Still, thank you very much for your site, Bill, which is also amazing!

I suppose most of us has a computer or a phone to be able to have access to digital information when we travel.

I got a book as a present about another wine area and there where so many false facts and tragic mistakes that I had to throw it away.
I wrote the publisher and the editor to get some kind of explanation but they did not bother to answer.

Thanks for a great site Bill.

Staffan, Sweden

It’s a shame then that if the Leclerc is so bad, he didn’t include a tasting note in the 600 or so such pages….
Cheers, Bill

(Page ammendment on the way…)

I think it’s fairly clear here that he (the author) is referring to Leclerc’s 99 Griotte rather than Ponsot’s…

you’ve misquoted the actual text…

“…important, as Leclerc is a far inferior operator to Ponsot. His 1999 Griotte is a disgrace.”

http://www.amazon.com/Wines-Burgundy-Clive-Coates-M-W/dp/0520250508/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261255079&sr=1-2.

Seems Nanson and I had about the same reaction — wish the domaine profiles had been updated and if anything expanded, not essentially purged from the book in favor of more tasting notes. The original Cote d’Or was THE reference work on Burgundy – - and it remains so. It’s the volume I still pull down from the shelf. The new volume, alas, does not register as an improvement. However, this is not a knock on Clive, he can’t help it that he set the bar so high when he put Cote d’Or together in the first place.

what if you bought aged wines at an auction or did a tasting on past vintages?

Hi Hartmut & Chris,
Only on my lack of enthusiasm for old TNs – remember I said that 60% of you would disagree with me

I work on 2 principles:
1. When mature there are great bottles not great wines
2. A tasting note that is 5 years old has almost no relevance to a bottle you open today, and that’s before you refer back to point #1!
Of-course, if you’ve only ever heard good things about 1959 La Tâche (from tasting notes) it is good indicator, but likewise one bad tasting note may have no relevance on the next bottle…
Cheers, Bill

I applaud you for standing up and saying some things that really needed to be said. I was appalled at the new Cote d’Or book; not because of any issue with Clive’s sensibility itself — I think he’s by far the best seasoned taster of Burgundy as it should be tasted — but that the book did his work such a disservice. The organization of it is horrendous, and as a person in book publishing I was particularly saddened to see that. The design is so poor that it makes you immediately recall and admire just how concisely laid out the previous volume was. Given the small degree of changes in some of the material, it feels as though the new designer simply decided to change everything in order to put his/her stamp on the product — or perhaps out of fear that it would look too much like the original volume!

Having said all of this, I am still immensely pleased to have the new volume, and the new introductory material is Clive at his best. And I do think you judge a bit too harshly with regard to tasting notes. Coates himself states emphatically — at least on his website — that tasting notes are useful in evaluating the quality of the fruit and its expected life-span and window of drinkability. He would be the first to go on record saying you shouldn’t expect wines to taste like someone else’s note. That’s exactly right, and I think he should be acknowledged for this very un-Parkerized attitude, an attitude that sounds not that much different from your own, really. Hartmut above is right in saying many consumers use these notes to help evaluate what wines to buy at auction, or when to open the first of a few precious bottles of something expensive. I absolutely do. (And Coates is still relatively unafraid to say when a producer puts a foot wrong, which seems to be getting rarer in the world of writing about expensive wine. Too many writers, particularly in magazines, are all-too-aware of what side of the toast the butter is on.) Having said all this, I realize your main point, well-taken, is that the notes take up too much of the book, and I so wish he would’ve done a more assiduous job of updating the profiles in the book, as part of his legacy. Maybe there’s room for a Burgundy book from a new source?

thanks for this thorough and fair review!

I would have prefered more in-depth profiles either. However, I am one of those 60% liking TNs – what if you bought aged wines at an auction or did a tasting on past vintages?

Anyway, apart from Parkers Bordeaux (admittedly, a matter of taste) I am unable to spot a better book on any wine region in the marketplace, can you?

Santé,
Hartmut

Another fantastic piece of clear thinking Bill keep it up.

cheers Phil