with few tannins, which is meant to be drunk when young. By French law, it may be sold and consumed on the third Thursday in November. In the early 1970s, a few restaurants in London, followed by more restaurants in New York, started racing each other to serve the Beaujolais Nouveau on the Thursday it was released or just a few days later. For several years, eccentric English hordes would race across northern France from Lyon, driving equally eccentric vehicles in an attempt to be the first to bring their bottle of Nouveau to London. Sometimes the Beaujolais was delivered across the English Channel by colorful hot air balloons, WWI biplanes, or even dropped in by parachute; across the Atlantic, of course, it was delivered by Concorde. This very rapidly became a marketing success and worldwide fad, and unfortunately many of the growers focused on producing vast quantities of the cheaper Beaujolais Nouveau to meet demand and discarding their better quality wines. Now that the Beaujolais Nouveau vogue has run its course, the reputation for good Beaujolais wines that had been badly damaged by the craze for nasty Nouveau needs restoring. Serious growers in the communes of Brouilly, Morgon, Fleurie, and elsewhere in Beaujolais, are working hard to gradually reestablish the reputation of the Beaujolais appellation.

  Maconnaise: Immediately north of Beaujolais, around the town of Macon, is the Chardonnay producing region of Maconnaise, of which the most famous appellation is Pouilly Fuissé. Unfortunately, when winegrowers of Burgundy were invited to Beaune to register for the classification, the arrogant winegrowers of Pouilly Fuissé were so confident that their Chardonnays were superior to all others, they did not even bother to attend. Consequently, there are no Pouilly Fuissé Premier or Grand Crus.

  Côte Chalonnaise: Immediately north of the Maconnaise, the Côte Chalonnaise produces both red and white wines. Although some twenty-seven Premier Crus are produced, there are no Grand Crus.

  Côte d’Or (the golden slope): This region is the glory of Burgundy and produces some of the most famous and expensive wines in the world.

  Côte de Beaune: The southern section, close to the city of Beaune, is called Côte de Beaune, and produces mainly whites (Chardonnay). World-famous vineyards include Aloxe-Corton, Meursault, Puligny Montrachet, and Chassagne Montrachet, which we examined above.

  Côte de Nuits: The northern section, close to Dijon, is called the Côte de Nuits, and produces mainly red wines (Pinot Noir obviously), such as Gevrey-Chambertin, Vosne-Romaneé, and Romanée-Conti—wines of almost mythical stature and unapproachable prices.

  One of the best discussions of the rarity and pricing of the wines from these vineyards was given in a Vanity Fair article by Maximillian Potter in May 2011. The article was called “The Assassin in the Vineyard,” and Potter has since expanded it into a gloriously fascinating book about Burgundy wine, called Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of the Plot to Poison the World’s Greatest Wine:

  “Indeed, whatever superlatives can be ascribed to a wine apply to the eponymous wine from the Romanée-Conti vineyard. It ranks among the very top of the most highly coveted, most expensive wines in the world. According to the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s exclusive American distributor, Wilson Daniels, acquiring or purchasing a bottle is as simple as calling your local “fine-wine retailer.” However, because D.R.C. is produced in such limited quantities, and because the high-end wine market is such an intricate and virtually impenetrable web of advance orders —futures—and aftermarket wheeling and dealing, it’s not as simple as the distributor suggests. Wilson Daniels’s own Web site points would-be D.R.C. buyers to wine-searcher.com, which is a worldwide marketplace for wine sales and online auctions. There, the average price for a single bottle from 2007 (excluding tax and the buyers’ premium) is $6,455—and that’s the most recent vintage available.”

  “A single bottle of 1945 Romanée-Conti would be a steal at $38,000. Last October, in Hong Kong, Sotheby’s Sleigh staged a record-setting sale of Romanée-Conti. The 77 bottles, which included three magnums, were divided among 18 lots, spanned relatively recent vintages between 1990 and 2007, and fetched a total hammer price of $750,609. A single bottle of 1990 Romanée-Conti went for $10,953—which was a few hundred dollars more than the sale price that day for an entire 12-bottle lot of 1990 Château Lafite.”

  Chablis: Situated in the department of the Yonne in the northern part of Burgundy, Chablis has been famous throughout history for its white wines. Because of its colder climate and limestone soil, the Chardonnays of Chablis are known for their crisp acidity and flinty taste when compared to the more rounded and softer Chardonnays just sixty miles south in the Côte de Beaune.

  Apart from the excellent quality of its wines, Chablis always had the major advantage of direct access to Paris by river, which made it a favorite at the royal court throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. However, the Phylloxera epidemic of the late nineteenth century coincided with the arrival of the railroads. Direct rail access to Paris from Bordeaux, Lyon, and Marseilles, left Chablis at a disadvantage. While there was money to pay for the replanting of vineyards in Bordeaux, Lyon, and Marseilles, the department of the Yonne was one of the poorest in France and, without a railroad to deliver the wine, there was little incentive or investment to replant th
e vineyards following the devastation of Phylloxera. A further blow came from the United States when, looking for a generic term for their bulk white jug wines, the Californians decided on the term “Chablis.” For Americans, therefore, the word Chablis became synonymous with cheap and nasty.

  Thankfully, the reputation of Chablis is gradually returning as local winemakers are restoring the old vineyards, and currently the Chablis region can boast forty premier cru vineyards. Additionally, although there is only one Chablis Grand Cru, it is divided between seven officially recognized vineyards, or grand cru climats. Despite the lack of railroads, the underlying quality of the terroir has never changed, and Chablis is being restored to its former glory.

  Bordeaux vs. Burgundy

  The wines of Burgundy were developed by the monks and peasants for the Royal courts in Paris and Avignon; the wines of Bordeaux were developed by bourgeois merchants for the English aristocracy. The red wines of Burgundy are made from a single grape, while those of Bordeaux are a blend of many different grapes. The vineyards of Burgundy are usually small, owned by fifth generation farmers with dirt under their fingernails; the vineyards of Bordeaux are often vast estates owned by distant Chinese banks or transnational conglomerates. Even the shapes of the bottles are different. Burgundy bottles have gently sloping shoulders; they are slightly plumper with almost feminine curves. Bordeaux bottles are far more austere, with high masculine shoulders and straight upright sides. We associate Bordeaux with an ascetic English gentleman, rigidly slim, dignified and serious, as he cautiously pours, sniffs, and judges the taste of the wine which he has so carefully decanted. But our image of Burgundy is of a plump, good-natured monk, cheerfully washing down an excellent meal with yet another “beaker of the warm south.”

  If all red wines in Burgundy are made from the same grape, what makes the difference, then, between a bottle of Chevrey-Chambertan and, say, a Romanée-Conti? They are both made with Pinot Noir, and both vineyards are in the Côte de Nuits. The difference lies in the soil of the two different vineyards, the micro-climate, the elevation of the land, and the drainage; in short, the difference between individual Burgundy vineyards is their unique terroir. In Bordeaux, on the other hand, the wines are made with a blend of six possible different grapes, and so the difference between different bottles of Bordeaux depends to a large extent on how the winemaker chooses to blend them, rather than where they are grown. Châteaux Latour and Château Lafite are near neighbors in the commune of Pauliac, but both wines have a different and distinctive taste. It is not the terroir that distinguishes them, but the skill of the cellar master, the Maître de Chais, in maintaining the traditional house taste.

  Victoria Moore, the splendidly entertaining and informative wine critic for The Guardian, explained in her 2008 article “Clash of the Titans: Bordeaux vs Burgundy:”

  “One of my shameful wine secrets is that I crave good Bordeaux more than I do good Burgundy. Wine lore has it that Bordeaux is more for beginners; a drink you enjoy before your palate is quite fully mature and you learn to understand the exquisite beauty of Burgundy. Bordeaux is said to be cerebral: the algebra, the musical theory, the astrophysics and the essay; Burgundy, meanwhile, is a scintillating flare of emotion and pure being that eclipses thought like the sound of an operatic aria or the sight of the northern lights (without the technical explanation of why they appear). Roald Dahl once wrote that “to drink a Romanée-Conti is like having an orgasm in the mouth and nose at the same time,” a sentence I cannot imagine being composed about Bordeaux, about which the words “distinguished” or “dignified” usually seem more apposite.”

  Another Pinot Noir fan quoted in Jean-Robert Pitte’s excellent book Bordeaux/Burgundy: A Vintage Rivalry, said that “Bordeaux makes you pee while Burgundy makes you ejaculate.”

  The Romans first recognized Burdigila (Bordeaux) as one of Europe’s strategically placed and protected natural deepwater harbors, and since that time it has always been important for trade and commerce. While the towns and the villages of Burgundy are rural and secluded, Bordeaux has always been an international trading center. Since the arrival of the English and Dutch in the early Middle Ages, Bordeaux has been affluent and attractive to outside investors. In recent years, it has become increasingly corporatized and preoccupied with hiking-up prices for Chinese billionaires. Burgundy, by contrast, is more pastoral and, might one say, innocent? It is a land of family-owned small-holdings where the owner works the fields himself, dirtying his hands and sampling the grapes daily until they are ready to pick. Where is the romance in drinking a wine owned by a New York or Hong Kong bank, compared to the romance of a wine made with love by a man whose family has been tending the soil and harvesting the grapes by hand for generations?

  Many argue that the subtle mixture of the six grape varietals in a glass of Bordeaux creates a complexity that the mono-grape wines of Burgundy can never attain. Others argue that Bordeaux is for beginners learning to broaden their palate, pedestrian at best, while the mystic purity of a Pinot Noir from Burgundy offers a glimpse of the divine.

  And so the debate continues into the twenty-first century—though perhaps it was already solved by the French writer Brillat-Savarin back in 1825, in his book The Physiology of Taste:

  “‘Your Honor,’ an old marquise once asked, from her end of the table to the other, ‘which do you prefer, a wine from Bordeaux or from Burgundy?’”

  “‘Madame,’ the magistrate who was thus questioned answered in a druidic tone, ‘that is a trial in which I so thoroughly enjoy weighing the evidence that I always put off my verdict until the next week.’”

  The same writer also wrote: “Burgundy makes you think of silly things, Bordeaux makes you talk of them and Champagne makes you do them.”

  Champagne

  Although Chablis was politically considered part of Burgundy, geographically, with its flinty soil and colder climate, it is closer and more similar to Champagne. Champagne is the most northerly of France’s wine regions, and like Burgundy, the grapes grown are either Pinot Noir or Chardonnay. Although Pinot Noir is a red wine grape, by removing the skin immediately before fermentation, the resulting juice will have no color. If the skins are left on for a short period during fermentation, the resulting juice will be pink or rosé. Champagne made from 100 percent Pinot Noir grapes (skins removed) is called Blanc de Noir; Champagne made from 100 percent Chardonnay is called Blanc de Blanc. Most champagne is made from a blend of the two varietals.

  The Kimmeridgean chalk and limestone strata originates in Dorset, and characterizes the South Downs of England (most visibly at the White Cliffs of Dover), crosses the Channel to the white cliffs of Picardy (stained rosé with so much European tribal blood), and thence to Champagne, the upper-Loire, and finally Chablis, where it contributes to the distinctively crisp and mineral taste of all three wine regions. It is for this reason that French Champagne houses have recently begun planting vineyards in England, on the South Downs, as global warming pushes the vine-growing frontier ever northward.

  Methode Champenoise: The “sparkle” in champagne is achieved by bottling the wine before it has finished fermenting so that it completes the process in the bottle. Sometimes extra yeast and rock sugar is added to the wine in order to continue this secondary fermentation. During this final fermentation, the bottles are placed neck down at a forty-five degree angle in a pupitre, a special riddling-rack for the remuage, or “riddling” process. Each day during remuage, the bottle is twisted gently in the pupitre by the riddler, a man whose job is to twist the bottles gently so that the dead yeast and lees fall like sediment into the neck while the carbon dioxide is absorbed under pressure by the wine. A professional remuer or riddler can twist forty thousand bottles each day in this fashion. When this secondary fermentation has finished, all the sediment will have collected in the neck of the bottle. The neck is then frozen, and the tube of ice containing the lees, or dead yeast, is disgorged from the bot
tle and topped-up with a dosage of old champagne before the bottle is sealed with a special mushroom shaped cork and secured with a wire-cage, or muselet. Because of the secondary fermentation and the carbonation inside the bottle, champagne bottles need to be made of extra-strong, thick glass, in order to withstand the internal pressure of ninety pounds per square inch.

  By order of both United States and European courts, sparkling wines produced outside the Champagne region may not use the word Champagne. For a while, other regions were allowed to use the term Methode Champenoise’if they used the secondary-fermentation process described above; however, since 2005, the only term that may be used for such wines is méthode traditionnelle.

  Because Champagne is France’s most northerly wine-producing region, the cold winters often caused the wine to stop fermenting until the spring, by which time the wine had often been bottled. Because French glass prior to the eighteenth century was so fragile, the bottles would often explode when the wine started fermenting again. Working in a Champagne cellar was considered a dangerous occupation. The story has it that because the bubbles in champagne were considered a hazard, rather than discard the wine, it was sold to the English who “know no better and will drink anything.” Indeed, rather than complain, the English decided they liked the effect of the bubbles and asked for more.

  “In fact, the English were already experts in the manufacture of sparkling alcoholic beverages through years of experience with their local sparkling cider, which they stored in the newly developed strong glass bottles, or verre anglais, as the French called them. It was in fact the English who invented Champagne, not the French. On December 17, 1662, an English scientist, Dr. Christopher Merret, presented a paper at London’s Royal Society, in which he detailed the bottling technique that is now called méthode champenoise. It was not until forty years later a Benedictine monk, Dom Pérignon, declared, “I am drinking stars,” and began working tirelessly to improve and refine the methods of producing champagne. Very soon, after Madame de Pompadour claimed that Champagne is the only drink that left a woman still beautiful after drinking it, it became the most fashionable drink at the royal French court, and thence among European aristocracy. Ever since the eighteenth century, Champagne has been the most sought after and valued wine for all occasions. In terms of literary pairings, Champagne is the Oscar Wilde of wines. It is witty, deliciously naughty, and, like Oscar, it is sublime. It is hard to imagine Wilde’s sparkling, high-spirited exchanges in the drawing rooms of Belle Epoch London and Paris without also thinking of champagne. Napoleon famously said, “In victory, you deserve Champagne. In defeat you need it.” A hundred years later, Churchill rallied his troops by declaring, “Gentlemen, we fight not only for France, but for Champagne!”