"Rustic" is a term that I often find misused or misunderstood in wine writing. All too frequently, a wine is described as "rustic" to excuse its being underripe, thin, imbalanced, or overly acidic -- generally unable to compete by world-wide standards. Conversely, critics who favor more modern-styled wines tend to employ the term pejoratively to criticize wines for those very same negative qualities.
I would like to reclaim the word "rustic" as a positive, yet accurate, descriptor in wine writing by returning to an older definition of the word, one cited by the OED in the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, and Johnson: "Plain and simple; unsophisticated; having the charm of the country." The key element here, of course, is the notion of "charm." For me, rustic wines are those that while lacking in sheer richness, power, and sophisticated tannins nevertheless have a certain brightness, a liveliness, a distinctive character that make them eminently pleasurable to drink. Could "the charm of the country" perhaps even connote a sense of terroir?
Our wine of the week, Michel Magnien's 2004 Bourgogne Rouge ($20), is a wine that I would call "rustic" in the best sense. It displays a brilliant ruby color, and the classic pinot nose is dominated by raspberries and earth. It is medium-bodied, high in acidity, yet very well-balanced, with bright red fruit flavors. As this wine originates from the generic Bourgogne appellation -- meaning the grapes can be sourced from anywhere in greater Burgundy -- it inevitably lacks in concentration and sophistication. It does, however, offer great persistence and length for its level as well as an attractive core of ripe fruit. (Magnien is known for making Burgundies in a riper style, an asset in a difficult 2004 vintage that left many wines with a green or vegetal streak.) And most importantly, the racy acidity gives the wine a liveliness on the finish that freshens the palate and makes it a great food wine (it paired excellently with roast chicken). Red fruits and earth -- charm of the country, indeed.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Wine of the Week: 2004 M. Magnien Bourgogne Rouge
Friday, May 18, 2007
On Vintage 2005: "Perfection ... doesn't have much character"
Reading through Fiona Morrison's profile of Chambolle-Musigny, I was struck by the comments of leading producer Frédéric Mugnier on the 2005 Burgundy vintage: "There is something perfect about it but also something bothersome -- perfection almost doesn't have much character -- it needs aging to give it more character."
As Morrison reports in her October 2006 article for Wine & Spirits (a must-read; PDF file here), for Mugnier, "2004 is more intriguing; he finds the essence of Chambolle in the best wines." In contrast to the forgivingly perfect weather conditions in 2005, "2004 did not allow for errors, as it was riddled with traps such as risk of rot, disease and the temptation of excessively high yields."
It is not surprising that a producer of Mugnier's skill would find 2004 more interesting. 2004 was a winemaker's vintage, rewarding those with the most rigorous methods and highest standards of vinification while punishing lesser producers with under-ripe, austere wines. Reading through numerous producers' notes for 2005, I almost found a sense of boredom as they recited the same litany of vintage characteristics -- optimum weather, ample time for harvest, perfectly ripe, clean fruit with little, if any, sorting needed. Bruno Clair confessed that during the growing season, he had "nothing to do."
Yet it is interesting to juxtapose Mugnier's near disdain of "perfection," and his embrace of the challenges of a difficult vintage, with his professed non-interventionist approach to winemaking. "I'm wary of enology," Mugnier tells Morrison, and on his website states that "processes that traumatise the wine – over extraction, for example, or excessive woodiness – are limited to a minimum."
It becomes clear, then, that for Mugnier, the vigernon's work rests more in the vineyard than in the cellar. Tending the vines as a farmer -- with treatments against rot or pruning to reduce yields -- is the paramount work. Once the grapes are harvested and sorted, the "goal is to preserve the inherent quality of the grapes and not fiddle with them too much," as Morrison puts it. That is, to bring out the distinctive character of the vintage and the vineyard rather than achieve a certain generic standard of ripeness or concentration through interventionist techniques.
It also becomes clear what Mugnier means by perfection being "bothersome" and lacking "character." Young wines made from perfectly ripe fruit tend to lack transparency -- that is, they don't yield the distinctive characteristics of a particular vineyard, which are initially overwhelmed by blanket fruitiness. The "essence of Chambolle" is muted. Yet it is this quality of transparency -- "the ability to transmit clearly the underlying terroir," as Allen Meadows puts it -- that traditional Burgundy lovers prize most in their favorite wines.
Now Meadows is optimistic that the underlying terroir will shine through in these wines with age, but it may take twelve, fifteen, or twenty years for the very best '05s to reveal their distinctiveness and their greatness. People coming into Burgundy for the first time with the '05 vintage ought to know they have a long wait ahead of them. I shudder to think at the inevitable acts of infanticide that will be committed by those weaned on California pinot. Perhaps point chasers, if it is instant gratification that they desire, ought to follow Freddy Mugnier's advice and seek out wines from those many imperfect vintages.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
The Dead Hand of the Law
I learned yesterday that I'd won my first victory as a practicing lawyer (we obtained a reversal in a interlocutory appeal for which I drafted the briefs) and to celebrate I figured I'd serve some nicer wine than usual while watching the NBA playoffs with my friend Matt. Accordingly, I swung by one of DC's more well-known wine stores (which shall remain nameless to avoid providing it with any undeserved publicity--not that this site has any market power, but it's the principle of the thing) after dinner and picked out a bottle of Latour-Giraud Meursault-Genevrieres from a good but not great year (99). At which point I went to pay and was promptly carded.
When I asked the clerk whether they normally had a problem with 18-year-olds buying premier cru Meursault, he didn't seem to think that they did. I suppose in some sense this is just a minor annoyance, and showing my driver's license isn't even much of a hassle in situations where I'm already pulling out my credit card. But there's something morally objectionable about a society where controls on alcohol are enforced so rigidly that people have to produce identity documents before being allowed to purchase fine wines. Just as the government shouldn't be regulating what paintings its citizens are allowed to view, it shouldn't control other forms of aesthetic expression, of which fine wine is an example.
People under twenty-one should be allowed to drink wine as they please. If they can't, they will be unable to develop their palates. And they have a right to enjoy Meursault just as they have a right to view a painting by Titian. As best I can tell, the 21-year-old drinking age has also been entirely ineffective at its intended goal of preventing drunk-driving fatalities. To the extent that is a serious problem, the more reasonable thing to do would be to ban under-21 driving, which would likely more effective and would have other beneficial externalities (i.e., reducing driving).
But even if restrictions on teenagers were appropriate, the government shouldn't be regulating adults' wine consumption simply to prevent teenagers from drinking. Teenagers' supposed inability to drink responsibly has nothing to do with adults and doesn't justify subjecting them to identity checks, especially when the wine they're buying makes it almost certain that they're not underage and drinking irresponsibly.
A Humble White from Domaine de la Romanée Conti
A Haute-Côtes de Nuits Blanc from Domaine de la Romanée Conti? Surely you jest. Or as the French would say, "C'est un blague ou quoi!" But as Neal Martin reports in his latest installment of Wine-Journal (now housed on eRobertParker.com; subscription, alas, required), this is no joke. This most famous of Burgundy domaines, producer of seven grand crus, is bottling a simple white wine from one of the humblest appellations in the region. But unlike the novelty bottling from Chateau Palmer I wrote on the other day, this is solely a charitable venture from Aubert de Villaine, co-owner of DRC, as all of the proceeds will be donated for the restoration of the historic monastery of Saint Vivant.
There have been scattered sightings of the bottling reported on French wine boards for the past few years, but Martin's, I believe, is the first major report in English. Further details on the venture can be found here in French and Japanese. For those without either language, here's my schoolboy's rendering from the French (corrections heartily welcomed):
The Monastery of Saint-Vivant is situated above a splendid site behind the Côte de Nuits and Vosne-Romanée. Founded around the year A.D. 900 by a vassal of the Dukes of Burgundy, and attached to the Abbey of Cluny in the 11th century, it is a "haut-lieu" of Burgundy, unfortunately in ruins today, which the Association "Abbey of Saint-Vivant" has undertaken for some years to preserve.
This Haute-Côtes de Nuits is made from vines situated in an enclave in the abbey. Proceeds from the sales of the bottles are given to the Assocation, which will devote them entirely to the work of preservation.
Martin declines to give a tasting note for the 2003, writing " it seems inappropriate for a wine not commercially available." It is quite unclear whether DRC's famously rigorous methods can work a kind of magic with vines of such humble pedigree. Martin reports that only 60 cases are produced annually, with most going to the French restaurant Lavinia. Yet the British scribe was perhaps a little naive in declaring: "do not expect to see them on eBay." A quick Google search revealed that indeed one bottle of the 2000 DRC Haute-Côtes de Nuits Blanc was offered on eBay.fr this March! (Bidding went up to 25 euros, below the reserve price; the picture above is from the now-concluded auction). Happy hunting!
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Burghound and the Market
I certainly agree with Jeffrey's post below that there is more good-will and appreciation felt by wine collectors toward Allen Meadows, the Burghound, than toward other critics like Parker or Jim Laube. Yet I have seen signs in recent weeks of a growing frustration with Burghound's role in stimulating unprecedented demand and setting the market for what many collectors will be a very expensive 2005 Burgundy campaign.
Meadows comes in for criticism not for the wines he chooses to rate highly but rather for rating wines in the first place and, more fairly, for the timing of his reviews. Burgundy collectors are obsessive and intensively secretive by nature. They are reluctant to share the sources of their highly sought-after allocations and sometimes even the identities of their favorites for fear of losing out or being priced out. Meadows, many feel, has let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, pointing the way for novices toward hidden gems and undervalued treasures previously known only to insiders. And certainly, the timing of his reviews could not have been worse, as his 2005 Cote de Nuits issue -- "quite simply the best top to bottom vintage I have ever seen, period, full stop" -- came out well before most of the wines reviewed were even offered for sale in the U.S. Given the estimated 20% ex cellar price increase over 2004, we certainly know who in the supply change is gouging the American consumer.
Meadows reportedly sold more single issues of his Cote de Nuits report than all of the previous Burghound issues combined and is said to be concerned over the role he has played in the unprecedentedly stratospheric '05 Burgundy pricing. This Parker-esque market domination is uncharted territory for Burgundy, as The Wine Advocate's longtime Burgundy reviewer, Pierre-Antoine Rovani, generally favored the region's ripest wines and vintages while the traditional Burgundy consumer has favored elegance, balance, and finesse -- all of the qualities dear to Meadows. To cite just two examples of Meadows' influence: on the day Meadows' Cote de Beaune report was released, Bouchard's Le Corton (AM 93-95) sold out at Premier Cru for $89.95 and reappeared the next day at $109.95; Angerville's Volnay "Champans" (AM 93-95) had a one-day jump from $95.00 to $110.00 at Zachys.
Yet while rising prices are an inevitability, particularly with all the hysteria surrounding this unique vintage, I don't believe Burgundy will be subject to the same efficient market forces as Bordeaux. The far smaller production volume and the allocation system mean that Burgundy just cannot be bought and traded in the same way classified Bordeaux is. Moreover, there is a far healthier attitude toward wine in Burgundy, where it is treated as an artisanal product vinified by farmers rather than commodities produced by millionaire Chateau owners and sold by greedy negociants. And in the meantime, Burghound's growing influence can only bring about improvements in the region, as producers gravitate toward the more elegant and balanced style that Meadows favors -- and has long proven to be the hallmark of the very best Pinot Noir.
Scoring in Burgundy
Robert Parker takes a lot of flak for publishing wine scores. But others do it too, including Wine Spectator and the International Wine Cellar. Because they are far less influential, those magazines don't receive the same amount of public criticism that Parker does, although I suspect that the vast majority of Parker's critics don't have an especially high opinion of Shanken or Tanzer (the publishers of Wine Spectator and IWC, respectively).
By comparison, Allen Meadows is beginning to have an effect on the market for Burgundy similar to that Parker has on the market for Bordeaux. His publication, Burghound, is rapidly becoming the go-to resource for Burgundy enthusiasts and, upon release of his quarterly reports, highly-rated wines sell-out rapidly.
Yet, Meadows does not come in for the same criticism that Parker does. And he is rating wines whose enthusiasts are most likely to be Parker critics. Red Burgundy is famously elegant and reserved rather than forward and fruity; Parker is well-known for giving relatively poor ratings to what most Burgundy lovers consider great wines; and those Burgundy lovers are well-known for claiming that Parker just "doesn't get" the region's wines. Burgundy enthusiasts celebrate the individuality of each wine and the particular characteristics of of the many specific vineyards into which Burgundy's wine regions are subdivided.
So why the appreciation for Meadows? He's doing precisely the same thing as Parker: providing reductionist tasting notes and numerical scores for hundreds of wines. And most Burgundy lovers make their case for the region's wine precisely because it does not lend itself to that approach. Each wine is unique, with its own characteristics, and not susceptible to ordinal ranking on some absolute scale.
Perhaps what makes Meadows palatable is that he has the "right" attitude toward wine and Burgundy in particular. Every issue of Burghound comes with a disclaimer that "Burgundies that emphasize purity, elegance, overall balance and a clear expression of the underlying terroir are rated more highly . . . a Volnay should taste like a Volnay." In other words, unlike Parker, Meadows is not giving high ratings to the sort of wines that Parker critics disapprove of. And that's something. But ultimately why should it let him off the hook? The scoring/tasting note system is objectionable and that's what Meadows provides. As a Burghound subscriber (thanks to the market forces I discussed in my previous post) I often ask myself this.