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Published: October 28th 2014
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There are times when one must lead and there are times when one must follow. I was definitely contented to play second fiddle on a work trip to Burgundy with my company's head buyer, Neil Sommerfelt. He is a Master of Wine - the highest academic qualification for wine available. There are currently exactly 300 Masters of Wine - and many more people have managed to scale Everest than have beaten the infamously fiendish MW exams and the universally feared blind-tastings. I am a few rungs down the ladder from Neil, but I still managed to get the gig as his right-hand-man. I was determined to play a significant role as Neil engaged in a two day break-neck pace tour of ten wineries in two days, as I could offer the extremely useful "ignorant person" point-of-view.
We were staying in the town of Beaune, south of Dijon and halfway down the Cote d'Or - a long gently sloping series of hills that at their best produce some of the world's best wine - both red and white. These will come from vineyards that have produced wine since Roman times. The names of some of the finest vineyards are steeped in
history and medieval mystique: "Musigny", "Chambertin", "Corton Charlemagne" and "Montrachet" to name but a few. This wine region perhaps more than any other is affected by subtle variations of climate and soil type to the point where you can be in a completely ordinary vineyard, walk 200 metres and be in a world-famous one. For this reason, as a self-respecting wine merchant who sells Burgundian wine, one has to go there to see it to have any credibility whatsoever!
Burgundy is a tough one for a consumer. As a quintessentially "old-world" wine region, a consumer musn't expect a helpful back label advising food matches or drinking-windows. Indeed, one mustn't expect a helpful
front label either. For instance, to point out that the grape variety of a particular wine is chardonnay or pinot noir would be considered by Burgundians the height of vulgarity! Often extremely expensive, with wide vintage variations and thousands of producers with confusing and similar-sounding names - often becuase they're all cousins. We visited Fontaine Gagnard in Chassagne Montrachet whose winemaker and proprietor Richard Gagnard is part of a family had have made wine on the same pieces of land for three centuries. Due to the arcane
Mounir Suoma
Of Lucien le Moine - and a Dutch wine importer in the baclground whose name is "Xavier Kat" Napoleonic inheritance laws of this particular part of France, land must be distributed to all a parent's children (rather than the oldest son). So as each generation goes on, the plots of land have gotten smaller and the amount of domaines far larger. So as well as Fontaine Gagnard one will also find Blain Gagnard, Gagnard Delagrange and Jean-Noel Gagnard - these could be Richard's father, brother-in-law, uncle, step-sister, housemate, dog-sitter...
Along with the centuries of tradition, innovation in the pursuit of excellence could be seen everywhere we looked. Biodynamics used to be something that only hippies did, but at Domaines such as Alan Burguet and Bruno Clavelier picking according to phases of the moon is not done to appease muesli-munching Californians, but is done because it works.
The food is extremely good in Burgundy. On the second night with a rampant head-cold I couldn't taste a thing at dinner - so I can't really understand what compelled me to order frog's legs for the first time in my life. Frog's legs are... odd. Taste obviously I can't comment on, so what I was left with was feeling and sight. Feeling was fine - they were like chicken
My hotel room
And me: just to prove I was there legs just a lot smaller. The issue I had was a visual one - they aren't served just as individial legs but instead with both legs attached togther by the torso, so one does have the sense of their froggy little bodies.
As far as the many winery visits are concerned, Maison Roche de Bellene was a highlight, run by maverick winemaker Nicolas Potel. This man is such a blue-sky-thinker that he has managed to be bankrupted twice! At Roche de Bellene, Nicolas ushered Neil and I into a small room with a big table with at least 50 different bottles without labels. We tried six of so Latricieres Chambertins from vintages going back to the '80s - as well as so many other glamourous vineyards. Around this time my head cold was so heavy that had I been blindfolded I wouldn't have been able to tell a white from a red. Nicolas looked on me with great pity - I wanted to cry.
On our way back home in a brasserie near the Gare du Nord in Paris we were wined and dined by an important supplier of ours and I got to see how business was
Belle Epoque
I wonder if the French say "old school charm"? transacted in the good old days: at a long lunch with a bottle of white wine. And another bottle of white wine. And a bottle of red. Over entrée, main and cheese courses I witnessed Neil and our supplier, who between them have well over 50 years experience in the wine trade, do business in the old-fashioned hedonistic mode, almost exclusively speaking in French.
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