Sometimes, early in my wine career, rare and allocated Burgundy would show up at the shop. I remember one of my managers saying, “This wine is for rich people!” Yeah, fuck that wine, I thought, closely following the Occupy Wall Street development in Zucotti Park. I was content drinking affordable, natural wine from Loire Valley. They were sometimes one noted, but they were alive! I took up the phrase, ‘nothing tastes like a hundred dollars’. Most shoppers eagerly welcomed this motto. It made them feel comfortable.
Then one day, I proudly repeated this credo to a more experienced wine-o and was met with an eye roll and an explanation: If someone is a scholar, or a passionate enthusiast, one hundred dollars can be an easy and wise gamble. Although Burgundy can be fickle, it can absolutely be worth the serious price tag. All it took was a benefactor to pop open several Premier Crus in one sitting for me to be hooked. My younger self would have been aghast if he had heard me say the sometimes true words “this is a steal for $120.”
If you’ve fallen off the Burgundian horse because an expensive bottle has burned you, drank something at the wrong time in its life, or because of a bias for more natural wines, I implore you to get back on. The sheer amount of information availible about this region can be intimidating, but it can also be exhilarating for the same reason. And if you’re motivated, there are ways to circumvent the strain on your billfold.
1) Overcoming Prohibitive Pricing:
a) Split a bottle with friends. You don’t have to go crazy. While the prized bottle is opening up, bide your time with a bottle of Muscadet or a tallboy. Sharing is caring. If the group commits to meeting regularly, you will no doubt begin to get a grasp on the particularities of the region. Try to focus on a vintage, a village, a producer, etc…
b) Work part time at a wine store. I’m not kidding. At a good shop, you’ll receive a better education than any expensive wine class, you’ll get a discount on the wines (often cost), and you’ll make a little extra money. The best employees we hired at the wine store were curious customers.
If you are to become serious about wine, you must become serious about Burgundy. There are good reasons for the passion from collectors and professionals. No other region conveys as much terroir-driven purity: the wines taste like they come from a place. Arguably, Pinot Noir is the noblest grape, and when grown in the greatest terroir, in the most substantial winemaking culture we’ve ever known, it’s hard to beat.
The Loire Valley is heralded as the epicenter of the natural wine renaissance. That’s fair, but a considerable amount Burgundy’s top producers were never anything but “natural.” Bordeaux continues a recent trend of being touted as deserving another chance, despite years of prohibitive pricing and a deluge of chemical treatments. Burgundy is no angel in either respect, but the pricing is much less artificially inflated and the soils much less toxic.
2) The Natural Wine Credential
There is a great culture of biodynamic viticulture in Burgundy. I’ve often heard stories of producers being reasonably skeptical but trying this scientific/mystical process to delightful results. Often, they see its benefits from neighbors and friends first. However, it must be noted that a vast number of producers who practice lutte raisonee still use very natural vinification methods.
Aubert Villaine is the winemaker and face of the most well respected domaines in Burgundy, Domaine de la Romanee- Conti, which strictly practices biodynamic viticulture. He also runs his own modest estate in the Cote de Chalonnaise, which is also stringently biodynamic. These wines (from Domaine A. & P. de Villane) are beautiful, natural, and clean. I loved introducing customers to these gems, especially because they were very affordable.
Religion has benefits. Studies have shown that the spiritually devout are more likely to be rewarded with longevity and happiness, whereas the skeptic may be more likely punished with untimely disease. Does this mean we should all start going to church? Hell no. But we should recognize variables in our skepticism. Biodynamic agriculture stems from keen observation and mystical ignorance. But, it seems to work. Happy accident? Perhaps, yes. By being true to nature you may find yourself at a beautiful, illogical impasse.
3) Curb Your Dogma
Although it is ideal to forgo chemical treatments for more natural methods, is it right to hold an entire wine region to task for a few bad actors? Drinking wine that tastes like a dirty octogenarian is an important step in one’s education. However, the real secret is that natural wine is at its best when it doesn’t taste funky. It’s true that there are great natural wines from Burgundy that are funky, but what interest me are the ones that are both natural and clean. There is a seemingly infinite amount of amazing, clean, natural examples to be found in and around the Cote d’Or.
Even spending much of my career in a “natural wine” store, a virtue of some of the people I worked with was a lack of dogmatism. Sometimes you need to add some sulphur to your wine so it doesn’t literally taste like shit. Sometimes you need to spray a little bit of poison to enable your business to survive long enough to convert to your preferred viticulture. Such statements can be highly controversial. Winemaking is a complex topic, and if you think you can create a blanket solution to the myriad variables of viticulture and viniculture, you’re wrong.
Take Domaine Anne et Herve Sigaut, a favorite amongst my drinking buddies and me. Located in Chambolle-Musigny, they tend to work naturally, going as far as plowing by horse and considering moon cycles in their earthly decisions. But, they are a very small domaine (some seven and a half hectares) and if their entire harvest is in jeopardy, so too will be their livelihood, so they will intervene.
Take Domaine Jerome Chezeaux, which any wine lover should be so lucky to drink. There, the health of the vines and soil are paramount. If they must use herbicides, they do so as little as possible. It is a shame that in our current fervor for all things natural this conscientious domaine would be excluded from any wine list.
When drinking through the wines of the world, one tends to analyze. Can overanalyzing hinder enjoyment? Certainly. However, for those of us who can’t help it, our Goldilocks-like journey has moments of transporting bliss. Fans of Burgundy are such, I believe, because they’ve had more of these moments from this terroir than anywhere else. Why, in our current atmosphere of increasing interest in real wine is Burgundy not often enough being championed as the epitome of good winemaking? Why do consumers of Californian Pinot Noir not know what their favorite winemakers wish they could make?
What’s true in art is true in wine: nothing worth getting easily is worth getting at all.
