Beaujolais – l’esprit de partage

For quite some time now, the marketing of the Chablis region had its own visual identity; this/these in informative ‘little black books‘ the style and content of which I particularly enjoy.

Now is the time of Beaujolais.

Whilst some of the data-based presentation – 2 départements, 2 grape varieties, etcetera – smacks of the approach of Chablis, the actual presentation / visual identity couldn’t be more different or more lively. Whilst it’s always nicer to have the real book(let) in your hands, I offer you the chance of not having to live too vicariously – below you can see the pdfs:

In French*
In English*

*NB: These are not small downloads – there’s over 100 pages per – but they are well worth your time!

Only 20 years separate these editions; the current number 14 in English versus the 10^th edition from 1999. There are 16 editions in French…

This remains the pre-eminent small-form guide to Burgundy – and also the only one which (sensibly!) today includes Beaujolais – though sadly without any maps for Beaujolais. In 20 years we have an additional 100 pages too – now 390 of them. I have only one nit to pick; Roger Jones translated the text for the 10^th edition into English – it’s faultless. This can’t be said for the new one as there are many spelling mistakes and even more approximations of English – which a shame – though in the end, these bring more of a smile than a distraction.

Still the most successful small guide to the technicalities of the region and highly recommended.

I’ll be the first to admit that I get far too easily excited by maps, but here’s a new one in the series by Laurent Gotti – perhaps with help from his new partner Sylvain Pitiot? – Laurent is now joined with Sylvain, replacing the name Poupon, on what was once the indispensable book of vineyard maps by Pitiot & Poupon – it still is indispensable if you have small pockets. For those of you with more space, this would be my first choice 🙂

From Beaune’s Athenaeum – here. Shining light onto, perhaps, the most complicated (ownership and wine-colour wise) of all Burgundy’s grand crus. I suppose I will be buying a copy this week!

Image from Athenaeum.

Via the BIVB today, this is completely new. It works okay on my desktop – integrated with locations of domaines, etcetera. It still needs a bit more work for handheld devices I think – a more app-style would likely be better – but it’s a good start 😉
BOURGOGNE MAPS

I’ve added the above to my Map Resource.

With thanks to Vins de Bourgogne BIVB

A brilliant introduction the workings of a vineyard in Burgundy. Almost 1 year’s work distilled into 13 and a half minutes – absolutely worth your time!

After one year of filming, resulting in 40 hours of footage and some 30,000 photos, the Bourgogne Wine Board (BIVB) is proud to present its latest short film in the series “Winemaker in Bourgogne, an artisanal craft”. This first part, “The People and the Vines”, was filmed between September 2017 and August 2018, on around 10 estates in the Bourgogne region.
BIVB…

As you can see, it clearly never rained in 2017 & 2018 🙂

I’m thankful to Laurent Gotti for the alert about this:

After “Climats et lieux-dits des grands vignobles de Bourgogne“, Marie-Hélène Landrieu-Lussigny and Sylvain Pitiot’s reference work dedicated to the Côte de Beaune and the Côte de Nuits (Editions de Monza – Editions du Meurger 2012), the pair continue their exploration of the Burgundy terroirs by publishing “La Côte Chalonnaise – Atlas et Histoire des Noms de Climats et de Lieux” (also Editions de Monza – Editions du Meurger). I like to call this ‘The Third Côte‘ – the Côte de Dijon having been long-time lost to us…

Mercurey, Givry, Montagny, Rully, Bouzeron are covered by their associated maps and the names of their 561 Climats.

Now, cleverly, bi-lingual, so no need for two editions. I know that I will use it a little less than their first ‘atlas’ but it remains a ‘must have!‘

I bought this, because it’s about Chablis, and Chablis is my day-job! For €20 there’s virtually no advertising across Cuvée Magazine’s 120 pages of content, though the text is large and the pictures are page-filling. You could certainly buy a more in-depth book for that.

There is much about this magazine that reminds me of my dear and departed TONG. The concept seems very similar here; a premium-priced magazine with no advertising – or in Cuvée’s case, virtually no advertising. Where Cuvée differs, is that there seems just one writer/photographer behind this magazine – Épernay-based Stefanie Köhler. TONG had specialists/MWs for the writing though I was never sure about their images – but TONG’s was obviously a more expensive approach than the one taken by Stefanie’s Cuvée.

TONG lasted about 5-6 years in its hard-copy format before seemingly imploding / dying on the vine. I hope that Cuvée does a little better; some of the explanatory pieces are certainly bite-sized soundbites rather than offering much depth, but the domaine profiles – and there are 14 of them in this issue – are as good as you will find anywhere, as there is insight into the characters of the wine-makers themselves, not just their roots. I could complain that some of the tasting notes are too ‘adjectivey/flowery’ but others resonate.

I assume that, in the end, TONG failed because it couldn’t hold onto enough people willing to pay about €25 an issue – a premium price – with generalist content. Indeed, that was what finished me; I stopped subscribing after about 3 years as the content went further and further away from my zones of interest. I don’t know how long Cuvée/Stefanie can keep it up – Issue 1 was about Champagne, where Stefanie is based, and it seems that there is a ‘special’ in December about …Champagne – but it’s not issue number 3… I’m sure I will eventually understand what’s happening.

As a standalone issue, I would whole-heartily recommend this. And before people get on their high-horses about the price – it costs the same as a decent bottle of Chablis – which is 25% of the cost of a decent bottle of Burgundy these days! Just pay and enjoy…