Books, Maps, Magazines, Films even Podcasts!

le montrachet, j-f bazin (1990)

By billn on August 25, 2007 #books, maps, magazines, films even podcasts!

montrachet“At first it seems ridiculous to devote a whole book to a few acres of stony hillside, owned through the ages by an ever-changing, ever-squabbling gang of greedy rustics, producing a mere 30,000 bottles of wine per year.”

So starts the foreward by Nicolas Faith who edited this English translation of Jean-François Bazin’s 1988 publication in French, Le Montrachet, and it’s about the only tongue-in-cheek moment in the whole book. Don’t let that put you off. Despite the profiles of the domaines that own parts of Montrachet (or it’s hyphenated neighbours) being 20 years out of date, this 190 page book is worth any second-hand purchase you might find.

Bazin meticulously works his way through the history of the area and the families that owned parts of the vineyard, what was Montrachet and what tried to be Montrachet. This translation of his French text original is very well done and reads easily. I’ll leave you with a couple of quotes:

Showing that counterfeiting is as old as the sun:

“In 1822 André Jullien wrote: “Meursault… produces many highly appreciated white wines which, as they leave the area, often take on the name of the wines of Mont-Rachet which they resemble to some degree, though they do not have all their fine quality.” A century earlier, 1728 the priest Arnoux warned his readers against “the vines which are neighbours to that vineyard, for they somewhat resemble it in quality and sometimes pass for Montrachet”. “That is why you should be sure of having a trustworthy agent if you wish to procure some”, he advises.”

Finally, did someone mention squabbling rustics?

“It is probable that the strange greenish-yellow colour of Montrachet deepened along with progress in vinification and preservation of wines. In the eighteenth century it doubtless had the transparent palour of a young priest at court. Greenish-gold? Chablis and Pouilly-Fuissé also claim this mysterious blend of colour and its reflections. Yellow? “No” they say in Chassagne “Puligny is yellow.” Yellow? “No” they say in Puligny “Meursault is yellow.” “

the wines of burgundy, hw yoxall (1968)

By billn on July 27, 2007 #books, maps, magazines, films even podcasts!

yoxall burgundyFirst published by The International Wine and Food Society (Pitman) in 1968, this copy is from the slightly updated 1978 second edition. Compared to the last book I posted on, by Philip Youngman Carter (1966), this 190-pager by Harry Waldo Yoxall is a little more studied and less spontaneously amusing, but Harry has his nicely self-deprecating moments and like Youngman Carter before, retains the BBC grammar of a bygone age. To balance, there is more depth and in some areas considerable insight.

Harry certainly knew his stuff; he was a ‘Grand Officer de la Confrérie des Chevailiers du Tastevin’, chairman of the society responsible for publishing the book, and for 40 years was also the head of the London office of Vogue magazine and a contributor to others.

Overall, a book with some interesting areas; how to serve the wines, the question of adulteration of wines etc., broad enough in it’s coverage that it could have been an early template for the much revered book and probably still reference point in the subject by Anthony Hanson. I leave you with a few quotes:

“Halfway through the 15th century some Côte d’Or wine was evidently reaching the French court, for Louis XI praised the 1447 vintage of Volnay. (I liked the 1947)”

“This côte produces a light, fresh rosé at Marsannay, quite pleasant, if you like rosé, for picnic lunches – if you like picnic lunches.”

“My advice to the civilised tourist who is not in great hurry (and civilised people should not be in a hurry) is to keep off the main roads as much as possible.”

[Talking of Le Montrachet]“…Alexandre Dumas was inspired to declare that “it should be drunk kneeling, with ones head bared”. Personally I drink little wine with my hat on and, with my rheumaticky frame a kneeling posture would not enhance the pleasure of drinking even Le Montrachet.”

drinking burgundy, youngman carter (1966)

By billn on July 15, 2007 #books, maps, magazines, films even podcasts!

burgundy youngman carterDrinking Burgundy by Youngman Carter (1966)

I like to buy older books, not only are they very cheap 🙂 they give a (sometimes) usefully different context and insight into a region. This is a thin – only 90 pages – hardback which brings many smiles. Dated, certainly but with that ‘period’ BBC newsreel grammar. Here’s a selection of cool quotes, ones that make me smile:

” ‘Burgundy at it’s best overtops Claret at its best.’ This is the last word on the subject by the greatest of all wine writers, Maurice Healy. He goes on to say that a really great Burgundy is a rare thing, possibly a once in a lifetime experience, but fine old Claret is not hard to come by if your pocket permits.”

“…beware of restaurants who offer elaborate wine lists without mentioning the shipper. ‘Beaune 1959’ has precious little meaning but ‘Beaune De L’Enfant Jésus (Bouchard Père et Fils) 1959’ is a specification of a fine product. No man in his senses if buying a car would consider ‘A drop-head coupé 1959’ without inquiring if it had been made by Anon & Co. or Rolls-Royce; yet the restauranteur is presenting precisely the same invitation to buy blind.”

“A mile and a half south of Chenôve lies another little town, Marsannay-la-Côte, a community which has made great efforts to regain its lost prestige by displacing the invading Gamay and restoring the Pinot. Unfortunately, the cost of the original project was not recoverable, for the market for cheaper Burgundies has been lost to Algerian imports.”

” ‘Grand Chambertin’ is as meaningless as ‘Gevrey-Chambertin’. Maurice Healy calculated that in 1940 in London alone three and a half times as much ‘Chambertin’ was drunk as could be produced by those historic 70 acres in a twelvemonth and the consumption has been increasing steadily in the last quarter century. It comes, of course, from the adjoining vineyards of Gevrey, whose owners or their grandfathers, were astute enough to keep up with the Jones by adding a hyphen”

“They [Clos de Tart and Clos des Lambreys] are fine, full-bodied fellows who reach maturity slowly, from five to ten years, and keep well, sometimes up to fifty years, generally improving with age. This is very rare in Burgundy. It is, however, still considered ‘a ladies’ wine’.”

“Le Corton and Corton-Charlemagne are in the hands of expert vignerons and can be bought without fear of disappointment. The terrian is not for idlers, for the slopes are steeper than any on the entire Côte and the soil must be constantly protected against erosion by water from the wooded hills above and replaced if the winter torrents succeed in sweeping it away. The wines have the liveliest ruby colour in all Burgundy and mature in about seven years.
The crus here take Corton as the first name, the vineyard itself following, as in Corton les Bressandes. Eumenius, the Roman rhetorician of Autun, who visited these parts in 311, thought highly of the vineyards, which he regarded even then as ancient. So did Voltaire, who boasted, privately, that he kept Corton for himself and served Beaujolais to friends.”

“Beaune. Here the vines run in a continuous belt west of the city and form the largest acreage of first growths in all the land, producing an average of 86,200 gallons a year of Têtes de Cuvées. They can be drunk when comparatively young, since they have a shorter fermentation period than most, but never so young as the French would have you believe. Allow at least three years.”

“The best of Volnay and the largest vineyard, 36 acres, is indisputably Les Caillerets: a connoisseur’s wine, which is not to say it cannot be appreciated by ordinary mortals. Maurice Healy recalls a bottle of 1889 as being the finest he ever drank. It was over 30 years old then and surpassed even La Tâche 1904 and Richebourg 1923, the companions in his great triumvirate of perfection. They are, curiously, all Burgundies, though his main devotion was to Claret.”

” ‘Divine Montrachet!’ it has been called, and for many of us it is the world’s masterpiece as a white wine. In her incomparable presence Yquem becomes a dumb blond, relying on curves and diamonds, and the most expensive of the Germans an overscented Valkyrie. She is Millament played by Edith Evans: Fonteyn outbidding Nureyev.”

Some things change, some things don’t, and is that last quote the first ‘bling’ connection to wine?! Whatever, it is priceless. I shall now be on the look-out for works by Maurice Healy.

jacky rigaux – terroir and the winegrower

By billn on July 09, 2007 #books, maps, magazines, films even podcasts!

jacky rigauxAn important book, so worth a little delving into the detail. I purchased it in the Athenaeum bookshop in Beaune for 28 Euros – it doesn’t seem to be listed on Amazon at this time.

A quick flip through the contents and contributors (interviewees) and this is a book that looks like it should be worth the outlay – each author somehow touching on the subject of terroir and the winemaker.

It’s one of the few of Jacky’s books that I’ve seen translated from his native French, he doesn’t speak English himself, or at least the one time we had a conversation I had the impression that his English was worse than my French – in itself quite an achievement! – and maybe I can already spot a contributing factor to my early difficulty with this tome; it’s the language… well mainly!

Some early ‘niggles’ were:

  1. The Language. There can be something special about French translated into English – particularly on a corporate level – just look at the corporate communications of any major French company; the language is cringingly flowery and usually devoid of any real meaning – I had a real sense of ‘deja-vu‘ while reading the introduction of this book – they must have same translation agency!
  2. Misplaced Ideology. A major ‘slant’ of this book is the rejection of those Anglo-Saxon (more of that later) ‘technical’ or ‘industrial drinks’ more in common with cola than wine, ‘drinks’ which apparently portend the end of diversity and culture. My own perspective is somewhat different; I see these ‘technical’ wines engaging a brand new audience i.e. one that is in addition to the existing audience, and that a certain percentage of those new drinkers will look to broaden their horizons and effectively increase the global market for let us call them ‘terroir wines’. Let us also not forget that a) wine consumption is increasing and b) there are many harder jobs than selling a well-made wine. I emphasise ‘well-made’ because we wouldn’t want terroir to be used as an excuse for bad wine now would we…
  3. With Jacky. I don’t have a problem with much of his prose idolising Henri Jayer – anyway a reasonable choice – rather, and because of his academic background, I would have liked him to take a slightly more ‘modatorial’ stance vis-a-vis his contributors – but no, he nails his ‘terroirist’ credentials to the mast very early:

    “The bottle not only contains the fruit of the vine served by technique, it also reveals singularity of place, transcended by man’s labours, which often demands slow maturation so as to reveal the full terroir complexity.”

See what I mean about language – this would, for example, be better placed on Boisset’s website. It seems that I’m also a major part of the problem because I’m a card carrying member of the “dominating Anglo-Saxon culture”, this term is peppered through the opening pages; Anglo-Saxon being used in each case as a negative reference point. One assertion that amazed me after just finishing the excellent Phylloxera, was the following:

“For example, many winegrowers who refused to admit that phylloxera could be contained by the use of natural predators, were persuaded to resort to using American rootstock…”

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but no such suitable ‘natural predator’ was ever found, and although I know there is some research in returning the vines to their own ‘feet’ I’m not aware of anything approaching commercial reality – oops I suppose that’s an Anglo-Saxon (commercial) point of view! Let us also be clear; if there had been a fledgling gene therapy in the late 1800’s, you can be sure that someone would have inserted an anti-louse gene and everyone would have been very happy – regardless of the current distrust the technique engenders. I’m not saying I fully trust the technique, but in such times of hardship it would have been done, no question!

At one stage I found myself rather laughing at one contributor’s assertion that a ‚terrior wine’ from Burgundy could not really show the terroir if the oak didn’t come from Burgundy. Should I labour this point? – Okay; how many oak forests do you know in Vosne, Chambolle or Gevrey – hmm, seems they all come from quite some distance away in Burgundy – further away than (say) Vougeot to Aloxe, but mix the grand Crus of Clos Vougeot with Corton and what do you have? – regional wine, Bourgogne Rouge. This is not terroir.

Anyway one assumes that as we get into the ‘meat’ of the book, i.e. the contributions of 48 wine producers from across the globe (of course 42 are from France – 31 from Burgundy), that this will take a turn for the better. An early contribution from Jacques Perrin failed to light my fire, though one from Jean-Louis Laplanche – academic and former owner of the Château de Pommard – was good. The monographs that follow, range from extremist (Charlopin) to the anarchic (Dagenau), from the thought provoking (Lafon) to the compellingly mad (Lardière or Joly – to your taste!). One might reasonably assume that 48 monographs on the same subject might become rather laboured – but this is largely avoided and they are all great sources for quotes!

Whilst I was perhaps a little harsh of Jacky’s pre-amble, the juxtaposition of some articles and indeed his (presumably) introductions to the people concerned often do him no favour; for example about Nadine Gubine;

“…this remarkable winetaster, recognised as such by her peers, applies herself to making all these wonderful Grand Crus sing as precisely and harmoniously as possible…”

I’ve not yet had the good fortune to meet Nadine, but given that we are talking about the Jacques Prieur estate which has certainly not been the brightest star of recent years, and that this is dovetailed to a truly excellent article by Dominique Lafon did make me laugh. Talking of laughing, if you want real fun try reading the contribution by Jacques Lardière – he comes across as some sort of completely mad scientist – I was impressed, but didn’t understand a word!

One of my favourite parts was the ‘interview’ with Claude Bourguignon – fascinating, but maybe that’s my scientific Anglo-Saxon perspective.

For all my quibbles – and I would say that about 50% of the content did little to inspire me – I can heartily recommend this book because it contains some truly inspiring material and this remaining 50% is absolutely worth the outlay.

phylloxera

By billn on June 17, 2007 #books, maps, magazines, films even podcasts!

pylloxeraMy journeys on the tram these last weeks have been enlivened by this book – Phylloxera. Like all the best stories, we have a malevolent baddie – and an ugly one – that’s bent on the destruction of (wine) ‘civilisation’. As the detective work unfurls the deadly ‘enemy’ takes many names; Peritymbia vitisana, Pemphigus vitifolii, Daktulosphaira, Viteus vitifolii, Rhizaphis vastatrix and Phylloxera vastatrix. Today, science knows it as Daktulosphaira vitifolii but the name ‘phylloxera’ persits. Don’t however assume that this is just history told; in California the destruction of previously resistant vines has recently heralded the arrival of phylloxera ‘Biotype B’ – the problem starts afresh.

The book is packed full of biggots, self promoters and always until it’s too late – denial. A fully recommended narrative that’s more like a novel than social history.

As routes to bypass the effect of the ‘louse’ were found, prices started to tumble for what we might now call vin de pays – riots and death were the result – the timing of guerrilla action in the Languedoc with the appearance of Biotype B is strangely coincidental.

la bourgogne vue du ciel

By billn on November 04, 2006 #books, maps, magazines, films even podcasts!

aerial views of burgundy
First published in 1990, I found this book at a bargain-price in a second-hand book store – the condition is far from perfect, but it’s very serviceable.

This is really just a coffee-table book, but it’s chock-full of very pretty pictures taken from the air – one of a series by the authors. There are, of-course, photos of vineyards and grand houses in the Côte d’Or, but ‘Burgundy’ is a much wider area and landscape.

This book was a very nice acquisition – but be careful not to spill coffee on it!

the golden age of burgundy

By billn on October 09, 2006 #books, maps, magazines, films even podcasts!

the golden age of burgundySubtitled: The Magnificent Dukes and their Courts.
Let’s be clear about this at the outset – this is, despite its main title, a virtually wine-free book. Of-course, gifts by way of a few barrels here and a few barrels there pop-up from time to time but no more often than a prince of the realm has ‘his brains scattered in the mud’.

This book covers the dynasty of the Dukes of Burgundy, ‘princes of the blood, but owners of vast estates existing in their own right and over which France had no juristiction’; estates which made these Dukes and their vassals some of the richest of the ‘middle-ages’. It’s about the political intrigue of the time and kingdoms won and lost and like all the best history books – they really know how to kill a man.

Close to 300 pages, this is a scholarly work, in parts it’s also not always the easiest read, possibly because it’s been translated from the original French of its author – Joseph Calmette (d.1952 – it was his last work) but it certainly holds the attention. For history buffs this is recommended.

wine bottle closures – the book

By billn on September 05, 2006 #books, maps, magazines, films even podcasts!#vintage 2006

jamie's most recent bookI just got to the end of Jamie Goode’s self-published book on wine bottle closures. The book is a distillation of current knowledge/data with respect to the various approaches to what I will call ‘taint management’.

To be honest, I found this a really interesting read and though there is a high dose of technical language, Jamie really made it easy for this (ex) research chemist – I think it’s also reasonably approachable for ‘lay’ readers.

Unlike Jamie’s book on wine science, this is a lower-budget presentation that is structured with very short sections that are perfect for 15 minutes reading here and 10 minutes there – my main reading operandi. Jamie repeats himself often; it’s like a presenter, telling you what he’s going to tell you, then telling you, then finally reminding you what he’s told you – but for me it worked very well – and I think I even retained some of the info! Chapter #3 is a super reference to sulfur and oxidation & reduction in wine that would sit well in any reference book and is almost worth the price of entry for that section alone. Highly Recommended!

sunnyPlenty of good weather today on the Côtes, lots of sunshine. The nights have warmed just a little, and the temperature at 2:00pm was 28˚C
Cheers

a reading backlog

By billn on July 21, 2006 #books, maps, magazines, films even podcasts!

Heading for the Côtes for a couple of days next week but there’s not much additional on the site this month – it must be that hot weather holiday feeling – however, I have had chance to catch up on a little reading, specifically a collection of older books on wine. It’s fascinating to see the same discussions about new vs old-style winemaking and the lottery of finding good bottles – where have I heard that before? – but it’s interesting to read it from the perspective of people writing in the 1920’s-1960’s. The style of prose may have changed, but little else!

I have a couple more books on the way, but the last two weeks have been filled with unfamiliar author’s names such as; H.Warner Allen, Morton Shand, Youngman Carter, Yoxall and Schoonmaker. Great fun
Cheers

Burgundy Report

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