If there is one region where a little knowledge goes a long way, then surely Burgundy is the prime candidate. Often referred to as a ‘minefield’, navigating these historic and celebrated ‘Golden Slopes’ can be a thrilling rollercoaster ride but it is not a place to ‘buy blind’. Once bitten by the Burgundy bug, the thirst for knowledge and compulsion to access its wines is infectious. However, with volumes produced often no more than a few hundred bottles, finding the wines that are really worth having can be frustrating.This is, of course, where membership of Club Magnum is your secret weapon.
Wine production in Burgundy’s heartland, the Côte d’Or, is likely to pre-date the arrival of the Romans although it is certainly accepted that the Romans also brought vines with them and established their own vineyards. From the fall of Rome and through the dark ages, as Christianity became more established in these lands, the Church was a vital player in maintaining order and civility, which included the cultivation of vineyards. As new monastic orders, abbeys and houses were founded, so vineyards followed. The Abbaye of Cîteaux was established in 1098 and it is accepted that the monks followed the little river Vouge up the slopes away from the Saône river plain and planted a new vineyard in a gap on the hillside: the vineyard we know today as the Clos de Vougeot.
The fortunes of Burgundy over the centuries are a fascinating tale that is too long to tell here. The dominance of the Church was largely replaced by the aristocracy until the Revolution of 1789 dispossessed both. The introduction of Napoleonic law ensured that the vineyards would be perpetually subdivided, reducing forever the power of large landowners. The mercantile class stepped into the vacuum, establishing new brands and finding new markets. The temptation to cut corners, however, was irresistible and so the rules of Appellation Contrôlée, as elsewhere in France, were introduced to protect both consumers and producers.
The vignerons themselves, however, continued to toil away among the vines, one master simply being replaced by a new one. The arrival of vineyard crises, in particular phylloxera, brought devastation, exacerbated by a succession of wars and conflicts and compounded by the Great Depression. The Burgundy that emerges in 1945 was certainly far removed from the prosperous region that we find today. So how did we get from the ruin of the Occupation to a position today where land prices can match or even surpass those of Hong Kong, Manhattan or the Côte d’Azur?
Burgundy Today
The oft-heard phrase ‘The Golden Age of Burgundy’ refers to the undeniable increase in quality and consistency from the region in the post-war period. This movement owes much to the family domaines who have wrestled the leadership of their region away from the large négoçiant houses, striving to fulfil the potential of their vineyards and return them to health.
Domaine bottling largely came about when the négoçiant houses were no longer able to guarantee to purchase the fruit from the growers, particularly during the Depression. Forced to find a way to survive, many families took their destiny into their own hands. The arrival of the rules of appellation, which included formal classification of the vineyards, ensured that those families with their vines in the prime spots could receive a premium, further incentivising them to push for quality above all else and to reflect their family pride in their work by putting their own names on the bottles, rather than those of a third party.
Life is never plain sailing, however. In the immediate post-war period, the temptation to boost production was overwhelming. New mechanised technology was able to compensate for a diminished workforce and new agrochemicals were a seemingly magical, overnight solution to increase yields. By the 1980s, when the respected vineyard consultant Claude Bourguignon remarked that there was more life in the soils of the Sahara desert than those of the Côte d’Or, an important moment arrived to change course again. Fortunately a new generation of young talent had emerged, many of whom had spent time working overseas, learning and observing and opening their eyes in a way unimaginable to their parents and grandparents. Organic farming and biodynamics started to become progressively adopted, with top producers such as Anne-Claude Leflaive, Dominique Lafon and Lalou Bize-Leroy leading the way and inspiring countless others.
The Market
The rise in quality is undoubtedly a boon for consumers but with it has come an inexorable rise in demand, particularly as global trade has opened up with the emergence of new markets. Burgundy has never been in greater demand than today but with pricing now attaining levels that could not have been dreamt of even one generation ago, there is danger that consumers are being pushed out in favour of those motivated purely by financial gain.
The distribution of these wines has not seen the same levels of dynamism and progress as that practised in vineyards and cellars. Large agents and distributors cling to their allocations, many of which arrived almost by accident during a period when interest in the region was negligible. While there are honourable exceptions, many use them as leverage to move other inventory and there is certainly evidence of restaurant allocations being flipped for quick profit and cash flow rather than being lovingly listed to maximise exposure for the brand owner.
If you haven’t been buying Burgundy for the last 30 years, be it for reasons of age, access to funds or otherwise, gaining access to the best wines is almost impossible to achieve.
At the restaurant table, you will be faced with mark-ups that verge on scandalous and often on very young wines that ideally should be resting in the cellar; in the wine shop, you will have to join the back of a very long queue; buying direct from the agent will inevitably mean that you have to ‘play the game’, be that buying a large assortment of other wines or other demonstrations of loyalty and patience; buying direct from the vineyard is impossible (or only possible if your great-grandfather happened to be a friend of the current owner’s forebear); and buying on the secondary market is fraught with risk, be that provenance, uncertain storage or paying over the odds, or possibly all of the above.
Despite all of this however, those with a passion for Pinot and an ardour for Chardonnay continue to see the Côte d’Or as their Mecca. Yet the Côte d’Or is far more than a tale of two grape varieties. Pinot and Chardonnay are merely the means by which the Burgundian landscape can be expressed. When we drink a great Volnay or Vosne, we are engaging directly with a singular place, rather than the fermented juice of the fruit grown on it. It is for that reason that at their very finest, burgundies can deliver experiences that are utterly unique in wine.
