To mark the centenary of the village’s ascent to AOC status in May, 1923, growers in Mercurey hosted a year of celebratory events. Raymond Blake looks back on some of the highlights of the festivities and charts the evolution of the appellation over its first 100 years.

David Lloyd George, the “Welsh wizard,” was noted as a wily operator, yet his skills at the negotiating table hit the buffers when trying to deal with Irish Nationalist leader Éamon de Valera in 1921, leading him to conclude: “Negotiating with de Valera is like trying to pick up mercury with a fork.” To which de Valera memorably replied, “Why doesn’t he use a spoon?” 

No such difficulties attend the appreciation of the wines of Mercurey, the Côte Chalonnaise village and appellation that takes its name from the Roman god of business and trade. Both the whites and reds have a direct, immediate appeal; many boast bold flavors, though the heavy-shod reds of old are less dominant than they used to be. Those were wines of substance rather than grace, and examples that cleave to that template can still be found today, but a more dexterous winemaking touch is also in evidence. In the whites, the wines that avoid what I call the “tropical fruit trap” are the ones with enduring attraction, thanks to a less lush, crisper palate profile. 

Mercurey has long been seen as the engine room of Burgundy’s Côte Chalonnaise, a situation acknowledged by the fact that the Côte was once called the Région de Mercurey. That designation didn’t stick, however, and it is now named for the nearby city of Chalon-sur-Saône, which lies a little to the east of the Côte. Its history can be traced back some 1,500 years; not quite to Roman times, though Julius Caesar did write about the god Mercury in his Gallic Wars: “The god [the Gauls] worship most is Mercury: his statues are the most numerous, they consider him as the inventor of all arts, he is the god who shows them the way to follow, who guides the traveler; he is also the most efficient god to help you earn money and he protects trade.” 

Today, the village of Mercurey is neatly divided by an arrow-straight main thoroughfare, predictably named Grande Rue, which follows the path of an original Roman road that was part of an important trade route running up from the Rhône and on toward the Loire. So, perhaps it is not too fanciful to speculate that, with such strong links to trade and Rome, the village was named to curry favor from the relevant god.

Notwithstanding this ancient lineage, Mercurey’s modern history begins a tad over a century ago, on May 30, 1923, when a court ruling of the previous day, which created the Mercurey appellation d’origine contrôlée, was made official. The ruling was the result of a court case taken by local winemaker Edouard de Suremain, who sought legal protection for the name Mercurey—specifically to prevent winemakers in the neighboring villages of Rully and Givry from labeling their wines as Mercurey to give them greater visibility, thus boosting sales. In this, Mercurey was ahead of the game, for the whole concept of appellation contrôlée, with its definitions, strictures and regulations, was only beginning to take shape. It would be more than a decade longer before the nationwide system, still largely in place today, was established on a firm legal footing. 

Whatever celebrations took place to mark the court victory cannot have been too raucous or exultant, for these were grim times for Mercurey. All over France, phylloxera had wrought devastation in the vineyards, while World War I brought devastation of a far more tragic nature. Any glimmer of recovery from those catastrophes had to contend with the far-reaching effects of Prohibition in the United States, while, particular to the Côte Chalonnaise, the decline of the local mining industry closed off a strong local market for the wines. As the 20th century progressed, further challenges came by way of worldwide economic depression and another world war. Recovery from this catalog of woe was snail’s-pace slow, but the tale finally took an upturn in the latter decades of the 20th century, and so far the first quarter of the 21st has been largely a good-news story, the looming challenge of climate change notwithstanding. 

Extended and worthy centenary celebrations

Thus, the good burghers of Mercurey (Les Mercurois?) were well placed to celebrate the 2023 centenary of the court’s ruling and did so by way of a year-long series of events that started with a commemorative ceremony on the exact hundredth anniversary of the decree that granted appellation status. Then followed a Grande Fête in July 2023 that featured every manner of activity and entertainment, including demonstrations of artisan skills from yesteryear, such as those of the farrier, the blacksmith, and the clog maker, while also looking to the future and the use of drones, RFID (radio frequency identification) chips for bottles, and GPS-guided tractors. 

The celebrations culminated in a more structured commemorative weekend in March 2024, which started with a grand dinner billed as a “Four Hands, Five Stars” event—the creation of two big-name chefs who could lay claim to a quintet of Michelin stars between them. They were Eric Pras of Restaurant Lameloise in Chagny (Meilleur Ouvrier de France 2004), with three stars, and Cédric Burtin of Restaurant l’Amaryllis in St-Remy. The dinner was held at the Abbaye de Maizières near St-Loup-Géanges, and the chefs’ skills shone brightest early in the evening by way of a magnificent series of canapés—escargot de Bourgogne, succette de foie gras, tartelette de boeuf & tartare de boeuf—each a flavor jewel that beguiled the taste buds, though the foie gras topped them all. A pair of wines accompanied them: Domaine Patrick Guillot 2022 Mercurey Blanc Les Morins and Domaine Faiveley 2022 Mercurey Premier Cru Rouge Clos des Myglands. The former was a pleasant wine on its own, thanks to ripe, fresh fruit, but the latter matched better with the canapés, where its lovely bite of cherry-raspberry fruit counterpoised the broad array of flavors on offer. 

The canapés proved to be the gustatory highlight of the evening, for, truth be told, events such as this are logistical rather than culinary triumphs. In terms of conviviality and joie de vivre it could not have been bettered, but the series of impressively crafted dishes struggled to capture the diners’ attention, save for one: the St-Jacques de plongée snackée, butternut fermentée, caviar Kristal Caviari, sauce barde de St-Jacques, huile de corail, poudre de citron noir d’Iran. It was a culinary triumph, replete with opulent, luxurious flavors and a satin texture that might have overwhelmed the taste buds had the Domaine de Suremain 2019 Mercurey Premier Cru Blanc En Sazenay not provided a gentle whip hand of acidity to corral the flavors and stop them running rampant. It was followed by volaille de Bresse farcie sous la peau, jus à la cazette du Morvan et safran, which provided a satisfying foil to the Château de Chamirey 2022 Mercurey Rouge Hors Ligne rather than shining in its own right. The wine spoke in an authoritative voice and confirmed—as did the earlier Faiveley Clos des Myglands—that the 2022 vintage in Burgundy is a wonderful combination of the richness of the 2020 and the reserve of the 2021. It is a vintage to seek out.

The following day started with a visit to Le Caveau Divin, which sits at the northwestern end of Grande Rue before it swings left and heads into the vineyards. Self-described thus: “Le Caveau Divin is an innovative retail outlet in Burgundy that allows passing travelers to sample Mercurey’s wines. You can try up to 64 different wines from 44 estates and producers in this unique, comfortable setting.” The caveau opened in 2011 as a cooperative cellar and tasting venue, and as an introduction and showcase to the region, it could hardly be bettered. It uses the Enomatic dispensing system, which allows visitors to use a prepaid “credit card” to sample a host of wines, before going on to purchase their favored bottles—for the same price they would pay if buying direct from the producer. But don’t tarry there too long—there are vineyards to be explored.

Mercurey: Find your way and your producers

I am forever counseling wine lovers that only by visiting a wine region—planting your feet on the ground—can a full appreciation of its wines can be gleaned. If anything, this is truer for Mercurey than almost anywhere else, for by doing so one gains an appreciation of the convoluted topography that surrounds the village itself, sitting in stark contrast to its easily assimilated linear layout. 

A glance at the map suggests that the Côte Chalonnaise is simply a continuation of the Côte d’Or, but closer examination reveals this to be only partly true. Contour lines swirl and wriggle on the page; roads mimic their frenzy. The break-up of the regular slope of the Côte d’Or, foretold in the fractured landscape around Santenay and Maranges, continues apace in the Côte Chalonnaise and is most pronounced in Mercurey, where it looks as if a god reached down from the heavens and stirred the landscape into tumbled confusion. The topography defies easy assimilation; the land bucks and heaves, and the compass swings wildly as you thread your way along the challenging roads. Getting—and keeping—one’s bearings is a challenge. Make sure the satnav is working, and bring a good map for backup.

And those roads are worthy of note. Constructed from concrete, they act as culverts thanks to a “reverse camber,” dipping toward the center rather than out to the margins to carry away floodwater after heavy rains. Soil that is washed down from the appellation’s 650ha (1,600 acres) of vineyards is captured in settling tanks so that it can be recovered and returned to the surrounding slopes. Those hectares are planted largely to Pinot Noir (550ha [1,350 acres]), the remainder being Chardonnay. They also encompass two villages, because the appellation covers not only Mercurey but also its smaller neighbor St-Martin-sous-Montaigu, whose convoluted name is seldom heard of in its own right.

Also contained within those 650ha is a generous helping of premiers crus, a circumstance that pertains across the Côte Chalonnaise. Jasper Morris MW, writing in 2021, summed up the situation: “In 1988, many more premier cru vineyards were added, using for reference such authors as Courtepée (1780) and Jullien (1816). Now there are once again plans to increase the numbers. Please don’t; the villages of the Côte Chalonnaise need fewer premiers crus, not more, so that only the best terroirs are marked out.” At the same time, I was writing that the entire Côte Chalonnaise should “dramatically reduce the number of premier cru vineyards as a statement of intent and drive for quality.” This is a similar malaise to grade inflation in the academic world; in both cases, the practice devalues the coinage and undermines consumer trust.

Thus—as ever with Burgundy—the name of the producer is paramount and should always be given precedence over vineyard and vintage. Many names were in evidence over the course of the commemorative weekend last March, when I tasted roughly a biblical three-score-and-ten wines from a couple-dozen producers. Some blundering oak made its presence felt at times, but otherwise the quality was generally good, with the best wines easily making a memorable, positive impression. A handful of favorites includes Château de Chamirey for well-structured, firm-flavored wines in both colors; Domaine Michel Juillot, where a diligent approach in the vineyard translates into notably fine flavors in the wines; Domaine du Château Philippe le Hardi (previously the Château de Santenay), whose wines have improved markedly in recent years; Domaine Meix Foulot for its ageworthy Mercurey Premier Cru Clos du Château du Montaigu; and Château de Chamilly, whose wines made a good impression courtesy of precision rather than power. 

Worthy of separate note is the range of wines of Domaine Faiveley—not only for their quality but also because they can act as a conduit from the Côte d’Or to the Côte Chalonnaise, specifically Mercurey, for doubtful consumers who have yet to look south for quality and, above all, value in Burgundy. Let Faiveley take you on that journey—you will be in safe hands. 

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After a successful stint at Domaine Leflaive, during which he was instrumental in restoring its reputation at the top of the Burgundy pecking order, Pierre Vincent is now pursuing his ambition to make wine under his own name.

Christmas Eve 2024, 8:25am. After three murky days when the cloud sat heavy on the Côte d’Or, obscuring vineyard and village alike, a dazzling sun brightened the slope, making it easy to find Domaine Pierre Vincent on the outskirts of Auxey-Duresses. Leaving Meursault behind, it is a sharp left off the D973 just before the village, down a rutted track that is subject to waterlogging no matter the season. It’s an unprepossessing approach—all the attraction here is in the wines. But first, some context. 

Rolling the clock back 20 years, I first met Pierre Vincent on October 12, 2004, early in his career, when he was working at Maison Jaffelin in Beaune, part of the Boisset group. As a schoolboy, he had harbored no winemaking ambitions, though he had an interest in agriculture, given that his father bred Charolais cattle in the Saône-et-Loire département: “I was fascinated by nature—the technique and the analytical side of what my father did—though I did not want to join him in his profession.” After school, he studied viticulture and enology in Dijon, and following briefs spells at Antonin Guyon in Savigny-lès-Beaune and Jaffelin, he succeeded Pascal Marchand at Domaine de la Vougeraie in 2006. At the time, and notwithstanding Marchand’s good work, Vougeraie had yet to establish a solid name for itself; I still remember mentioning Vougeraie wines only to be asked if I meant Vougeot, even by Burgundians. 

The domaine was founded by siblings Jean-Charles and Nathalie Boisset in 1999 and laid claim to a magnificent roster of vineyard holdings. Working with these over the decade he was in charge, Vincent solidified both his name and the domaine’s reputation. Without making radical changes, he steered the Vougeraie style toward greater finesse, with less immediate impact on the palate, and his assured methods soon gained widespread approbation. Thus, after the early, unexpected death of Anne-Claude Leflaive, châtelaine at Domaine Leflaive in Puligny-Montrachet, her successor, Brice de la Morandière, recruited Vincent to take over management duties in Puligny. 

In some respects, Domaine Leflaive is the Côte de Beaune’s white-wine equivalent of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in the Côte de Nuits, and it would be difficult to overstate its exalted status at the turn of the century. Renowned around the world for wines of peerless beauty, its reputation surged under the guidance of Anne-Claude Leflaive, particularly after she converted the domaine to biodynamics. Yet that reputation took a severe battering in the early years of this century, for despite her biodynamic practices—and notwithstanding the wines’ magnificence in youth—far too many bottles were corrupted by premature oxidation, a malaise that Leflaive showed little inclination to address. 

There was much to be done when Vincent joined in 2017, and there was a degree of urgency, too, if the slide in the domaine’s name was to be arrested and reversed. For consumers, the most obvious change was the switch to Diam closures, but many adjustments to winemaking practices were also being applied in the background. Together, de la Morandière and Vincent steadied the ship, and it seemed reasonable to suppose that Vincent would work out his days to retirement in Puligny; he had reached the top of the employment tree.

A white range bookended by brilliance

This was, of course, to reckon without his desire to make wine in his own name—surely augmented by a hankering to make red wine again. To this line of inquiry, Vincent responds with a smile and a gesture. His opportunity came about thanks to investors Hervé Kratiroff and Eric Versini, and together they acquired Domaine des Terres de Velle in July 2023. Thereafter, and until the end of 2024, Vincent lived a double life, spending mornings at his newly minted eponymous domaine and afternoons at Domaine Leflaive. 

The 7ha (17-acre) domaine, though not large, encompasses an impressive roster of vineyard holdings, divided roughly into five white and two red, and spread across 20 appellations. Many of the cuvées amount to no more than a handful of barrels, a circumstance in which Vincent revels, mentioning that for him his eight barrels of Puligny-Montrachet in a regular vintage constitutes a large cuvée. The winery is located beside the River Velle—hence the waterlogged approach track—meaning that the cellar is unusually humid, reducing the need to top up the barrels. 

Vincent’s winemaking is relatively simple. After being picked into 26lb (12kg) boxes, the white grapes are sorted and go straight to the press without crushing, followed by a short settling in stainless-steel tank before transfer to barrel for fermentation. He is happy for plenty of solids to make it to barrel. “I like turbidity,” he says. “I am a partisan for a high level of lees.” Bâtonnage is employed between alcoholic and malolactic fermentation, and a year in barrel is followed by six months back in tank before bottling. Dogma plays little part in Vincent’s approach, but he is adamant that the period in tank is essential for pure, clean flavors and harmony on the palate. Earlier harvesting than under the previous regimen will also play a part in keeping the house style fresh; rich, opulent textures are to be avoided: “Meursault foie gras is not my style.”

The white range is bookended by brilliance—from humble Aligoté, to patrician Corton-Charlemagne. The former comes from two vineyards within Auxey-Duresses and displays a bracing citrus character, fresh and perky, with a saline, mineral snap on the finish. It is lean and precise, though not searing, with a dry bite that is almost tannic. Élevage is in a 60/40 combination of oak (10% new) and amphorae, and the wine is an exemplar for a style of white Burgundy that is gaining greater recognition and approval. The days of curling the lip and reaching for the cassis at the mention of Aligoté are gone.

The Corton-Charlemagne is a stunning wine, a real rival to the Montrachets farther south that garner the lion’s share of attention when the world’s-best-Chardonnay plaudits are being handed out. It is an understandable situation, for the broad sweep of vineyard that wraps around the Hill of Corton encompasses great variety, most especially aspect, which swings from due east in Ladoix-Serrigny to due west, and more, in Pernand-Vergelesses. Holdings are scattered, too, as with Pierre Vincent’s two plots that total half-a-hectare (1.2 acres). One, planted in 1966, lies on the southwestern slope in Aloxe-Corton; the other, “around the corner” in Pernand-Vergelesses, where in summer it can be 11 am before the morning sun touches the vines, planted in 1949. As a result, Vincent harvests the Aloxe plot five days ahead of the northwest-facing thin strip of vineyard in Pernand. Each is vinified separately and only assembled into the final blend after the year in oak, to “marry” during the six months in vat. The result is a wine of grace and harmony, elegance and poise—an aristocratic wine, fully deserving of its grand cru status. Its polished pearl of flavor challenges the vinous lexicon, defying attempts to corral it with mere words. 

Between these poles of excellence comes a dozen other whites, some of which are made from vines now approaching their centenary, such as the Meursault Les Grands Charrons, planted in 1929, the Meursault Premier Cru Les Charmes, planted in 1936, and the Puligny-Montrachet Premier Cru Les Referts, a relative youngster from 1949. Speaking of this old-vine heritage, Vincent says, “They are my power but also my responsibility […]. We need to understand the old vines […]. Preserving them is the challenge of my life.” He replants vines as needed, around 1–2% annually, and despite the challenge, he is under no illusion about the great fortune of having such venerable vineyards to work with. As to the wines, the Grands Charrons is smooth and succulent, the Charmes is weightier but carries it lightly, and the Referts is poised and elegant. There is great energy in all of them, but this is harmonious, finessed energy—there isn’t a hair out of place.

Where elegance is the hallmark of Vincent’s white wines, the reds carry a more vigorous flavor profile—a firmer handshake, as it were. He is a lover of whole-bunch fermentation, usually in the range of 30–70%. “I always use some whole bunches, though I only decide at the sorting table […]. They bring flavors of spice and dried flowers, as well as greater freshness on the palate […]. I like to play with whole bunches. I layer them, millefeuille fashion.” This means the stainless-steel vat is filled alternately with whole bunches and destemmed grapes, after which the temperature is held at 54–57°F (12–14°C) for a few days of maceration before it is allowed to rise naturally for fermentation to begin, though he never lets it exceed 82°F (28°C). He relies principally on remontage for extraction, with sparing use of pigeage, perhaps three in three weeks. Thereafter, élevage is in standard 228-liter pièces from Chassin, Tonnellerie de Mercurey, and Berthomieu, with a modest proportion of new barrels, perhaps 15%. 

The resulting wines display an abundance of ripe fruit, intense rather than concentrated, with a lovely waft of sweet incense running through them like a family DNA. The Auxey-Duresses Les Closeaux—made with 40% whole bunches from 1955 vines—is shot through with gentle spice, while the Volnay Ez Blanches (50% whole-bunch, 1959) takes this character a step further with greater complexity and depth of flavor. Ez Blanches lies above Clos des Chênes, rising to 1,150ft (350m) at the tree line and bordering Monthelie. Hence it is separated by little more than half a mile (1km) as the crow flies from the Monthelie premier cru Les Duresses vineyard, yet there is a clear difference in style. From his 0.17ha (0.4-acre) holding, Vincent produces about four barrels of notably perky wine with a mild tannic grip. Finally, the Volnay Premier Cru Le Ronceret, downslope neighbor of Champans, marches to a sterner beat, courtesy of dense fruit, firm structure, and impressive depth.

Pierre Vincent: Experience, expertise, and maturity

It is too early to cast definitive judgment on Domaine Pierre Vincent, but it is not casting a hostage to fortune to say that Vincent and his partners have hit the ground running, thanks to three significant factors. First, the good standing of Domaine des Terres de Velles before they bought it. Though it is a young domaine, having been founded in 2009, it quickly established a sound reputation, as Jasper Morris MW comments in his book Inside Burgundy: “These are smart wines in both colours, offering a good range of bottles at affordable prices.” And, judging by samples of the 2023 vintage from barrel in July and again in December 2024, smart is about to get smarter. In short, they did not buy a pig in a poke. Second, the impressive age of the vines. As mentioned, for several of the wines above it is not unusual for them to be made from vines that have reached their half-century, with the near-centenarians bringing the average age up to nearly 60. Such a wealth of maturity can be thought of as a vinous trust fund, a deep reservoir of potential waiting to be tapped by a dexterous hand. Third, that hand comes in the shape of Pierre Vincent, whose 20 years’ experience and acknowledged talent as a winemaker make him the perfect custodian for such riches. 

Though he evinces no world-conquering ambitions, it takes only a few minutes in Vincent’s company to note the firm resolve beneath the smiling, youthful features. He is adamant, for example, that he wants to remain solely as a domaine and not follow the “hybrid” model that he says became popular after the meager 2021 harvest, when many domaines supplemented their all-too-modest harvest by buying-in grapes. This practice has continued since, so that today their production is a combination of domaine and négociant wines. In addition—and this is more sensed than explicitly stated—one feels that Vincent has found his comfort zone, that however prestigious it may have been to manage a domaine such as Leflaive, it was not his metier.

And does he hope that someday in the future a few Côte de Nuits vineyards might be added to his exclusively Côte de Beaune portfolio? “Yes, absolutely!” 

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Raymond Blake reviews The Grand Crus of Burgundy: Detailed Atlas and Characterization of the Climats by Laurent Gotti.

As howlers go, the designation of the Romanée-Conti vineyard as a “Vosne-Romanée premier cru” on pages 208 and 209 of this otherwise authoritative book is quite astonishing. The most famous vineyard on the planet downgraded at a stroke... and the same indignity is also visited on Richebourg and La Grande Rue, the other neighbors of Romanée-St-Vivant, the grand cru mapped on those pages. Thereafter things can only get better—and they do.

This is a book to be perused rather than read, to be mulled over and thought about, with a magnifying glass to hand when the naked eye is defeated by the level of detail in the maps—necessitated by the extraordinary parcellation of vineyard ownership and the challenge of accurately illustrating it. If any wine region deserves to be mapped thus, it is Burgundy, specifically its Côte d’Or heartland, with the seven Chablis grand cru climats included in one map to complete the picture. And if you give it the attention it deserves, it rewards you by way of deeper understanding and insight, helping to clear, though never fully dissipate, the fog of mystery that often clouds the fabled names and that only serves to foster their renown.

Grand Crus is more than a compendium of maps, the clue being found in the second part of the title: Detailed Atlas and Characterization of the Climats. Laurent Gotti sets out his stall in the first paragraph: “The grand crus of Burgundy constitute a unique model of world-renowned terroir-based viticulture. To identify precisely, however, the conditions of their emergence in this specific place is more complex than it seems. It is commonly accepted that natural conditions, soils, subsoils, climate, etc are the most important factors, but in many cases their delimitation can hardly be explained solely by the generosity of nature. In many cases, the perseverance of people, over the centuries, deserves to be given a central place in explaining the level of excellence achieved by these wines.”

That final sentence chimes with the central tenet upon which the Côte d’Or’s successful application for UNESCO World Heritage status was based—that the celebrated slopes’ natural potential was harnessed by the hand of man. Without that intervention, the land would have remained mute, much like a musical score waiting for an instrument and a performer to reveal its glory. The hand of man can be fickle, however. At a tasting earlier this year of some three dozen grand cru wines as part of Les Grands Jours de Bourgogne, a marvelously well-organized biennial week-long tasting marathon, I was left unconvinced by too many of the wines. There were a couple of standouts, which only showed up the others—all perfectly decent iterations, but when it is known that they are grand cru, expectations are inevitably raised, a circumstance then compounded by knowing that the price is never going to be low. Jasper Morris MW, in his magisterial Inside Burgundy, captures what should be the essence of a grand cru: “A grand cru worthy of its name should have a clearly definable character of its own which is separate from—and grander than—the prevailing style of the village […].” It was the lack of this “clearly definable character” that drew me up short in that tasting.

A paean of praise

This book, which is largely a paean of praise to the grands crus, could use a little more acknowledgment of that issue, though Gotti calls it correctly when considering the 50ha (125-acre) expanse of Clos de Vougeot: “Clearly, the terroirs of Clos Vougeot are not all the same. This statement is true for any climat. However, more than anywhere else, the classification of the entire Clos de Vougeot as grand cru is controversial.” The classification may be controversial, but the more common talking point is the division of those 50ha among 80 different owners, giving an average holding of only 0.625ha (1.54 acres). Whenever the minute parcellation of the Côte d’Or’s prime vineyards comes up for discussion, Clos de Vougeot is wheeled out for a ritual beating. I say, Not so fast, because thanks to the wealth of information contained in these pages (the product of much tedious graft, I’ll aver), numerous other examples of the parcellation are ready to hand.

Clos de Vougeot’s near neighbor Echézeaux manages to fly below the radar in this regard, despite its 38ha (94 acres) being divided between 59 owners, to yield an average of 0.64ha (1.58 acres). Indeed, the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti holding of 4.67ha (11.54 acres) there is equivalent to the total of the smallest 21 holdings together. And traveling south to the Côte de Beaune, we find that both are topped in terms of minute subdivision by Bâtard-Montrachet, its near dozen hectares (30 acres) spread among 41 owners (average 0.29ha [0.72 acre]), only one of which, Domaine Leflaive, owns more than 1ha (2.47 acres), while 24 producers make do with a holding of 0.2ha (0.49 acre) or less. At this level of pixelation, the hand of man must be exceptionally dexterous, for this is winemaking in miniature, sometimes with a barrel made to fit the quantity of wine produced each year. Whether this is the best way to harness the grands crus’ potential is questionable.

This level of detail is what makes Grand Crus compelling, almost addictive reading for any wine lovers obsessed with vineyard minutiae—a charge to which I plead guilty—but that is not its only strength. Added gravitas comes by way of myriad quotations from well-respected vignerons such as Marie-Christine Mugneret-Gibourg, Jeremy Seysses, Cyprien Arlaud, and others. Mugneret-Gibourg on Clos de Vougeot: “We harvest it in the middle of the harvest, early in the morning, before the arrival of visitors to the château […]. It can be left in the tank for an extra 24 hours without taking any great risks. It absorbs new oak quite well during maturation.” Seysses on Clos de la Roche: “The Clos de la Roche can be vinified without difficulty. It is a well-behaved child with a fairly constant temperament. In warm vintages, it does not lose its balance. In cold vintages, it still manages to mature. Grand crus are ultimately forgiving terroirs.” Arlaud on Clos St-Denis: “Clos St-Denis reaches an extreme level of emotion after several years. And this amplifies with age. The grace it can achieve is not widely known. It’s the Musigny of Morey-St-Denis.”

Grand Crus is a celebratory treatise that is hugely useful, but it would benefit from a little leavening of the good news. When mentioning the Hill of Corton’s 160ha (400 acres) of grand cru, Gotti declares, “[N]o other sector of the Burgundy wine-growing area can boast such a rich endowment in the highest category of the regional hierarchy.” It is a boast that could do with trimming.

In vinous terms, this book is a wine from a warm vintage made from ripe grapes whose acidity was on the low side. Even so, I look forward to many more hours perusing and poring over it, teasing out the detail of this vineyard or that. Though its appeal will be limited, it is sure to become an indispensable reference for anybody deeply interested in Burgundy. 

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Raymond Blake profiles Château Tour des Termes, the rising St-Estèphe estate now owned by the O’Connor family. 

At the risk of harping on at tedious length about the strong wine connections between Ireland and Bordeaux—a drum that I may be guilty of beating too often—the latest in a roll call of châteaux with Hibernian links deserves mention and celebration among Irish wine lovers. After a stop–start search that spanned more than a decade, including serious consideration of a purchase in Burgundy, as well as other Bordeaux châteaux, noted Irish businessman Eddie O’Connor finally settled on Château Tour des Termes in St-Estèphe in 2022. Then began the long-drawn-out, oh-
so-Gallic process of getting the transaction approved by the relevant authorities before news of the purchase of this cru bourgeois supérieur finally broke in summer 2023. Almost immediately, a planning process was set in train for a major program of renovation, including the construction of a carbon-neutral winery. Sadly, only six months later, tragedy struck when O’Connor died suddenly. He had been ill, but his death was still an unexpected shock. 

Those Irish wine lovers who had been toasting his achievement and buying the first consignments of Tour des Termes shipped to Ireland now began to wonder if his family would continue with the project or perhaps decide to sell up. They need not have worried. His widow Hildegarde, son and daughter Robert and Lesley, and Lesley’s husband Stewart Kennedy have reaffirmed the family’s commitment to their patriarch’s vision for Tour des Termes. A new chapter in its history is currently being written. 

The name Tour des Termes references an old tower on the property, on a plot called Les Termes, which roughly translates as “land’s end” and derives from the fact that this may have been the site of a Gallo-Roman port. Skipping forward to the late 17th century, documents make mention of a laborer in the commune of Potensac named Anney, whose great-grandson started making wine in St-Estèphe in 1876. His family continued his endeavors until his descendant Pierre Anney solidified their presence in the commune by buying Tour des Termes in 1938. He was succeeded in turn by his son Jean and grandson Christophe, whose daughter Aurélie continues in an ambassadorial role since the O’Connor purchase.

Writing in her excellent book Inside Bordeaux in 2020, Jane Anson opened her profile of des Termes with a sentence that remains accurate, despite the change of ownership: “Great quality and still independently owned, this is an estate to follow and support.” She continues her assessment of the wine: “Certainly rustic is not a word you would use to describe Tour des Termes, as the fruit is often soft, appealing and extremely drinkable,” before concluding that the wine is “Superbly balanced after a few years—oak can be a little dominant when young, emphasizing black chocolate and licorice flavours.”

Thus it is clear that, although des Termes does not have a high profile in the anglophone world, it would be wrong to suggest that O’Connor bought a run-down property that carried the scars of decades of neglect. Far from it. The reputation is solid if not spectacular, in other words; the château is ripe for the sort of dynamic rejuvenation that O’Connor envisaged and that will now be overseen by his family, with recently appointed general manager Julien Brustis in day-to-day charge on the ground. Brustis is a 34-year-old Bordeaux native, qualified as an agricultural engineer and enologist, who started his career at Château Dauzac in 2009 before moving on to Château Latour Martillac for three years. Then followed stints in Corsica and California, prior to returning “home” to Château Angélus and then to Paris to establish the Domaine La Bouche du Roi vineyard in Ile-de-France, as well as creating a pop-up winery on the Eiffel Tower.

Brustis is dynamic and articulate, fully committed to realizing the O’Connor family’s vision for des Termes. He was quickly on top of his brief and needs little prompting to outline the plans for des Termes at length. “We are going on the same plan, the same ambition for Tour des Termes [as Eddie had],” he says. “The family want to pursue his goal to develop the winery because the purchase of Tour des Termes was really linked to a development plan. He chose an estate that had potential and not one that is already at the top, so they will keep going with this and not delay things or change the ambition in terms of investments and long-term plans.”

Transformation in vineyard and winery

Both winery and vineyard are undergoing significant transformation—the former by way of a completely new, eco-friendly facility, with visitor reception area for tastings and meals; the latter by way of extensive mapping and replanting as deemed necessary. For the winery, noted Bordeaux architects BPM have been appointed. They have an impressive track record in delivering such projects, having already worked for a prestigious roll call of châteaux that includes Lascombes, Lynch-Bages, Beychevelle, Lagrange, and Angélus, as well as near neighbors Phélan Ségur and Cos d’Estournel. As Brustis puts it, “They are one of the famous architects in Bordeaux. They are really winemaking-oriented; they are not artists that do a very special building that you then try to make wine in… We try to make something very functional and very oriented to what I want to do with the wine and with the size of the vineyard we want to manage.”

In the vineyard, a plot-by-plot soil-mapping exercise has been completed and a restructuring plan drawn up. A little-known fact about des Termes is that 60% of the vineyard is planted to Merlot—which is highly unusual in the Cabernet Sauvignon-dominated Médoc. Brustis elaborates: “It was important to me to know precisely all the sorts of soils we have. We have a very special type of soil, which is very interesting in the context of global warming, having two thirds of our soil on clay and limestone and one third on the classic deep gravel of the Médoc, which makes our blend Merlot-oriented and not Cabernet Sauvignon. This helps us to have a high level of acidity.” As to the style of wine he is aiming to make: “Thirty years ago, St-Estèphe was wine for my grandfather—like a meal cooked for 70 hours; it was very strong… You expected a big wine, and now with climate change and the fact that it is the only place in the Médoc where we have clay and limestone, we are able to do wines that have a good level of acidity. So, now that we have more sugar, it means better-balanced wines, which helps us to enjoy them both young and with 20 years of aging. That is the direction we want to go—not do the most massive wine.” 

Perhaps the most radical vineyard development will be the production of a new white wine—radical in the sense that it will be a first for des Termes, though it is very much on-trend, given that neighbors Montrose and Cos d’Estournel now produce a white, as does Château Angélus in St-Émilion. (See 2020 Angélus Grand Vin Blanc) The first vines for this new wine were being planted as this issue of The World of Fine Wine went to press. 

Brustis explains, “We took out 2 hectares [5 acres] of St-Estèphe red wine to plant white wine […] so we will declassify it, because it is a great area to make great white wine, and it is not a great place for red. It is very white-oriented, even if in the beginning we had in mind to plant white in Haut-Médoc, because that is obvious, but the Haut-Médoc part [of the vineyard] is great to make red but not white. So, I said, ‘Do we want to do a good white or do we want to do a great white?’” Production will run to about 10,000 bottles annually, and the grape mix will be composed principally of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc, with a little Albariño to add distinction.

If everything goes according to plan, the first harvest will be in 2026, the year in which the new winery is due to come online. By then, the O’Connor family will be firmly embedded in this northern corner of the Médoc, about two thirds of a mile (a kilometer) west of celebrated third growth Château Calon Ségur. Tour des Termes played host to five generations of the Anney family, and already the third generation of O’Connors, still children, are enthused about their grandfather’s purchase. Lesley O’Connor explains: “We want to instill a love for it in our family in the next generations. We are learning, and we are trying to bring them along as we go.” She would be the first to admit that when it comes to getting to know the wine business, the learning curve is steep, but she succinctly sums up her fascination with viticulture by declaring, “There’s an inner farmer in me, for sure.”

And she has quickly come to a perceptive appreciation of the notion of terroir in its broadest sense. “When you start to listen to people who really love wine, and when they talk about the terroir and the connection between the wine as a manifestation of the environment, the place, and the time in which it was grown—it’s an expression, I suppose, of all of those things, so to get a real appreciation of the wine, you need in some way to have an understanding of the place itself.” Understanding the place is the key—and committed “terroirists” might struggle to give as concise an argument in favor of the too-often-nebulous concept of terroir. Tour des Termes is in safe hands.

It is no exaggeration to say that Eddie O’Connor enjoyed legendary status in the Irish business community, as a pioneer of renewable energy, and beyond those shores, too. He brought enormous energy to every project to which he turned his hand, carrying others along in his slipstream, as he strove confidently toward his chosen goal. Among his many noteworthy achievements, he also managed to write two books along the way. A Dangerous Visionary is the title of the first one; and having studied the plans that he put in place for Château Tour des Termes, I’d say he was more visionary than dangerous. 

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Raymond Blake reviews Oz Clarke’s Story of Wine: 8000 Years, 100 Bottles by Oz Clarke.

Not many wine people are widely known and easily recognized by their first name only, though not many have a name as memorable, easy to say and pronounce, as “Oz.” It wasn’t always thus, for Oz Clarke was christened Owen and only became Oz when teammates on his school cricket eleven nicknamed him Oz because they reckoned he played the game like an Australian. That said, one cannot help feeling that even if Oz Clarke answered to a more prosaic John or Peter or Tom, wine people would instantly know who was being spoken of. He’s that sort of guy; he’s more than just a memorable name. 

Nobody paints a verbal picture of a wine’s flavor quite like Oz does. And in this he is well served by his thespian background (he narrowly escaped a career as an actor before settling on wine). The theater’s loss was wine’s gain—something I have learned to my great delight on every occasion we have met but most especially in 2019, when I commissioned Clarke to speak at a grand wine dinner attended by 180 aviation executives from around the globe (see WFW 68, pp.142–47).

His contribution was the highlight of the evening, finishing with a resounding flourish when describing the final wine of the dinner, a Château d’Yquem 2009: “Astonishing wine. Its sheer richness, its exotic fruit cocooned in honey and cream, is so viscous and lush, your mouth will feel coated with succulence for an eternity after you swallow. And if you wait a moment or two more, you’ll realize that the flavors are still spreading out across your tongue, pineapple and peach are turning to barley sugar, heather honey is turning to orange chocolate, fresh cream thickens into butterscotch and caramel fudge, and every sensation is wrapped in liquid gold. That’s Yquem for you.”

Corralled between the covers of the Story of Wine: 8000 Years, 100 Bottles, Oz Clarke’s prose flies at a lower altitude than that passage. His achievement here is to take a huge sweep of vinous history and skip across it at speed, alighting on dozens of salient points along the way. Each stop comprises a short essay, usually with a vintage date as its starting point. At times you have little idea what direction Clarke will head off in, but you do know you are guaranteed an interesting story. And while the prose may be less baroque than the paean to Yquem, Clarke does allow himself some memorable sparkles and flourishes.

Considering the ill effects of heavy chaptalization, “[…] when a Bordeaux from a frankly execrable vintage would appear to be quite rich and almost sweet until the tug-of-war acidity threatened to part your gums from their teeth.” Or when telling the tale of the Douro Valley’s first serious table wine, Barca Velha, and giving some background color: “It always amazed me how poor Douro red wine was. It was offered to you almost apologetically if you dined with the Port shippers in Oporto. After they’d enthusiastically plied you with slugs of icy white Port, a barely digestible drink of which they seemed inordinately proud, they would then ladle out a dark, chewy, baked red wine simply because the main course required it […]. Indeed, the leading Port houses used to make the most cloddish table wine.” Or his first experience of boxed wine: “It must have been pretty bad, because I can still remember the taste of it. My first bag-in-a-box wine. It came from Bulgaria. And it tasted of geraniums […]. I later discovered this rather nauseating geranium taste came from lactic acid bacteria reacting with sorbic acid—a chemical used to combat the growth of fungus in the wine.”

The accessible wisdom of Oz Clarke

More seriously, Clarke’s ability to skewer pomposity and plutocratic connoisseurship is formidable: “I didn’t go to Robert Parker’s Gala Hedonist’s Dinner in 2015. I wasn’t invited. And the idea of paying £1,800 for a good dinner and taste of eight top wines didn’t give me any warm feelings. Indeed, the whole event rather disturbed me. This was part of a ‘Grand World Tour’ being undertaken by Parker, a kind of imperial long last farewell tour, a grand parade of the world’s most expensive wines being drunk in the company of the world’s richest wine lovers. But this wasn’t how Parker started out. And this wasn’t what Parker’s stated purpose was in the world of wine.”

Taking the narrative back to the late 1970s, when Parker started to write about wine, Clarke reminds his readers that the man who went on to be dubbed the emperor of wine by Elin McCoy originally set out to democratize wine, to give objective assessments of wines, “in a world where most wine criticism was far too cozy with the hand that fed it—the wine trade.” Parker’s name was made by his championing of the 1982 vintage in Bordeaux, and he went on to wield extraordinary influence for three decades thereafter, literally changing wine styles as winemakers sought to craft wines that found favor with his taste buds. But of his original intention, Clarke has this to say: “Less encouragingly, his attempt to democratize has actually created an elite; his marking system offers certainty where no certainty exists, substituting blithe reassurance for hard-earned personal opinion.”

Clear-eyed conclusions and assessments such as this form the backbone of this book, and it contains so much accessible wisdom it could act as a wine primer for neophyte and veteran alike. Thanks to its format, it is also perfectly suited to our sound-bite, bullet-point age, with attention spans corroded by exposure to torrents of information and non-information, truths and falsehoods, facts and non-facts. Open it at any page, and you will be treated to an engaging tale that always has a pin-sharp opinion at its core. And the narrative is always driven forward by enthusiasm—an enthusiasm for wine in all its iterations that is boundless and of which I have been an entertained “victim.”

I’ll not easily forget Oz’s enthusiastic insistence, at a wine tasting in Austria years ago, that I try the local Uhudler wine. His eulogizing of it swept my skepticism aside and led me to sample it. While he delighted in its wacky, miles-wide-of-center style, I searched out a sharp Sauvignon Blanc to use as mouthwash. That same enthusiasm runs rampant across these pages, sustaining the reader’s interest at every turn.

First published nearly ten years ago as The History of Wine in 100 Bottles: From Bacchus to Bordeaux and Beyond (2015), this revamped, renamed, and substantially redesigned second edition comes in a chunkier format. I especially like the tactile cover, with the title deeply embossed in white lettering on dark green (British racing green?). In terms of design and layout, it is a signal improvement on the original 2015 edition, though the use of a glossier paper in the former facilitated better reproduction of the numerous images. None of these changes, however, can obscure the wealth of knowledge contained therein. 

Oz Clarke’s Story of Wine: 8000 Years, 100 Bottles

by Oz Clarke

Published by Pavilion (imprint of Harper Collins Publishers); 320 pages; £30

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Raymond Blake savors the first release of Château Angélus Grand Vin Blanc, the Bordeaux estate’s white micro-cuvée.

As expected, the centerpiece and standout wine of a Château Angélus dinner I organized in Dublin last year was the 1985 vintage, shipped directly from the château for the occasion. Approaching its 40th birthday, it boasted the gorgeous sweet savor of well-aged claret, with a flavor that was gently insistent and in no way coarse. A delightful and wonderfully satisfying wine. And yet…

It could not be denied—and all of the diners agreed—that it was ever so slightly upstaged by the first wine of the evening: this young pretender, this Château Angélus Grand Vin Blanc. No matter how much they eulogized the 1985, each made their remarks while metaphorically looking over their shoulder. The memory lingered of a remarkably fresh and satisfying wine, delicate, beautifully composed, and with a graceful and harmonious finish.

Château Angélus hardly needs any introduction to Bordeaux lovers—or, indeed, to the wider public, since its starring role in three James Bond films, most memorably Casino Royale. Yet until now its renown has rested solely on the quality of its reds. This wine is going to embellish that reputation, though it will never reach a wide audience, as explained by the château: “We retain only the finest grapes from an extremely small plot to produce the Château Angélus Grand Vin Blanc. The result is a micro-cuvée, with barely 2,000 bottles produced each year. We reserve this rare wine for receptions held at the estate with our most loyal customers, and for Angélus dinners organized with our preferred partners.”

Grand Vin Blanc’s genesis dates back to 2017, when Hubert de Boüard de Laforest, owner of Angélus, decided to graft Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, and Semillon onto vines “on the southern slope of Castillon-la-Bataille […] which reminded him of the Côte des Blancs in Champagne […]. The hillside location provides the vines with optimum ventilation, while the very cool clay-limestone soils—made up of white tufa and oxidized clay, typical of the hillsides of Castillon-la-Bataille—irrigate the vines at depth.”

The vineyard area stretches to only 1.84ha (4.55 acres—coincidentally, the same size as Romanée-Conti), and the vines are planted at a density of 5,000 to 7,000 per hectare. After hand-harvesting, the grapes are pressed in an inert atmosphere, with the must allowed to settle before fermentation in a combination of new, Burgundy-sized, 228-liter barrels and a concrete egg. Some batches go through malolactic fermentation, then aging lasts for 16 months, with some lees stirring before gravity-fed bottling. The first vintage produced was the 2020.

On paper—and to my mind, in advance of tasting—this “Tour de France” quartet of grape varieties simply should not work. That’s the theory… but theory was thrown out when practice, by way of a first sip, revealed a remarkably harmonious marriage between a foursome that seldom shares the same bottle. 

Talking of which… the bottle itself references the plump, slightly tapering shape more usually associated with Vin Jaune from the Jura. Judging a book by its cover is hardly the stuff of objective wine assessment, but that shape and the elegant label—eye-catching because of its simplicity rather than any garish, look-at-me embellishments—make for an attractive, winning combination. All the empties were taken home as souvenirs. 

Tasting

2020 Château Angélus Grand Vin Blanc
(40% Chardonnay, 20% Chenin Blanc, 20% Sauvignon Blanc, 20% Semillon; 13% ABV)

Trying to pick apart the aroma and flavor of this wine, identifying the contribution that each grape variety makes, is a largely futile exercise. An attempt might credit the Chardonnay with providing the foundation, the Chenin some mineral bite, the Sauvignon a fresh zip, and the Semillon a touch of gloss. Searching for each component, however, by way of swirling, sniffing, and sipping, was like trying to winkle out the various colors an artist used in a great painting—seldom was a wine so obviously greater than the sum of its parts. Delicious, pure fruit was its calling card, on both the nose and the palate, where it was joined by subtle and nuanced floral notes. The lovely depth of flavor carried into a crystal-clear and lingering finish. A poised and precise wine. | 95

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Raymond Blake reviews Climbing the Vines in Burgundy: How an American Came to Own a Legendary Vineyard in France by Alex Gambal.

Gambal looks like he’s suffering from a week’s jet lag. A sense of relief rather than outright happiness escapes the fog of weariness—victory has been snatched from the jaws of defeat. Harvest for him consisted of an epic, all-hands-to-the-pumps race against time as he battled to get as many grapes as possible into the winery before the rain. It has been a tough couple of days, but the effort has been worth it.”

I wrote those words about the 2010 harvest in Burgundy shortly after a visit to Alex Gambal’s winery, located on Beaune’s ring road, on Saturday, September 25 that year. By that time—having arrived as a complete greenhorn in the Côte d’Or in 1993, with the intention of making wine—he was a well-established name in the Burgundy firmament, with a reputation for crafting pure-fruited wines in an elegant flavor register.

Gambal’s salutary tale

Today, some 30 years later, the adventure is over. Maison Alex Gambal is now owned by Boisset, though it is still semi-autonomous, as with the numerous other names acquired by Boisset over the decades. Gambal has returned to his native United States, and much to this reviewer’s delight, he has committed his story to paper, for this is a salutary tale, a warts-and-all narrative that could easily serve as a textbook in wine schools around the globe, where it should be compulsory reading for anyone considering a career as a winemaker. And for those who harbor dreamy thoughts of buying a winery once their lottery numbers come good, this should be the first book they read. And the second. And perhaps the third, too. Rose-tinted spectacles, noted for their indestructibility when it comes to all things wine, need to be shattered to get a clear view of the road ahead. This book will do that, and it is hardly going too far to suggest that it should come with a warning emblazoned in bold on the cover: “Before joining the wine business, read this.” 

Making good wine, season after season—despite what the weather gods may throw at you, avoiding the myriad pitfalls, from planting the vineyard, to bottling the end product—is a challenge, yet that is only half the battle, and it is the second half that the dewy-eyed neophyte is most likely to overlook: Your wine certainly will not sell itself. Gambal calls out the sales grind with cautionary frankness: “Sales, no matter what the product, can and often do bring out the worst in people. I used to sell parking services, not the most glamorous of products but I developed a thick skin. With wine, the sheer rudeness of buyers of all stripes and the way they treat their sales reps—and reps with their suppliers, who have often come from the other side of the world—is mind boggling. Cancelled appointments, no response to calls for an appointment, waiting for as long as an hour when you know the buyer is only trying to bust your chops or is too busy doing inventory (they always seem to be doing inventory). The list and excuses are endless.”

Open this book at almost any page, and your attention will be caught by similarly down-to-earth passages like this. In that respect, the subject matter of chapters 22 and 23—charting the extraordinary complication and labyrinthine legalities of buying prized vineyard land in Burgundy’s Côte d’Or—can simultaneously fascinate and weary the attentive reader. It is beyond the scope of this review to quote them at length, but they distill the salutary essence of this book. 

A lighter side

A lighter but no less engrossing note is struck in Chapter 26, A Black Morning in April. It relates how, in 2016, a devastating spring frost struck the vineyards, exacerbated by the rising sun burning the vine buds, thanks to its rays being magnified by the globules of ice on them. Anywhere with cloud cover was spared the catastrophic losses in the sun-struck vineyards, so when frost threatened again in 2017, the local grower associations devised a novel, if crude, method of creating an artificial cloud: “They bought large, Ho Ho–like hay bales and placed them strategically in the vineyards about fifty meters [55 yards] apart with everyone volunteering to burn four to six bales if the temperature dropped below freezing. The goal, creating a man-made cloud of smoke throughout the Côte d’Or, was achieved on Saturday April 29 when, at 5:00 am, we received text messages to man our positions, drove to the vines under cloudless clear skies and temperatures ranging from -2 to 3 Celsius [28.4–37.4°F]… I was coughing for two weeks afterward.”

Notwithstanding the compelling tale told in these pages, too many of them play host to typos or other glitches that, in the overall scheme of things, are only minor irritations, but this narrative deserves better, deserves not to be hobbled thus. In truth, Climbing the Vines craves some tough love from an editor with a sharp whip hand who could also have reined in the more prolix passages. I found myself wondering, as I did when reviewing Henry Goulding’s Thoughts on a Wine Cellar (WFW 78, pp.56–57), if the good people at Académie du Vin (now the world’s largest wine-book publisher after their acquisition of the Classic Wine Library late last year) might take it in hand to iron out the creases. It’s a task that could also stretch to better reproduction of the photographs and the addition of an index.

Yes, Climbing the Vines is a bit long-winded at times (such as the rambling parable to illustrate the need for punctuality among cellar hands on pp.130–31), but there is a sense, as you turn the pages, that Gambal is getting things out of his system, closing the door on a long chapter in his life that reached an end few could have foreseen or indeed wished on him. There were long years of many challenges, sustained only by the hope of future rewards, but overshadowing all that was the illness and subsequent death of his wife Diana, and the eventual sale of the business he had sweated to build up. Gambal walked the walk, so he is now supremely well qualified to talk the talk. His refreshing candor generates a compelling narrative, free of PR blandishments and soft-focus prose. Those imposters are for other wordsmiths. To repeat: “Before joining the wine business, read this.”

Climbing the Vines in Burgundy: How an American Came to Own a Legendary Vineyard in France 

by Alex Gambal

Published by Hamilton Books (imprint of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group)253 pages; €27.49

The post <strong>Down to earth: </strong>A refreshingly candid, cautionary vintner’s tale appeared first on World Of Fine Wine.

Twenty years ago, I used to quip that my heart would sink to my boots whenever a winemaker asked, “Would you like to try my Pinot Noir?” The enquiry usually came at the end of a visit and tasting, and a response in the affirmative was the only response. Some polite mutterings would follow before I signaled my retreat with an “Is that the time?” exclamation. Relating this semi-apocryphal scenario to a wine merchant friend, saying how exasperating I found it to taste a fine range of wines, only to be brought up short by a lumpen or vapid Pinot, he counseled, “Well, it took the Burgundians one thousand years to get it right, and sometimes they still make a mess of it, so it is not surprising the newcomers struggle. Give them time.”

Two decades later, the picture has changed markedly, which makes this, the latest monograph from the International Wine & Food Society, well timed to catch the rising tide of quality and interest in the prima donna grape, of which I once wrote, “… fickle as the Irish weather, bewitching as a temptress, enchanting as a nightingale.” Anne Krebiehl MW echoes this in her introduction: “In short, it captivates us, and its best examples transcend mere taste and flavor and let us glimpse something almost divine. For some reason, Pinot Noir engenders obsessiveness, both in those who drink it and in those who grow and make it.” Any Pinot-phile pondering those words—and the slew of rhetorical questions that dominate the introduction, attempting to explain the obsessiveness—will be comforted to know that they are safe in the hands of a fellow sufferer: “What is it about Pinot Noir that captivates us so much? [...] Is it because Pinot Noir is said to express what other wines cannot, something profound that is a link to a particular place and time? Because growing and making it is such a challenge? Because it excels when it has had to struggle? Or perhaps because it has been with us humans for such a long time, and has helped and nurtured us as we helped and nurtured it?” 

Over the following four-score pages, Krebiehl crafts a Pinot primer that goes some way toward answering her questions, but you can feel this grape, about which so much has been written, straining at the boundaries imposed by the booklet’s diminutive size. One senses, too, that “fellow sufferer” Krebiehl needs a bigger stage to do full justice to her subject. Indeed, I suspect she may have longed for another four-score pages to elaborate on Pinot’s myriad attractions and frustrations.

The dramatic improvement of Pinot Noir

The result is a work where, at times, the narrative leaps forward at time-warp pace, such as in Chapter 4, when, in the space of two paragraphs, the story jumps some nine centuries—from the founding of the Abbey of Cîteaux in 1098, to the second half of the 20th century. Chapter 2 also finishes at a gallop, when a little more information, even one more paragraph, would have fleshed out the tale. Such compaction catches the reader unawares at times.

Chapter 5 carries the book’s title—Pinot Noir Around the World—and forms the backbone of this work. It is here that Krebiehl displays the knowledge and enthusiasm that will assure readers they are in safe hands. Moving beyond Burgundy, she notes that the recent improvement in Alsace Pinot Noir “was a long time coming,” and I couldn’t agree more. Time was when every one I tasted promised much on the nose but failed to deliver on the palate, where the initial appeal tailed off into watery disappointment. If that echoes your experience, Krebiehl suggests you take another look soon; juicy promise on the nose has been joined by conviction and moderate length on the palate.

Skipping across the border to Germany, Krebiehl quotes Robert Parker’s coruscating put-down of German Pinot, written in 2002: “A grotesque and ghastly wine that tastes akin to a defective, sweet, faded, diluted red Burgundy from an incompetent producer. Need I say more?” My opinion at the time, though not as trenchant, was informed by exposure to wines I found soupy and clumsy, relying on heft rather than grace to make an impact; there was too much superstructure piled on shaky foundations. Given that Krebiehl is herself German, these pages provide, perhaps inevitably, the strongest regional profile in the book. Today, the news is all positive: Germany is now the world’s third-largest producer of Pinot Noir after France and the US, and Pinot is found in all 13 regions.

Krebiehl elaborates: “This resounding success is down to a complete shift from quantity to quality, pioneered by curious winemakers who were fed up with the status quo of the late 1980s and ’90s, and to their children who drove this quality ethos forward via much better viticulture and sensitive winemaking.” And she concludes: “Stylistically, it is impossible to pin German Pinot Noir down, but it is safe to say that Germany today offers a scintillating playground for any Pinot lover. No longer is [there] any doubt that some of them are world-class.” It is a sentiment with which I wholly concur—and I would go further and suggest that by the end of this century, far more than “some” German Pinots will be world-class. 

Thereafter, Krebiehl sweeps across the globe, highlighting Pinot hot spots in New Zealand, Tasmania, Gippsland (home to my favorite New World Pinot, Bass Phillip), and many others, while not forgetting North and South America. Unsurprisingly, she references “the Sideways phenomenon,” in California, “that led to a veritable explosion of Pinot Noir,” thanks to the influence of the 2004 film based on the novel by Rex Pickett. 

She also deals with the elephant in the room that is climate change, arguing, “Adaptation in both plant material and farming practices will go a long way toward mitigating the effects of climate change.” She then finishes optimistically, “Climate change has already shifted the latitudes in which it thrives, and may do so even more dramatically within our lifetime. But there is no doubt that Pinot Noir will continue to stay with us, as it already has for centuries.”

Highly recommended

Reviewing Richard Mayson’s The Essential Guide to Modern Madeira (see WFW 81, pp.54–55), I observed: “A minor irritation in this guide are the almost illegible captions printed on a greyed-out band at the bottom of the photographs, making them near-impossible to read. It’s a small detail, but it is a baffling design error that could have been easily avoided.” In Pinot Noir, it is still baffling and has yet to be avoided. I also noted: “I wish it was sturdier—after leafing through it a couple of times some of the pages were already coming loose from the binding.” This has been remedied in Krebiehl’s monograph—after a fashion: The pages are now simply stapled together, but that has the effect of cheapening the feel of the publication. Pinot Noir deserves better. And this work would have benefited hugely from an appendix of some recommendations or personal favorites; even one name from each region profiled would provide some direction, especially in the regions where attractive quality is pretty much a 21st-century happening.

Those few minor quibbles aside, I would have no hesitation in recommending this monograph, especially to Pinot neophytes—wine lovers keen to dip their toes in these challenging waters, particularly if they have been put off by all the fluster and hyperbole that Pinot generates. It will be a tenner well spent.

Pinot Noir Around the World 

Anne Krebiehl MW

Published by The International Wine & Food Society
Available from iwfs.org/secretariat/purchase; 86 pages; $14 / £9.99 / €11

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Raymond Blake on the romance and reality of Les Deux Cols, a collaboration that began in Dublin and is now producing increasingly refined wines in the Rhône Valley.

Much has been written about the strong  Irish wine connections to Bordeaux, made manifest in château names such as Léoville Barton and Lynch-Bages, and négociants such as Lawton. Valid Hibernian claims can also be made for far-distant regions—Clare Valley in Australia springs to mind—and, though some of the links have been eroded over time, Irish wine lovers are never slow to engage  in some genealogical wizardry to fan the embers of a connection that may be more historical than contemporary. No such sleight of hand is needed in the case of Les Deux Cols, in the Rhône Valley, whose genesis barely extends back to  the end of the past century.

Charles Derain from Toulouse—the “half” of the triumvirate—arrived in Ireland to work as a sommelier in 1999, having qualified from the Lycée Hotelier de Tain l’Hermitage, with some winemaking experience at Domaine Alain Graillot in Crozes-Hermitage to boost his credentials.  He quickly established a reputation as Ireland’s finest sommelier, and members of the wine trade keen to sell him wine could be assured that they were dealing with someone who “knew his onions.” One of these was Simon Tyrrell, who had his own distribution business specializing in wines from the Rhône Valley. The two quickly established a rapport that developed into a firm friendship, leading eventually to talk of making wine together. But not before Derain hung up his corkscrew in 2007 and jumped the fence, as it were, to set up his own importing company, Nomad Wine, selling wine from many of Burgundy’s finest domaines to independents and restaurants, including his previous employer. The hospitality business’s loss was the wider wine world’s gain.

Tyrrell takes up the story: “We had known each other for  a good while. I started selling wine to Charles in about 2000. We had an immediate connection because I was selling a portfolio of wines from the Rhône, and he knew a lot of them quite well… We had begun to talk about the possibility of doing a small négoce business in Burgundy, which we actually did  for a few years, but I think we underestimated the skills required to run what was a relatively time-consuming and financially consuming business.”

In the late noughties, the duo continued to take faltering steps toward making their own wine, but Tyrrell eventually realized that he needed more formal knowledge to accelerate their plans and reach their eventual goal. In 2009 he enrolled  at Plumpton College in the UK to study viticulture and enology for two years, all the while continuing the conversation with Derain, gradually settling on a plan to establish a négoce business, “to make some wine together in the Rhône. But at that point we didn’t necessarily think we would end up buying vineyards. We thought it would just really be a grape-purchasing négoce business to start with.”

As well as teaching him the technical aspects of grape-growing and winemaking, Plumpton equipped Tyrrell with  a clear-headed appreciation of what lay ahead if Derain and  he were to succeed—and rose-tinted spectacles played no role in the pragmatic, down-to-earth advice he received. He pays tribute to Plumpton: “When I was there, they were pretty  good in the way they laid out the different kind of models you could do, and what they were very keen to underline was that you shouldn’t leave winemaking college and just go out  and buy a vineyard, because there are so many pitfalls. Their suggestion was to first start blending wine from finished  wines that you could buy as a négoce; if that worked, you could then start buying grapes and making wine; finally, if that all worked and you had established a brand, you could then go off and buy a vineyard.”

Suitably cautioned, the duo approached Denis Deschamps, then director of “a small, very avant-garde cooperative called Les Vignerons d’Estézargues,” to ask if he knew anybody who would be willing to sell them grapes and also allow the pair to use their winery equipment. Deschamps immediately said they would be welcome to use his facilities, an offer that also gave them access to 350ha (865 acres) of vineyard: “The only thing we needed to do was to buy some small tanks, because the tanks in Estézargues are designed for much, much bigger quantities than we were going to be producing.” They began with three 10hl tanks—“stuck in the corner of this cathedral of much larger tanks”—and were able to pick and choose the varieties that they wanted from the different terroirs they favored.  From 2012 to 2016, this was their modus operandi, producing one white and two red wines. Tyrrell admits that, as they found their feet, it was “very rudimentary winemaking,” using a little basket press borrowed from one of the vignerons because the giant press at Estézargues was too big for their needs.

The road to Damascus and Les Deux Cols

Thus was born Les Deux Cols, named for two hills above one  of the Estézargues vineyards while also referencing the two colleagues—who were soon to become three, necessitating  the addition of three trees on the back label, when Gerard Maguire joined as an equal partner in 2017.

Maguire has had a more varied career than Tyrrell or Derain, starting with 15 years as a police detective, then the same again as a lawyer, before following his true passion and opening a wine shop—64 Wine—in the Dublin suburb of Glasthule. About ten years ago, when profiling this excellent shop, one of Ireland’s best, I wrote of Maguire: “It’s always nice to meet a fellow wine fanatic. You can drop all pretense at rational judgment and revel instead in the sort of shared enthusiasms that defy logic and confound those who think  that a bottle of wine is a bottle of wine… Gerard Maguire is just such a fanatic, and my carefully compiled list of questions is abandoned as we snoop and delve around the cellar space at  the back of 64 Wine in Glasthule. There’s barely enough floor space to stand, and you must pick your way carefully between the Château Latour and the Chave Hermitage, the Trimbach Clos Ste Hune and the Cuvée Frédéric Emile, the L’Ermita and the Gaja. Aladdin’s cave doesn’t begin to describe it.” Little has changed since then, except to say that under the guidance of Maguire’s business partner Anthony Robineau, the Aladdin’s cave now also contains a magnificent trove of great Burgundies.

Maguire’s involvement in Les Deux Cols came when Tyrrell and Derain realized that if they were to ever buy vineyards,  they would need extra investment. Tyrrell explains: “We both had this desire to really get our hands dirty and to dive into the whole cycle. By the end of 2016 we began looking for vineyards… We were helped in this process by Denis Deschamps, who wanted to buy some vineyards as well, so he had his eye out for parcels going. It was actually Denis who eventually spotted  the vineyards where we are today. I remember going there  for the first time. It was this road-to-Damascus experience—I was completely seduced by the site.” Seduction was one thing, financial reality was another, so the pair asked Maguire, “whom we both knew very well from the wine business in Ireland,”  to join them, “as an equal partner and investor.”

Equal is the word. Each echoes the other when speaking  of the style they are aiming for, and though interviewed separately, their answers are facsimiles of each other, so it is necessary to quote only Derain: “We are focused on freshness. We’re not looking for concentration, we want everything ripe, but it is important not to confuse ripeness with overripeness. We are looking for a floral style with red fruits, raspberry and strawberry, not spice and black fruits—that is not our cup of tea. Light extraction, with good acidity and freshness, is what we are after.” But are they turning those words into wine?

Better wine and a better footprint

Les Deux Cols’ flagship wine, La Degève, is a 100 percent Grenache Vin de France, of which 750 bottles were produced in 2021. It comes from a hilltop single vineyard of stony limestone at an elevation of 600ft (180m) with a southwest exposure. The vines were planted in 2003, and all the vineyard work is done by hand, including harvest. Fermentation took place in stainless steel before maturation for ten months in used 500-liter demi-muids. On the palate, it does fit Derain’s verbal template, delivering the freshness he repeatedly mentions by way of a pleasant snap on the finish, yet one can’t help feeling that further refinement will move the style toward a snugger fit. Tyrrell says: “As new vignerons, we are still feeling our way through the vinification process—not so much in the actual fermentation itself, because I think we have a fairly clear idea of that, but certainly in the maturation process. We would like to be able to refine our maturation by moving to larger foudres… We love the profile that Grenache gives us in our area; to keep that delicate fruit style of Grenache that we want to produce, we need to invest in larger casks, probably 15hl foudres, and each one of those is almost €9,000.”

Worldwide, Grenache is having a moment right now.  The deceptively pale, sweetly alcoholic wine of yore, useful  as a filler to flesh out scrawny blends, has segued into  something far more serious and worthy of note. Thus, by nailing their colors to that mast, the trio have the wind of fashion at their back, a force that is like the weather—difficult to predict and impossible to control, but hugely helpful when  it chimes with your endeavors. Their timing in this regard could hardly be better.

Fashion may be on their side, but that should not disguise the fact that this trio have paid their dues, from beginning  to end of the winemaking process; from clearing and planting vineyards by hand, to the business of selling, again by hand. Successful winemaking doesn’t finish when the wine is bottled. More hurdles in the form of sales and distribution lie ahead: taking samples to be tasted by importers and sommeliers; pouring wines for hour after hour at trade fairs; answering the same questions, elaborating the same story again and again. And again. Not to mention the administration.

Any wine lovers who harbor dreamy ambitions of buying a vineyard once their lottery numbers come up should have a word with Derain first, particularly if they favored buying in France, with its brain-bending bureaucracy: “It’s a pure nightmare. I am dealing with four or five different administrations just to make wine. You would need to employ someone just to understand it. It’s insane… You have to make good wine, you need to sell it, yet admin takes up 50 percent  of your time. I don’t know how people do it. There is no way around it.” And for any who think that the administration is  the only challenge: “Agriculture is hard work. We do everything ourselves. It is very demanding.” Dreams duly scotched. (The above quote is heavily redacted for, if one thing qualifies  Derain for full Irish status, it is his ability to turn the air blue when the touch paper of French bureaucracy is dropped into the conversation, ladling on the expletives to rail against its labyrinthine complexities.)

It is barely an exaggeration to say that while the trio are understandably obsessed with wine quality, they are also fanatical about operating in as eco-friendly a fashion as possible. Maguire elaborates: “The three of us share an aspiration for improving; there are always things to improve, you never achieve your goal. We want to make a better wine and leave a better footprint. Our legacy is that we should  leave the vineyard land in a better condition than we found it. Care for the environment is a given, it’s in our DNA, there is never any need to discuss it.”

Tasting the early vintages from Les Deux Cols, I found myself reacting politely rather than enthusiastically, probably influenced by the fact that I knew all three and had a high regard for what they were doing. Today, the wines have a certain assurance and a clearer identity than in the early years. Yet there is no doubt they can go further by way of refinement and elegance. The adolescent years are ending—adulthood beckons, and it is full of promise. 

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Raymond Blake marvels at the latest additions to World of Wine, Porto’s vast new complex of museums, restaurants, and bars, paying tribute to the visionary behind it.

How Porto has changed. On my first visit, toward the end of the past century, the city presented a drab, down-at-heel face to the world, leavened only by the excellence of a multiplicity of Ports. Back then, I actively counseled non-wine-trade people to avoid Porto (and, by extension, the Douro Valley), whereas today I do precisely the opposite. Previously, I wrote about visiting the region, “Doing so was once a chore, a trial to be endured by hardy wine merchants and others of that ilk. The beds were lumpy, and so was the food. Today, it is open to visitors like never before, beds are welcoming, and food is satisfying, though masochists can still find relics of the past.” On that latter note, with each passing year, masochists are having to search harder and harder for dodgy board and fare to meet their needs.

Few cities have undergone such a positive transformation in a relatively short space of time as Porto. On my most recent visit in May 2023, the city teemed with life, an exuberant mood held sway, fostered by the warm sun and the cocktail that has yet to take the world by storm—the “Port-tonic.” It’s a magical combination of white Port and tonic, leavened by a slice of lemon and a sprig of mint. Its great attraction is that, at a stroke, it elevates white Port —which can be a rather humdrum drink, though there are, of course, some great exceptions—into something special, fresh, and energizing. Sun and cocktail encourage languid lazing and people watching, but to indulge solely in that would be to miss one of the world’s most ambitious wine visitor attractions: World of Wine, or WOW.

Living up to the acronym

First, though, a word about words. Strictly speaking, the city of Porto lies on the northern bank of the Douro River, and Vila Nova de Gaia, which might be termed the Port-wine capital, lies on the southern bank. I, and many others, tend to use “Porto” loosely to encompass both cities, to avoid endless qualification. But WOW is in Vila Nova de Gaia, and given its size and footprint, it could never have been constructed in Porto. That it could be accommodated in Vila Nova de Gaia is down to clever repurposing of the expansive Port lodges, the traditional wine warehouses used to store and mature vast volumes of Port. As Porto’s popularity as a tourist destination surged, they came to occupy prime real estate that could be repurposed to take full advantage of the increase in visitor numbers. The lodges had been built originally to store the Port in less torrid conditions than those found in the Douro Valley—which led to the wines tasting of “Douro bake”—not a problem today, when the wines can be safely stored in the valley in temperature- and humidity-controlled conditions. With the lodges cleared of their contents, work could begin on transforming them into World of Wine (which was first covered here in WFW 70, pp.90–92).

WOW is the brainchild of Adrian Bridge, CEO of The Fladgate Partnership (Taylor’s, Fonseca, Croft…), and it stands as testament to his energy and vision for, in conception and construction, it was a vast project that came to fruition at the height of Covid yet managed to open successfully barely one month behind schedule. How to describe it? It sounds clichéd to say that, in scale and scope, WOW is mind-boggling, but that is exactly what it is, and in that respect it fully lives up to its acronym. In brief, it encompasses seven separate but related museums and as many as a dozen restaurants and bars, including T&C (traditional Portuguese cuisine); 1828 (“The best steakhouse in Portugal”); Golden Catch (seafood); and Mira Mira by Ricardo Costa, who has won two Michelin stars at The Yeatman. The museums include The Wine Experience, which “peels back the onion of winemaking enough for a layman to learn something, and for a more knowledgeable person to dive into more detail, if they wish. It is an experience for anybody who has enjoyed a glass of wine and wondered why they prefer one taste to another.”

A whole book could be written about WOW; indeed, one has (World of Wine: A Guide, by Neill Lochery; Bloomsbury Caravel, 2020), and it is the source of the above quote. Other museums include Pink Palace—“An exaggerated, flamboyant, and sensory experience that immerses visitors in the world of rosé”—and Planet Cork, “an interactive museum that invites the exploration of the cork oak forests of Portugal.”

Nine millennia of drinking vessels

Despite the appeal of these myriad attractions, one of the museums stands primus inter pares among its neighbors: The Bridge Collection. As the name suggests, this extraordinary collection of drinking vessels that spans nine millennia is the personal collection of Adrian Bridge and has been assembled over a span approaching 20 years. It is important to stress that it includes thousands of drinking vessels and is not only confined to glasses. More than 2,000 pieces are on display, the earliest of which dates from 7,000 bce. In Bridge’s own words, “I started collecting after a suggestion by James Ede (Charles Ede Ltd), from whom I had bought a few antiquities. He put it in my mind to have a collection of Roman drinking vessels that I could use to serve Port in. It seemed a great idea, and I started. I have used some of them a number of times to serve Port, but this requires care[…]. Experience tells me that it is not a great idea to use them, though—not because any have been broken, but just because it tends to kill the dinner party a bit.”

Nothing, however, could kill Bridge’s enthusiasm for his collection. He is hugely knowledgeable about each piece, and the allotted hour for our visit passed in a trice. Time and again he checked his watch, insisting we press on, before spotting a gem that had to be explained. These are his babies, and he can give seed, breed, and generation on every one of them. Having Bridge as a guide is a great bonus, but mention must also be made of the impressive setting and layout of his collection: It could hardly be bettered, and it greatly enhances and contributes to a proper appreciation and enjoyment of each piece and the collection as a whole.

It sets the bar high for its sibling museums and, mercifully, there are no gimmicky installations of the attention-grabbing-but-ultimately-unengaging stripe. Save perhaps for the “sculpture” that depicts a right hand holding a bottle that continuously pours red wine into a glass in the left hand: It veers dangerously close to tacky—and the floor beneath sports a pattern of splashes. That blip apart, I would wholeheartedly recommend a visit to WOW, with a minor caveat…

Just as a book has been written about World of Wine, so, too, could many days be spent there trying to take it all in. But to do so might be counterproductive, since there is simply so much to see and absorb that it could easily become overwhelming. A better plan is surely to be selective and to visit at least twice—perhaps “top and tail” a week-long visit to Porto and the Douro with a half-day stop in WOW at each end. You won’t be disappointed. 

For more information, to purchase tickets, and to plan a visit, see wow.pt

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