The Burgundy Wine Guide | Everything You Need to Know About The World's Best Wine

They said they say it takes 10 years to learn about border and the rest of your life to learn about burgundy If you'll find if you ever go on holiday to burgundy you can't just turn up You need appointments. There's a wonderful thing you can do. We've drive from North to South in burgundy You actually pass through all the finest labels you ever come across because all the villages are actually called by the names of the In the half of fine wines. This idea of terror wise this connection between soil, climate, topography and human intervention. I see you've been rubbing them in the dirt to make them No, I do prefer to drink from what I call the dusty end of the cellar Hello and welcome to the luxury dispatch the podcast that reveals the refined in the rare people items and stories that make up the luxury industry I'm Tom Chamberlain and today we shall be descending into the cellar into that ancient hallowed and frankly ruinous world of burgundy wine A place where limestone and monks and Napoleon and inheritance law conspired over a thousand years to produce something the rest of the world has never quite managed to replicate My guests are Jordy Willis of the legendary Barry Brothers and Rudd a man who has spent his life in devoted and distinguished service to the great And a man many called Nick but too I call dad and in a file who has accumulated over many decades considerable number of opinions about burgundy and how it should be drunk and who with hello to you both Hello, so this is definitely one of those subjects that I think anyone who's watching or interested in the luxury dispatch will have heard of will think they know a bit about but ultimately Will be curious to know more So why don't we just go right back to the beginning burgundy has a lot of history both when it comes to you know the wars between the English and the French the begundians were huge players in that when did burgundy as a great wine region become something that the world knew about and certainly when it become established in France Well, I suppose burgundy was producing wine right back to the Roman times so so you were possibly a thousand years out in terms of how long the vinaiss history has been there but it wasn't really until the middle ages between the 14th and 15th century that the burgundy came into its own and and this was a time when the begundian juke's ruled ruled the land There were four wonderful begundian juke's with great names. There was Philip the bold there was John the fearless Philip the good Charles the rash These these like John the drunk John the drunk the less and no John John the slightly tipsy He was talked about less but but the reason that's important there's two reasons really but one of the reasons is that the burgundy stretched much further than it does today so we think about burgundy as being this region in the uh east of uh of mid east of France but actually at that point it went all the way up uh towards the North Sea So so burgundy was this illustrious region um that uh was known for culture was known for luxury The the the land expanded all the way up uh towards flanders Which was sort of the sort of Silicon Valley of the day. So there was huge wealth and and huge interest so so the begundian juke's are important in this story Not least because in the uh 14th century in 1395 The Philip the bold Um got rid of the gamme grape and burgundy um which is why really Pino is the is the core great there could you can you just explain what gamme grape is yeah So so gamme is another another great variety which is um uh in the burgundy region because burgundy splits out into different parts And one part is bogeylet uh which which is further south uh south of the macony um and it's a different Land type the geology is different so it's a granite rather than limestone which we might talk about in a bit Yeah, um but gamme was considered a little bit too rough and ready for for the core uh burgundy region and was banish south So so burgundy itself is two very distinct grapes but not gamme Okay, and We know burgundy today is being two great varietals is that right? So dab what was left over? Well, there the two great varietals obviously is the Pino Noir which is the principal grape and in fact it's 100% in in the whole burgundy region and um in in the south uh which is where the finest of the white wines made in in burgundy It's the shardony grape which again is 100% of all the white wines who don't they don't have a mix of wines like other districts in um in france do It should be it should be really straightforward because really these two grapes Adominant across the region there's a couple of small examples but it is 95% of the entirety of burgundy is these two grapes But surprisingly it's unbelievably complex in a in a positive way And so when these two grapes it was it was it was established that there would be these two grapes yeah How did that affect like the production or how did it affect how it it turns of what we know of burgundy today establishing these two as it Yeah I mean how did it had that um come about? Well, I suppose I suppose the important starting point is is The land uh burgundy itself yeah, so so if I can just take a moment to explain How it was all set out because I suspect some of your listeners won't have won't have necessarily been there. Yeah, so you have shabbly at the top And shabbly is slightly separate it's some distance from from the core of burgundy. It's actually closer to champagne that it is to burgundy Which is all white wines tiny bit of southern your blonde catchy but but broadly all white wines and Shabbly is made from shardony You then go south and you hit dejon and Dejon is the start of the cote d'or Which is a tiny area given its fame So it's about 60 kilometers in length at some points. It's about two kilometers wide And it's made up of in the north the cote nui And in the south the cote de bone The north is Famous for the greatest red wines known to man And the south is where these wonderful white wines come from but the land which if we go back Even further back to the Jurassic period is all limestone So some of it is up north kamerijian soil which has lots of fossils if you're in shabbly and you go searching around the vineyards You find these little fossilized shells and stuff without too wonderful It's almost closer to the champagne Terroir But as you get into the cote d'or You have this wonderful limestone escarpment Long and thin from north to south And it just so happens that Pinot noir and shardonnay Do wonderfully well there We would probably be fair in saying that there is no place better for pinot noir in the world It is grown elsewhere you get it in places like Oregon In the US you get it in places like Australia and Tasmania You even get it to great effect in Incentre target in New Zealand But Burgundy is the absolute epicentre of pinot noir Shardonnay grows well in lots of places. It's a little bit more Easy growing but at the same time these two grapes have come up And they are at their absolute best in the region super and you were saying that Because you mentioned Cote de Bone you were saying the bone was The sort of bone is really the center of the entire Burgundy district and it's sort of north of bone really where these Amazing red wines are made I'd add a little bit to what you said Each estate It's dependent on whether they have Of a self it's the facing of the the the hills and how high you are in the hills Which changes the soil structure altogether And some of the finest wines are made in very very small parcels only because the The ground isn't available or it's not it's not of the right quality To to be able to produce the grapes that make that very fine Top end wine the grown crew of the very best and an area like the domain to Romaine conty for example, which has five Different um labels Just make the most stunning wines and almost on it. They're in such a small quantity that of course they're almost on the fordable nowadays sadly well, we'll get to the point about Estates and names and how that affects wine Especially I think what a lot of people wonder is why one estates Will cost a thousand pounds of bottle where the next store estate is 20 pounds bottle it will get to that and the sec But let's talk about the transition from Burgundy becoming something that was now filled with estates that had names to it that were developing wines That they were becoming famous for ultimately let's talk about that. So so even further back from the jigsaw burgundy So the the reason that there are so many complex vineyards and sites we call them clean mat Is that the monks in the 12th century and 13th century there were benedictine monks who founded their abiot cluny in 910 later on sistercians for me there Abbey at Cito, which you may recognize from the cheese, delicious cheese from Cito. But they were extraordinary wine makers and they were meticulous. So they really understood the land. We talk about terroir and this idea of terroir is this connection between soil, climate, topography and human intervention. And because Burgundy is so different, sometimes by a matter of steps, the hills, the slopes, the heights, the aspect of the sun and so on, that all these little fragmented vineyards were considered to be able to produce different stars' wines and so on. So that was the sort of formation initially of this idea of different climates. On top of that, you get to a point after the French Revolution when the monasteries and the aristocracy had their lands disbanded. And in 1804, you have the Napoleonan code, which is really important, particularly in Burgundy, because it moves from Premigeneta to splitting land across all of your ares. Right, okay. So one huge estate can suddenly find itself pretty-- It means the families hang on to the properties. That's basically what it is. And they will make wines to their own, or their own menu, because they are just the individuals rather than a commune as such. I mean, they will sell some of the wines into a sort of village wine commune to make the general sort of village wine in the area, but for their own wines, they'll want to make it specifically there, so one particular taste. Forgive me. Could that not potentially be a recipe for disaster? And that, you know, for, let's say, four children in Paris in the state, and they have four children each, and suddenly it all kind of goes down. Like that. Is there, like with Rolex, for example, there is a strict set of codes as to how the company can be run? Is that sort of the same with the vineyards? Are they able to sort of, you know, basically, by-board decision? You're right, that the fragmentation is, it creates complications. So you can have a very small area that is split by many, many people. So Claude de Vougeau, for example, which was set up by the monks. It's only about 50 hectares, I think. But at times there have been many as 80 owners. Sometimes we've just a number of vines. So, whereas Bordeaux is all about estates and the chateau. So you mentioned chateau, chateau, chateau, this is very, this is a Bordeaux piece. Burgundy is very much around vineyards. Okay. If that makes sense. So Bordeaux large, and Bordeaux four times the size of Burgundy, and their production is four times the size as well. But the estates, the chateau, the feats, the latures, and so on, they are large businesses, often family-owned still, but large businesses, corporations almost, that have larger states, which all come into one wine. Whereas a Burgundy and wine maker might have lots of little cremates around the place. And the wine is ranked based on the vineyard rather than the person making it. So this is where knowledge comes in really, to be really important, that you might have something like Clodavuzio, where you have lots of different people making Clodavuzio. But some might be better at making it than others. Some might have more time attention, skill as a wine maker. So actually knowing your vineyards, your cremates will come on to appellations and things like that, but also knowing your wine makers is a really important part of understanding Burgundy. And it's a fun part as well. The complexity makes it interesting. It can be a little bit daunting for a region that only has two grapes, but actually that's where I think a lot of people get their real pleasure from, is understanding the vineyards and the regions more. How did you come to understand the regions and the vineyards? Well, I think probably, from the experience of fortunately being able to taste some of the lovely wines made by the best producers, because there's a vast difference between somebody who will make the top wine of that particular area. And the people who, they're different. It's a different skill. And the wine maker is probably living in a small house. And underneath his house will be a seller twice the size of the house he's living in. And it's extraordinary. And they will make this and they actually live for it. I mean, it is, they become, it is their life. And that's what they do. And they make magnificent wines, which are hugely enjoyable to drink. And they will, every year, they will absolutely certain to get as best they possibly can. And I think that actually is where it separates from some of the the wines and other regions of France, which they just want quantity wines coming out and they want to sell as much as they can. The Burgundy's, because there's a small quantity, they will, they want to make the best and hopefully be able to sell it to the best price themselves. Yeah, these are these are small family businesses. So, so the the house analogy is really interesting because a small farmhouse, if you'll find if you ever go on holiday to Burgundy, you can't just turn up. You need appointments. And whereas in Bordeaux or Napa, I mean, Napa, there are certain properties where the car park is bigger than the vineyard, maybe slightly. In Bordeaux, it is very much set up as a as a brand. There was a phrase, Paul Lettichet, so for the label, where you have these shadows, there's a status symbols. Whereas Burgundy has always been small family businesses, small holdings, a real attention to the land that's not to dismiss any of the other regions who produce extraordinary wines as well. But there is something special about Burgundy. Is there a secret for the layman to kind of come to learn about Burgundy? Because it feels like it's a much more complex wine to be educated on in comparison to these Bordeaux wines that trade off the name. It's very difficult to find. Pino Noir is, as I say, the the the the grape for art will. But there are not that many Pino Noir's that are absolutely exceptional. I mean, it's in the 6. I bought some bottles which sort of I think probably they're bottles which I brought which have over the past years or so been drunk in my house. And they're all I see been fine in the dirt. Well, no, they I do I do prefer to drink what I call the dusty end of the cellar because I think it's it's an exceptional thing. If you've got a very fine wine. It means that if you you don't want to buy bottle and if you can avoid having to drink it when it's extremely young because it doesn't have any of the flavors. It's not as complex. It doesn't have the in bottle. It's sort of developing a full experience or is there a time period that you think Burgundy shouldn't be drunk? Well, it depends on the I mean, if you're talking about a grown crew, which I mean is actually very limited number. Can you explain what grown crew is? Well, grown crew is the very top end of the the wines that are made there and there are some I mean, there's some grown crew here, for example, the should we go from left to right. But what are we what are you just to explain the in the next year quickly? Well, it is a grown crew. It is their number one that's production. So when they will also make other wines. And we've heard of we've spoken about the past about first growth, second growth. So is this the equivalent of that in Burgundy? Yes, it is. It's the equivalent of a first grade. So because then is it for them to be a crew after that? Yeah, I mean, it drops down to Premier crew and then you've got various other levels. And it's very difficult to actually read the label of a fine Burgundy because they all have their own, they all have their own way of expressing themselves on the label. And often very similar names in the same vineyards. Exactly. Oh, I see. Yeah. So the way that the classification works is there was a classification in Bordeaux in 1855, which was the first growth, the second growth and so on, which has broadly stayed the same with the exception of Muteau, which was upgrades in the 70s since that time. In Burgundy, the classification came much later. And the appellation, Controle, came in in 1935. And that was put in place to set up and set out the quality structure of the vineyards. So Shabbily is slightly different, so I'll leave that out. But in the Côte d'Or, you have grown crews. That is the very top. You have Premier crews, you have village level and you have a generic regional level. There are, I think, 84, it does change occasionally, but I think there are 84 appellations. And the way it splits down is you have 33 grown crews at the top. Village, there are 44. And then Premier crew came in slightly later, but there's over 600 Premier crews. So it's complicated because your or village, or your village, will often have a name that is related, fun enough, to the Grand Cruyrian. So somewhere like Jevres became Jevres Shambatan because the most famous vineyard there was Shambatan, the Grand Cruyrian Shambatan. So it is quite complex because of the fragmentation through families, you often have similar names. I mean, maybe cousins. Someone once said to me that every family has an idiot cousin and if you don't know who yours is, you need to look at yourself quite carefully. That probably applies in wine as well to a certain extent. So you need to get into the detail of it. But Premaker, we remember all of this applies to the potential of the land. So it's not necessarily what is being produced the quality of the wine maker. It is the inherent quality of the land and then the knowledge comes from whether a particular wine maker is doing particularly good things. I see. Does that make a. Does that make sense? Yes. So it's always like a sort of reverse Michelin star kind of, you know, because you miss your restaurant. It's a pyramid. Yeah. Each sort of producer has his own style and it's an extraordinary thing. And we're sitting here in March at the moment. And if you went to, there's a wonderful thing you can do. We've drive from North to South in Burgundy. You actually pass through all the finest labels you've ever come across because all the villages are actually called by the names of the proper fine wines. And there they are on the side of the road home. And it's a fantastic thing to watch. But also you'll see the vineyards themselves. And at this time of the year, where they're just beginning to show signs of early sort of the budding and so on. All of them have been cropped. Are they being cut to a different shape? Depending on which family, each person who makes a wine has his own style of actually-- Is it pruning? Yeah. --doing all his end of season pruning. And some let them stay fairly tall, some don't want to horizontally. It's stalling. And they're all different. They're extraordinary. And you can see, and you think, I wonder if that's a better wine than the one next door to it, just because it's entirely differently. It's been just presented differently. I suspect it probably does have some sort of a difference. I suspect the roots would have changed in the way that they respond to the way that they've been set up upstairs as well. Because what a burgundy wine producer is trying to do is get the absolute best out of the land. So it's not about significant intervention. It's working with the land, working with that very specific climate. There's over 1,200 climats in burgundy. And what they want is the absolute best expression of that land. The other thing that's worth mentioning in terms of these appalacions is the hill itself is vitally important. So what you tend to find is that the village wines, the most generic wines, are at the bottom. So that wonderful road, if you're driving from diesel inside the lesser wines. Yes, exactly. So the RN 74, I think it was called, it may have been changed, but the root of corn crew all the way down. If you're standing on the road, the wines around you is the most fertile soil. Wine doesn't necessarily want the most fertile soil. It actually doesn't want to do. It needs to struggle a little bit. So your village wines, which generic wines, tend to be there. You then see these villages with names that you recognize, recognized like every Chamotan, Maurice Antony, Shambel, Musinian places like that. And that's where your village wines are. Your premier crews are within that area as well. But as you go to the mid-slob, you've got your premier crews and your grand crews. Because typically that is the best land with the best aspect to the sun. So the codenue is east facing. The coder de bon is southeast facing. Best soil, best drainage. And then as you go further up the hill, it gets a little bit thin again. So you often have village wines at the top. But that's changing. We might come back to climate change and stuff like that. But that gives you a broad, slightly dumb down 101 of what you're looking at. But it is complicated. Dad, we've mentioned before-- Well, I've got a few of those. Let's go left to right as to what they are, and why you brought them and what you think of them. Well, they're all wines, which are very hard to find nowadays. I mean, the one on the left, which is particularly good vintage from 2002, is a Shombon Musini, made by Robert Arno, who is an Arno vineyard. Again, absolutely top quality wine maker with a really tightly controlled production. And that wine there is fabulous to drink. But it's not a grown crew. But it's a top end, premier crew. The one next to it, which is probably as good a bottle as it is out there, maybe the one next to it, it's actually better. But it is the 1990 Clodel Aros from Domain Ponceaux, and Ponceaux is another name in Burgundy, which if you can get any of their wines, they will always make something very high. And that is a grown crew. That's an outstanding wine. The one next to it goes right up to the very top end of the quality, which is available, which is the domain to Romney Conte. And-- Which is a famous-- Which is a famous-- Romney Conte wine, they make La Tache. They make-- This particular one is a very unusual one, because they don't normally make a Verne Romney. But in 1998, they had this-- or 1999, but they made this exceptional wine. And it was only released as a reserve label, because they had a quality-- the quantity that they wanted to make in the other grapes they had, they could actually release enough to make that particular label, so they produced it then. And that one is-- they had only made two labels of that particular name up to the 1999. And since then, I think they made two, maybe three more. I can't remember how many. But it very rarely comes out. It's a lovely wine. And again, very hard to find. The next one is very interesting, because it's there's an Ospeic to bone. Now, bone every year has this auction in the center of bone. You've got a big square with sort of cobble square, and it's wonderful, old-- It's a lovely town. When it is, the roof of the Ospeic, which is an old hospital ready, and it's now a center of a big auction every year. And the way it's operated is that chosen wine producers will be asked to present a wine to the auction, which will then go forward. And people will buy that particular barrel, whatever it is, they say. And they get good money for it normally. And the great thing is that if you're invited to make a wine with that label on it, and they all look the same. They've got the sort of shield on one side. And it says Ospeic to bone on the top and so on. This particular one was a 2011. And it was a-- We say, which is a very nice wine. And did you go to the auction for that? I didn't go to that one. No, I picked that one up somewhere else. I did actually years and years ago go to the auction. I used to know the Favourlif family, which were the people who actually owned the majority of the central bone because they're on the underside of the square. There's one big cellar to be honest. And I went there one year, I can't remember which one. In the 80s, I think, maybe I'll go. And it's a wonderful experience. Before I came along and ruined that. I think that's literally as you ruined it. And I was busy as one way of explaining it. It's been very hard to drink ever since then. Anyway, all I can tell you is that it's-- The people invited to make that wine will always make something of the very, very best top end that they can. So it's worth looking at that label on the vine. So you're always going to get good product. Now, the one on the other side of that is we're getting onto the white burgundy. That's the Shardney, which is-- it's called Creo Batal Mourash. Batal Mourash is the top name for grown crew in white burgundy. And Batal is fantastic. Actually, L'Humong Ash is the very top end. And funnily enough, the Domain de Romney can't you do make a L'Humong Ash which-- and two or three other producers do. But underneath that, you've got the Batal Mourash. And this particular one is called Creo Batal Mourash. And that is the smallest grown crew vineyard in the world. I mean, it's absolutely tiny. It's just the size of this rumble, missed. And there-- I think they got three people who plant their vines there and make a particularly fine wine every year. It's absolutely delicious. But clearly, very limited. Very, very limited and very hard to find. And then there's a favoritly wine there, which is the Mercury at the end. I can't remember what's in-- it's 2014. But I brought that along just as a bottle, which is an affordable bottle, I would say. Yes, so that's actually really interesting on the weeks you're going to. Because where you both have basically set this up so far through the conversations that burgundy is very rare, very special, very hard to get your head around, which makes it sound like it's not going to be accessible both in terms of knowledge. - But, Jordy, can I also see what you've bought in from left to right? - So I bought full bottles rather than empty ones, which is why they're a little bit cleaner. They're at the less dusty end of the centre. But the reason I've brought them is not because I've drunk them and have wonderful memories of them, but more because they are interesting examples of those quality levels that we spoke about. So the one on the left, the quarter is a grown crew. The one next to it, the pop-out is a premier crew. And the final one, the oxy dress is the village level. So it's just an indication that the problem is, Tom, as you're looking at them, is they all to the uninitiated look quite similar. - Yep. - So in terms of the cost per bottle, or indeed what the words would be on a menu, it is a little bit complicated. The important thing to say though, when we're looking for values, is burgundy getting really expensive, is actually relatively recent. - Okay. - So it hasn't always been incredibly expensive. It's always been revered in terms of its quality. But you only have to go back sort of 40 years, you know, 85 was a tremendous vintage. When these wines would have been really quite accessible. So you hear about people as students buying, so grown crew wines for what today would be considered pittance for a case. And the case would have been 12 bottles in those days. These days, cases have got smaller because the wines have got more expensive. So six bottles or three bottles. 2005, things started getting a bit silly and getting really expensive. Because the point of these particular vineyards is they're not getting any bigger. You can't change the size of it. Some of them are literally walled in. The clove, like close to Jaquil, Glow de Bouchot, means the wall, the stone wall around it, which is originally to keep that animals. But they are the size is the size. Therefore as demand goes up, price goes up and we can come back to that. - Do people ever have a aromalgamate? - In what sense? - Two different producers. - Well, they only ever got a, the, the, the, the, what's called the spare wines that they were actually picking will go centrally to someone who will make, they weren't necessarily have their own. - Is that an equipment to remember you to be about poyac and things like that, you know, - Yeah, it's that they were selling bottles. - They had the name there, exactly. - Exactly. - It would be the region. But I, I don't think you'd find many. I mean, the, the, the, the, the lower end of the, burgundy wines are probably made by more of a commune than they are of a, of an individual house. - Okay. - There is value in burgundy though. And there are some good hints and tips in terms of where to find it. But, but value is often found on the peripheries. - Yep. - So, Shabbily for example, top Shabblies and a more generic Shabblies don't have a huge price spread. So, you can often find some great value in, in Shabbily. You can find some very expensive top end Shabbly as well. But, but there's good value there. There are also places which are quite close to some of the very well-known villages. So, if you go down to Merceau, which is a very famous village in, in the Cote de Bône, famous for these rather rich Shardne wines, not far away up the valley, slightly off the, the slope, you have a bit of just like San Romà or oxydress. The wine I brought there is an oxydress. They are a better value because previously, historically they would have been slightly further away, slightly higher up, and perhaps not able to make the wines of the quality. So, that has changed. Then when you go further south and you get to places like the Makone, Makone, the large at the top of the Makone, you'll often find fantastic wines at good value. So, the hint that I've heard a number of times is that if you know what your budget is, go for the best wines of a lesser-known village up a population, rather necessarily a lesser wine from a very well-known place. Because there is value there. I mean, they do get up to something like DRC, D'Amin Romney Conti, and they get up to tens of thousands of pans of bottles. So, that is at a particular end of the scale, but they produce a tiny amount. The top vineyard produces probably 5,000 bottles a year, whereas a shattered leafy will produce 20,000 cases a year. So, there is a scale thing here. With that in mind, Dad, you brought that along. Does this bottle here? Well, I think it's sort of a good example that I was just talking about. Well, it's probably not a good bottle to refer to, because that's actually a little bit further south, it's from Burshley. And it's a more- This is actually. Well, it is a pinon-wise. I mean, when I was bringing bottles, I thought it's basically a bottle of shape that identifies the burgundy aspect of it. So, all those bottles, you can see pretty well the same shape, whereas if you went to any of the bordeaux bottles, they have their own particular shape as well, which is very different from those. The reason for the shape is about the sediment that winds through off. So, the shoulders of a bordeaux bottle, if you can picture it, a square, not square, but more or more. Yes, yes. Because the grapes used in bordeaux, the companies opening all their mermaids on, they throw off sediment over time. And when you're pouring, the shoulder catches some of that sediment in there. That's the theory. Have you still get it out of these as well? I mean, some of the burgundy's are the unstrained burgundy, as a way that can throw quite a decent deposit. But not as much. Okay, but they like to chew it. It's almost like the Parsons' nose. They want the little bit. And they have this sort of wonderful murder. The palette is actually made of. I know they come out purple teas. Right. So, in terms of drinking it, because these are burgundy glasses, what do you think, obviously, these are much bigger rounder, they're like bowls, ultimately. Why does that make it different? Is that important for burgundy, or is it just, frankly, for sure? No, I mean, I think that glass makers started making lots of different glass sizes in the last 50 years or so probably. And there is a slightly different shape. The burgundy glasses are more of a glue. Sometimes people drink things like Borolo from Italy after this as well. They, in theories, have captured the fragrance of the wine. And I've never thought to myself drinking a burgundy glass. I wish this was a different shape glass. So, I think there is a science there as well. I mean, also, if you're a wine glass maker, and you can convince your customers that they need one of each, then there's probably a commercial. Yes, and there's one. But I think there is a bit of science there. Because these wines are light and bright in youth. They get more complex with age, where they get a bit more vegetable and soup, which is a sort of mulchiness in time, which a lot of burgundy collectors love. But they are wonderfully fragrant wines. So that's why the glasses would be entirely appropriate. You can often pour a grown crew burgundy and put it in the glass. And it looks almost transparent. So it doesn't have any of the sort of body that you see in the four day wine. For example, and it looks like you think, how can that have anything? And then you put it in there and then you taste it. And this is absolutely explosive. It's a wonderful, wonderful experience. Very hard to find it. It's very hard to find a good pinot noir. I was saying to you, Joli, I have a role with one of the London clubs that I've been working with for a long time. And we've been producing extremely good wine lists. But the hardest way for us to establish for, you know, which people would give you a good report on is the pinot noir. So the club pinot noir is always a hard thing to find, because they tend to be rather more expensive than they should be. Again, it's the quality that they can throw it. So you've got to find one which balances between the two. So you've got something quite clear with the pinot noir, nose and taste and everything else, without it actually costing the unnecessarily high prices on the list. And do you have a guy outside of Burgundy for that? Well, it is. Yes, I mean, there are alternatives. We have chillion pinot noir, which actually it's not bad. But I think you made a point earlier that in a funny way, Burgundy pinot noir has a character, all of its own. The nose is different. It is the same grape, but I think that the way that the roots have to work very hard to get the flavor out. Burgundy is the ones because they're ancient roots and they go down an awful long way. And I think they probably put more style and time and effort behind the actual making of the wine. in other places. - Penino, Penifactory. - Penino-Nawar is a great reflector of terroir. So you often hear in far-flung wine-producing countries around the world that they're making wine in a burgundy style, which is, I understand what they mean by that, but actually it's a difficult thing to get your head ramp because actually, burgundy style can only really come from burgundy. So you can make wonderful wines in Centretago and New Zealand or Oregon in California, but they are of their own place. So that's the wonderful thing about Penino-Nawar is that it is a true reflector of place. - So with regards to exactly what you were just talking about, someone goes to a restaurant, you know, they're looking at the menu. Some menus can be pretty intimidating because there's a lot of names on there. There's a lot of years on there, a lot of price tags on there. So identifying a burgundy, because obviously we know, just from, especially just from this conversation, that if they pick the Romani Conti, they're going to get a nice wine, but that's not going to be the case for a lot of people. - Yeah, that's the thing. So what is there a hack? Is there a secret for people? - Well, I think my answer to that is that it's, you're probably starting with a white wine and the white one's much easier to buy because as we go, we've got the Macon wines, which are always quite good value. They're not going to be exceptionally high value, then you're probably not going to go to restaurant and this is particularly fine place to select a grown crew white wine because it's going to be out of your, well, most people are in January. And then you've got the Macon cheesy, you've got the Macon Vire, you've got all sorts of Macon wines. And they're very drinkable. You know, they have a flavor and you know, they're good fresh. You drink them young, you don't have to wait, wait, particularly long time for these things. One of the other subjects that if you're talking about the grown crew end, you don't want to open a grown crew bottle of baggain tea unless it's probably 10 years old and then it will carry on as well sometime, if we're flat-knotted some stage, but it'll become still retainers quality for a very long time, if it's settled properly. And the whites are much fresher and earlier drinking. But they also making, they would say the village wines are common wines of a peanut noir, are also to be drunk reasonably young. I mean, obviously it's in the interest of the producers to sell as much of the vintage that they produce as quick as possible. It's any of the very top end wines they're making that will go on for much longer and be stated that they've been barrels for longer and so on. But on a list, I mean, it depends what you're drinking, or what you're eating. I mean, if you're going to choose a meat, and there are certain meats where peanut noir is actually the, I mean, if you're going to have game, for example, and then say it's a grow season or something. - Yeah. - Well, it's the best choice you can make is to have a peanut noir wine. So you go to baggain day at once. I think that I've probably got a couple of additional hacks. And I agree entirely in making terms of the regions that have particular quality and value built in. But the first thing is if you're going to go and drink burgundy in a restaurant, go to a restaurant that really understands burgundy, first of all. So there are fantastic restaurants in London, like Noble Rott or Kapott in the city, where they take great pride in burgundy, and therefore you're in the right spot. The second thing is, and I think I've probably mentioned this to you before Tom, is the sommelier is there to be your friend. - Yeah. - So if you are in a restaurant, the most important thing to point out, let's say you know you want to have white burgundy, I would come in very open-minded, and I would say to the sommelier, I'm going to point at the list, and you can do this discreetly. You don't need to do this in front of all your guests. And I personally point at the price first, and I say I want something round about here. This is what we're all eating. We would love a white burgundy or something similar. What would you recommend? At that point, you are taking the knowledge and the information that they are paid to provide. People can find sommelier is very daunting, and I think there's the ults of trope of the rather pompous sommelier looking down there, knows it you and dismissing you because you're pronouncing words wrong and so on. Today, you've got these passionate young people working in the wine hospitality industry, who can't wait to tell you about their most recent find. So if you know what your price point is, that's a great starting point. If you know what you're eating, that's a great starting point. You don't have to do the heavy lifting yourself, you don't have to match them yourself. There are certain ways of thinking about food. If it grows together, it goes together. People often say food from a particular region, burgundy would be known for things like jam on parsley, which would be fantastic with a white burgundy or a fomorette, which would be brilliant with red. You might have some mushroom dishes which go very well with pino noir and things like that as well. But put the hard work onto the sommelier and put a bit of trust into them. - Yes, we do. - I entirely agree. And I think we made a big point. And that is the restaurant itself has gone to have somebody running their wine list to sort of understand what they're doing. And there are, as you say, never what I mean, there are bellemies as a good example because it's always, I mean, the rui there, for example, is fantastic and it's a very good value. That's a outstanding shardonnay. - Wasn't that A. Gills kind of note on his review of bellemies, basically just saying he can't quite get his head around how amazing the wine list was. - The other thing is that Gavin who runs it actually has his own little corner of the wine list, which is his-- - Handwritten, his pamphleting himself. - And he will always have a buggy on that. And they're presented so that they're good value as well as quality because I mean, that restaurant knows his wines. And but I think more broadly we're talking about the buggy, we should think about the average man who goes into a supermarket will see a greater array of bottles, a lot of which are buggy, there's a lot of which actually pretty good. And then some of them are quite good value. And the reason is that the top supermarket's actually engage people to work for them who are very knowledgeable. And they buy a big quantity of from various manufacturers or producers. And when they do that, they're not going to settle for something which is a second rate against what they're looking for. And the pricing of them is pretty good. It's probably the best way to bring back the, if you want to feel slightly less hit in the wallet on it, is to go to either a wine merchant or some of the good. Yes, thanks. That's yourself. Exactly. Or some of the good supermarkets because they have chosen decent wines and they are pretty good value. You have brilliant wine buyers at supermarkets name. The one thing I would say and the reason I would always fight for the independent merchants is that if you go into a supermarket regardless of how good it is as a supermarket, it's pretty unlikely you're going to find someone who's going to be able to help you on the wine. Well, that's true because the wine buyer is under supporting our list of names. So it's the funny thing that if you know a lot about wine as you do, Nick, supermarkets got a good place to shop. Well, you can recognize labels which you can sort of get an instinct to switch to wine. But you can recognize labels as a street. I think probably that's probably rare rather than everybody. Yes, but that's my point. Is there a way of educating people? People are people finding themselves getting more familiar with this. Well, I think, I mean, my advice would be until you have that level of knowledge where you can spot villages or these names you might know, you're going to ask an expert. Is if you go into an independent merchant, that could be very rare. Brothers, it could be a number of other brilliant and very rare versions. There are other merchants are available. It's easy. But you get to go into a shop or online, but let's just talk about shots for a moment. And you can ask someone very simple questions. Now, those questions could be, I have a particular interest in a wine from this particular Clematten Burgundy. More likely, we're having fish pie for supper tonight. So the joy of being in an independent merchant and asking for their advice is these people are there available, passionate, knowledgeable and will take your situation as well as your taste profile. If you're trying to impress your father-in-law on a Thursday, that may be a different type of wine than you would have if you're drinking something in front of these stenders on a Tuesday. If somebody's in a place where you're allowed to get your phone out anyway, could they take a picture of-- and our people would take a picture of the menu running into a GPT and say, which one should I be guessing? So if you were to take a photo of a wine list these days, And you said it to any. AI, chat, ebt, whatever it might be, I'm sure if you were to say that you had a particular budget in place, you'd be able to get a recommendation back. So yeah, I mean AI is going to change the wine world as much as everything else. What do you think is going to change these more AI or climate change? Oh, I think the ratio is. So climate change is an interesting one because climate change in burgundy, the burgundy region has gone up in temperature by about a degree, maybe a degree and a half since the 80s. So it is getting warmer. What that is done in the short term is that there are certain regions, particularly regions that might have been slightly higher up the slope, which actually might be seeing an improvement in quality. Okay. So the. Okay, Dabana, go, Nui, higher up the slopes. You might see some really interesting wines coming from there. There are other particular regions, funnily enough, the Hommard which I brought in, which is a little bit humid in Hommard, Macy, certain benefits. However, it is clearly not a good thing. What climate change also brings is very tempestuous weather and remember, the weather in burgundy is actually bloody hard weather for making wine in. Brains a lot, was it? It's just not particularly consistent. I think the problem is also that you can get some very warm spells at this time of the year. And then in three weeks' time, you'll get a hard frost and suddenly it will hail or hail or something. And the blossom or the flowering that's taking place can be designated. They're just white. White hair and mud hair. And if that happens, it just doesn't produce the quantities. But if you've got one of those vineyards that's a size of a tennis court, you're stuffed. Well, if you think that the quality of burgundy wines produced really from the mid 80s has been consistently very good. So you don't have really appalling ventures anymore. And some of that is to do with what happens in the winery as well, of course. And you've got wine makers, a generation of wine makers who've gone to a school to study wine at places like Bohn and Dijon. However, if you think, therefore, that quality levels are good, you can have a more modern style of vintage. You can have a more traditional style of vintage, some of lighter fresh up, some of your week refer to as restaurant vintage, as I they're made for quite early drinking. However, if the quantity is diminished significantly, let's say a vineyard is producing X-mounted bottles and 75% of that is not tied by hail. It comes back to that idea of supply demand and allocations to customers and stuff like that. And so that's what it's like to have a lot of different changes. And so that's what it's like to have a lot of different things to do with the market. Well, because it dilutes the quality because all the water and everything else, it gets muddy. Yeah, I see. It's not very nice. And when the grapes go into the vats, the vissual crest and everything else, they're bringing with it, you know, water and it's not growth. You have sorting tables now, which one wouldn't have had a generation ago, maybe two generations ago, which is when you are purposely taking out things that are not looking good. So if there's a bit of rot or mold or whatever it might be, you can pull it from the sorting table, which means that you get the best possible quality. But yeah, when you pick as important a pistol, actually, that would have been September, increasingly, that's coming forward a little bit to August. So it is having an impact. And you know, we're seeing the benefit of that in places like the South Dands in England where we're seeing increasingly quality wine produced sparkling primarily, but also you're nice seeing pin and a wild grown in the UK as well. So it is going to be dangerous for regions like Bergendeut that are so small and so impacted by climate. So far, okay, some minor improvements, however uncomfortable that might be, but in the future may not be a good thing. Okay. I think in recent years, of course, what's happened is that in the old days, you were very much in the hands of hope running in here else, but nowadays, they've more or less debug bad integers because throughout, they've got this technology, which is actually telling you how each fine is operating. And you can, if you've got a really dry spell and so on, you can actually, you know, make it say that it's, it's survivable. And I know it's not Bergendeut. So you've got a very good projection. I know it's not Bergendeut, but didn't you have quite an interesting story about, it's like a 99 petriot or something when we're put top all in. Oh, no, never. It's a 1992 vintage. That's interesting. It was. It was. It's absolutely right. Tell us about how the tax is quite fine. This is your Bordeaux story. Yes, it's a Bordeaux story. It's not really. But they knew that the picking week was going to be serious storms. And they put plastic cover over the entire state because the year, I mean, vintage itself was fine. But if they had picked in those conditions, they would have completely ruined the quality that they expected to get out of it. And the, I think there was the two estate stood, it was Petrus and La Flore. And of course, then what happened was the water came on. They picked dry and they were very happy with all that. What happened to that watershed then runs off onto the neighboring states. They all had some legal challenges about the fact that they've been ruined by the pit. It would never happen again. I mean, they won't be allowed to do it again. So if you find the 92 petriot, you'll get it. So one off. It's quite a bit. It is. It's great. Ultimately, we've got a huge amount of factors that come into these, into Burgundy. Was that what do you think is the main reason of why it's so repaired? So whilst it's just agricultural produce, we're talking about grapes here. I think it is undeniable that Burgundy produces the greatest expression of wine from the Pinot Noire grape in the world. The challenges around temperatures and so on, it's marginal temperatures, but that is something that allows the Pinot Noire to ripen the right time. So when I say that the conditions are difficult, it doesn't mean they're impossible. You still get these. And you say difficulties good. And difficult can be good. The quantity produced and this fragmentation of vineyards means that it's got this wonderful complexity which feeds into the, I suppose, the mind of the collector and the desire for knowledge around collecting wine as well. And the market has also been growing. So from 2005, let's say, but certainly by 2008, 2009, the US has always been a big importer of Burgundy, probably the biggest importer in the world. Hong Kong, Singapore, China, came on board. The wines, a colleague of mine, ex colleague of mine, Jasper Morris, who's one of the masters of wine, who in my mind is the most knowledgeable person in the world on this object of Burgundy. So my father. He's a part from your father. The most knowledgeable person on the subject of Burgundy. Thank you very much. Pleasure. He was someone who. Can I frame that? You can serve him. He was. Jasper wrote, and if you ever want to read a brilliant Burgundy, Jasper wrote the Seminole Burgundy called Insight Burgundy, and he has a wonderful website as well. That's deep as he'd been clever to write a book. No, no, I was just a little bit. John Arlott, I mean, he was amazing. Yes. Fantastic. A great, cricket commentator. And at the same time, he was an exceptional armchair of Burgundy wines. He loved them. Great. And we know how much. When Jasper released his book, first time around in Hong Kong, we released in Hong Kong, actually. I remember the discussion around Burgundy at the time was that there was this phrase that I remember being used, which was Burgundy, was the connoisseur's wine. Right. And there was this sense that there was a mastery involved in Burgundy that perhaps didn't come with Bordeaux. Do you agree with that, Dad? Well, I think so. It is mastery because I think they've actually really put their minds to making the very best they possibly can. And I always get the feeling that when you go into more, to call the quantity product, you're never going to get that light touch that you'll get from the small houses who are going to make sure that every single bottle is going to be presented at the very best they possibly can. I mean, the other is based on, is it a good vintage, yes, to remember, we've got a good market, yes. Of course, a lot of what you were talking about, the international markets have changed a lot because I'm the Chinese, have now more or less given up, sort of ordering whatever they can all the time. So that was the question. Marcus could not collapse, but it said nothing like what he was. And of course, the Americans support these extraordinary tariffs on everything, so buying it. There was a time, and I used to go regularly to Long Island, and the place I went to would have wonderful wine discs and a huge number of wonderful, both Burgundy and Bordeaux wines on them. Burgundy's were considerably cheaper than their own wines from the West Coast. It was extraordinary. But now they aren't, because it costs them so much to bring them into the country. They're actually not buying them in so much, right? So that's a change in the demand. They said they say it takes 10 years to learn about Bordeaux and the rest of your life to learn about Burgundy. If you were to take a bottle of wine to a dinner party, what would be the first thing you go to as a sort of, you know, because bottles of wine that you bring to dinner party, they're not meant to be drunk, really at the dinner parties. So I don't think. So, I mean, what do you bring? Well, it depends who's invited to dinner. It's the answer. But I mean, some of the, some I will have made an offer in advance. Can I bring the wine, in which case I find something? Yeah, of course. Yeah, it's a different sort of thing. But if you're going to say, it's a nice gift to give people when you actually arrive. And I think you can, again, you do it by price. I mean, I think you probably bring a bottle, which is going to cost somewhere between 15 and 20 pounds, probably for the average, so London, yeah, it's gathering. If you know the person very well, you might get some very special out. And that's that's entirely different thing. But for a birthday present, you probably go up a little bit, but for just an ordinary dinner party, then there are lots of good things. You are one burgundy that was in that. Well, I'm a great fan of white burgundy's as well. So would you say to my career? Lovely. It'd be a bit nice. Okay. So my simple answer is, firstly, I quite often don't take wine. I take a bottle of olive oil. It's a very good answer. I think that's a very nice thing to do. I would extend that that you can actually fine tune that by having a little truffle oil, little truffle oil. Oh, my God. It's a small bottle. No, it doesn't matter, but some deos is not, you're not going to be asked to eat it. It's been given to some deos. So yeah, I think olive oil is a lovely present. The other hint I had from an old colleague of mine was that if you want the wine to be drunk at dinner, because most of the time wine is not being brought to drink then and there, unless there's been a specific request, is if you open it and double to cant it back into the bottle and say, I've decanted this for you, then they are somewhat obligated to open it, but that's a very mean thing to do. I think it's a bit mean personally. I think if you're invited, it's up to them what they want to serve you. Quite right. And that's why you wouldn't, unless you've spoken to them in advance, that's why you wouldn't bring something from the very end of your stock as they were, because you need the top end. Yeah. If you know the chat properly or whoever it is, then you will know what level to come in at. Yeah. But it's just, it's really, I mean, box of chocolate is just as nice. You know what I mean? In many ways for a dinner party. Yeah. And who, another question that was said to me was about wine glass makers, like who would be to keep it quick, your number one? So we made our own for some time. So I'm going to put that there, but also I think Zalta make extraordinary good wine glasses. It's really good. Redelph, very good as well. It's very good. Well, we're doing this here and it really good affordable burgundy people should. Well, I did. Volna is very consistent. And that's right in the center of the bag of the district. Very good red pinot noir. And it's good value. Great. It's not the cheapest, but it's pretty good. And I would say that if you're going to give yourself a bit of a treat, that's a nice thing to have. And I would probably go up into some, some of my mom or to oxy dress, perhaps Mac on village, but don't be afraid to go out and experiment part of the fun of burgundy is not having the same wine every time go and explore some of these lesser known regions across the entire district. Super well. Look, I'm really excited to dig into all the other regions and wines and things. Thank you so much for coming in and happy drinking everybody. Well, we hope.