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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: Wine, women, song.. and audio

Post Subject: ClassificationPosted by de charlus on: 8/4/2013

Oh, it'll come round for sure - 4-5 years should do it. As for the Bordeaux vs. Burgundy thing, the thing to take on board is that it's purely to do with producers; a villages wine from a great producer such as the ones I just mentioned will frequently exceed the Grand Cru of a negociant or crappy grower. I'm not exaggerating either; the Bourgogne Blanc from Meo-Camuzet is without any doubt better than some negociant Grand Crus, since what a great producer, who may be getting as little as 8hl/ha from their vineyards, rejects from their 1er and Grand Crus is qualitatively greatly superior to the negociant who buys from cynical growers who extract the greatest yields possible - sometimes 30-50hl/ha - from their parcels of 1er and Grand Cru vineyards. This is what bothers people chiefly about Burgundy, but the difficulties can be overcome with a little expertise; for that matter, the growth in wine expertise among the populous has been responsible for the rise in the median quality of Burgundy - and also the demand, and thus price, for the serious wines - since cynical growers and negociants can no longer get away with what they've been doing for the last few hundred years. In any case, the Bordeaux "growth" system, ostensibly so straightforward compared to the confusion of Burgundy, was instituted by grading wines purely by the prices they were fetching at the time (1855) so in many cases it no longer reflects the truth; Pomerol was largely ignored at the time of classification, and yet it is now Petrus, Le Pin, La Mondotte etc that are found at the summit of prices and buyer esteem - Petrus certainly deserves 1st growth classification, and has for a very long time indeed. On the whole it works, but it's remarkably static, with the effect that there are some 2nd, 3rd and even 5th growth Bordeaux - to say nothing of the "no growth" of Pomerol - which should arguably be 1st growths now - together with some 2nd growths which should probably be demoted - and then you have the bizarre situation of Cheval-Blanc and d'Yquem having their very own appellations ostensibly superior to the rest, although in the case of d'Yquem, this is probably correct. Anyway, the bottom line is that you can't really go wrong with any of the producers I mentioned above - along with a few perhaps not stellar, but certainly very good, such as Pousse d'Or, Comte Armand, Roty, Gouges, Gros, Ponsot etc - in vintages decent and above. Outside of such notables, one should tread carefully; good wines do come from the most obscure producers, particularly in great vintages, but considerable expertise and an eidetic memory are required to amass sufficient understanding to easily negotiate the admittedly complex area that is Burgundy, since the pursuit of bargains in particular is fraught with pitfalls.

de Charlus

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