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…

First published in 2015, I’m happy to have a full, physical, set of these useful maps – and you can now find them all – here online – courtesy (& of-course copyright!) of Inter Beaujolais; though I’m still prevaricating over having those physical versions framed – as it will cost well-over €1,000 to do them all!

I believe that these maps are an important first step in the improvement of both Beaujolais wine and therefore its the market too; they will breed interest in the detail, in knowledge of the subsoils and eventually they will help expand today’s standard cuvée formulas of Cru or Cru Vieilles-Vignes or even worse Cru Fût de Chênes to bring more ‘Cru Climat‘ labeling such as done for a long time by Château Thivin.

They are not just beautiful maps, they are important maps…

Looks worth trying to get hold of a copy…

Looks interesting: Behind the romance of French wine https://t.co/dmHvf44InK via @TheStreet

— 🅱️ill nanson (@billnanson) March 20, 2017

I get to see copies of World of Fine Wine relatively infrequently – probably less than half of those issues that are published. I’m not pushed to improve on this ratio, as I often struggle to find articles to suit my interests, but the current issue (48) has a couple of beauties.

• First, a relatively short article by Michel Bettane about Guy Accad. Accad has always been something of a personal hero for me and somebody I’d love to meet. I know he was a great pioneer in the vineyards, but this is often forgotten in preference for discussing his approaches in the cuverie – these were and still are more controversial, despite such a large uptake of many of his ideas in modern winemaking. Bettane was working in Burgundy at the time of Accad – also something I learned – so has super insight. I should also commend the translation, as I think Bettane doesn’t speak or certainly write English to this level.
• Second, is an article on geology and the naming of rock-types/timescales – Alex Maltman makes a potentially dreary subject come alive, indeed his writing resounds with (my!) interest. A bigger, feature article this, and really worthy of your time. Alex seems the type of teacher we all wish we’d had during our studies, as his throwaway references to diverse topics such as radioactive decay are clarions of clarity and ease of understanding…

PS An honourable mention should go to Jon Wyand’s critique of Johan Bergund’s new book of photographs. Real, constructive, interesting discussion from a professional perspective!