Burgundy has never enjoyed the unqualified international success that makes Bordeaux a virtual synonym for fine French red wine. One reason is that the best individual Burgundies are made in such tiny quantities that they can never be as widely known. Another is that consumers who find comfort in the simple château + vintage = “Parker score” tidiness of Bordeaux are impatient with Burgundy, where the labels are more demanding. The most frequent complaint is that Burgundy is “unreliable.”
And it can’t be denied. Too much wine in Burgundy is over-cropped junk. But in fairness, it’s also the fact that there are so many appellations (places where the grapes grow, for which the wines are named) that makes Burgundy seem like a crap-shoot to some consumers.
The most general appellation is Bourgogne, which is given to most of the region. The important sub-regions are the Auxerrois (including Chablis), the Côte d’Or (where the most famous wines are grown), the Côte Chalonnaise, the Mâconnais, and Beaujolais. But any appellation can be the source of hundreds of different wines-each made by hundreds of different producers. Some may be excellent and others not, but if they come from the same place they may all have similar labels and have the same name.
Making matters worse is that unlike Bordeaux, where individual wineries like Château Talbot (Fourth Growth) and Château Montrose (Second Growth) are classified in a hierarchy of (allegedly) relative merit, Burgundy classifies the relative status of the land. A single vineyard in Burgundy, for example, may be one of several “Premiers Crus” (First Growths) of the village in which it’s located, like Meursault-Perrières, or it may be a “Grand Cru” (Great Growth) of all of Burgundy, like Corton-Charlemagne.
But an indifferent winemaker with vines in Corton-Charlemagne is likely to make a poor Grand Cru wine, just as an excellent, well located estate-bottling producer may make an outstanding “Bourgogne.” A prestigious appellation is only an indication that the wine comes from a well-regarded vineyard (and that it’s likely to be expensive). It is no guarantee that the wine is good.
Finally, what must contributes most to the frustration of consumers is that so much Burgundy is damaged by heat in transport. No wine is as fragile and prone to damage by poor conditions in shipping and storage as Pinot Noir from Burgundy. And who can blame wine buyers for complaining, when $50 wine is disappointing? It all makes the whole thing seem mysterious and not worth the trouble.
But true lovers of Burgundy know that memorable bottles make slogging through all the lousy bottles a forgivable inconvenience. The fact remains that some of the most exciting wines made anywhere in the world come from Burgundy.
Matt Kramer’s wonderful metaphor expresses it perfectly, that (in Burgundy) “wine is to fruit what the refined English country house is to rural living: a hybridization of studied pleasure with raw nature.” Or as Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette put it in Prisons et Paradis: “the vine gives us a true understanding of the savor of the Earth.”
Moore Brothers offers a wide array of well-made, carefully selected and expressive Burgundies that have been shipped, warehoused, and delivered to us under perfect conditions of temperature control. Here we know that 56 degrees isn’t everyone’s idea of a perfect shopping environment, no matter how good the Vivaldi in the background, but our customers can be sure that the Burgundies they buy from Moore Brothers are always in pristine condition.