Life is too short to drink bad wine

The Beaune appellation is a bit underrated by many compared to the more well known "red" villages like Vosne Romanee, Gevrey Chambertin etc. So what does that mean for us consumers? This is in fact good news as the quality is still high and the price more affordable. I came across this Domaine while in London. Domaine Lois Dufouleur. A totally new domain to me. Lovely silky textured wine. Smooth delicate fruit. Great balance. So I asked the sommelier if he could tell me about the "manager" of this wine. To which he responded; I can, but you might as well talk to the young man next to you- that's his son! So here I was in London drinking this gorgeous Beaune premier cru and next to me was the son of the producer nipping a to great Barbaresco. A place he had not visited but which I had. And he was in London as he wanted a change from Beaune, a place I just love. Isn't life just fun sometimes? Beaune 1er cru Le clos des Perrieres 2015 Lois Dufoule...

As we all know from recent football events- it's all about the manager. And this is especially true in Burgundy where you can have many different managers making wine from the same terroir and yet the wines are all slightly different. This is a contradiction in itself cause if the terroir theory was correct they should all make the same wines, but they do not. So it's all down to grape selection, fermentation process and temperature, pressing, free run juice, use oak and which type of oak etc etc Ghislaine took over from her father in 1990 and has established herself as a top producer (manager) in Burgundy. Her wines are not the cheapest but it is certainly among the very best. The generic Bourgogne rouge from 2015 is made mostly from grapes from a plot called Bons Batons near the town of Gilly les Citeaux. In the favourable year of 2015 it is a very decent wine close to village standard. Beautiful red fruit, flowers, earth, cherries and pepper on the nose. A very n...

Domaine Faiveley has a number of different Burgundies and most of them are reasonable priced compared to many other "managers". Their Mercurey monopole La Framboise is one of the best buys and especially when it comes in good vintages like 2016. His other Mercurey and Bourgogne rouge are also very good buys and worth a try. Nice and attractive bouquet of red fruit (perhaps towards redcurrant) and flowers. refreshing acidity and reasonable good length. A very good village Burgundy from perhaps not the best villages in Burgundy. Good quality price ratio. Mercurey La Framboise 2016 Domaine Faiveley Ca 280 NOK or 17€

Red Burgundy premier crus are very much on the expensive side after years of price increases due to high quality and limited quantities. Going a bit away from the centre of Burgundy to lesser known areas like Mercurey can therefore be an option in order to buy smart and drink well. This premier cru by Domaine Michel Juillot has all the trademarks of a decent village wine from Burgundy. Delicious red fruit and a lovely fruity balanced taste. Drinking well all ready now but will improve with 2-3 years of storage. Mercurey 1er cru Clos Tonnerre Michel Juillot ca 20€ or 300NOK

2015 årgangen fortsetter å imponere. Denne gang Burgund og landsbyen Savigny-les-Beaune som ligger vegg i vegg med Beaune. Bare adskilt av A6 fra Paris.  Manager for denne landsbyvinen er Pavelot som er en av de beste på slike viner.  Flott medium mørk farge. Behagelig mørk frukt med litt preg av stall. Nydelig balanse med god syre og flott struktur.  Deilig vin og billig til å være landsby vin.  The 2015 vintage continue to impress. This wine from  Burgundy and the town of Savigny les Beaune, just north of Beaune and just separated by the A& from Paris. The manger this time is Pavelot who is one of the best in producing wines from this town. Great medium dark red colour. Delicate dark fruit with some notes of stable. Beautiful balance with medium + acidity with a great structure. Lovely wine and good quality price ratio. Savigny les Beaune 2015 Domaine Pavelot Ca 20€ or 300 NOK

2015 årgang og fra nordlige delen av Burgund. 15 mnd på gamle eikefat. Håndplukkede druer.  Lys rød farge. Deilig duft av røde bær, skogbunn og vaniljekrydder. Flott balansert smak. Fløyelsmyke tanniner.  Tåler 3-5 års lagring Yet another bottle from the 2015 vintage and this time from the north in Burgundy. Matured 15 month on old oak casks. Hand picked grapes. Light red colour. Lovely smell of red fruit, forrest and vanilla. Great balanced taste and delicate tannins. Good value for money. Bourgogne Hautes Cotes de Nuit 2015 Manuel Olivier Ca 20€ or 270 NOK  

PYCM dunker til med en rose på 100% Pinot Noir fra Burgund. Nesten 50 år gamle vinstokker og hans andre årgang med rose.  Hans vidunderlige hvite burgundere er bare blitt dyrere og vanskeligere å få tak. Har drukket en del rose fra Provence etc men dette her tar rose vin til nye høyder. 25€ er dyrt.  Men for en vin! Det lukter Pinot, ser ut som diskret rose og smaker aldeles himmelsk med en balanse og lengde totalt ukjent når det gjelder rose. Unfined/unfiltered. Jeg gir meg over for en rose vin! PYCM has created a rose wine based upon 100% Pinot Noir from Burgundy. Nearly 50 year old vines and only his second rose wine ever. His wonderful white Burgundies have just become more and more expensive and more more  difficult to get hold of. I have drunk quite a few rose from Provence but this one takes rose wine to a different level. Although 25€ is expensive. But what a wine! It smells Pinot, but it is discretely rose coloured with a heavenly taste and ...

There is plenty of the 2015 vintage out now. A vintage that has received great reviews both in Bordeaux and Burgundy. In great vintages like this it is the opportune moment to buy some of the lower graded wines such as a generic Burgundy or second labels from Bordeaux. This Bourgogne Pinot Noir by Patrice Rion was beautiful balanced with som firm but soft tannins. Great nose of red fruit with hints of chocolate and pepper tones. A very good Bourgogne rouge indeed. But it does not come cheap but is still half the price of a village wine. Bourgogne PN 2015 Patrice Rion 270 NOK or 20€

Camille Giroud is a new name to me on the Burgundy scene. In an effort to find good value Burgundy from the glorious 2015 vintage I bought some of these from the local wineshop. An expressive bouquet of ripe red cherry fruit, spice and raw cocoa introduces a rich, supple palate with a nice chassis of tannin, acidity and gentle grip on the back end.  A blend of fruit from the Côte Chalonnaise, Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits, this wine really is a microcosm of the vintage, and makes a lovely Bourgogne. Drinking Window 2018 - 2030 Ca 20€ or 300NOK

The 2015 is a very good vintage and the prices have gone up once again. The prices for a village wine both for red and white have gone through the roof and now starts at 35-40€. In order to survive you have to buy smart. Choosing the generic Bourgogne in top vintages is one solution like this Pinot Noir by Michel Bouzereau. Similar wines from different producers exists as well. Here the starting price is around 15€. Medium dark red colour with lovely dark and red fruit on the nose. Beautifully balanced taste with smooth tannins and a nicely integrated acidity. Drink now but best in 2-3 years from now. Bourgogne Pinot Noir 2015 Michel Bouzereau ca 15€ or 300 NOK

While lots of people have queued up to buy the 2015 vintage from Burgundy the vintages before that are all very good provided you stick to the great producers. This premier cru called "Clos des Argillieres" from Nuits Saint Georges is just a brilliant example of a full bodied Burgundy with a smooth finish. This Clos is situated on the top of the hill just across the road from Rion premises in Premaux. The 50+ year old vines grow on poor brown soil on top of pink limestone. The plot is just 1,8 hectare (or two football pitches) and gives a yearly production of 7500 bottles. The grapes are hand harvested and scrupulously sorted  before fermented in open stainless steel tanks. Maturation is done in oak barrels, out of which 50% is new, for 18 months. The colour is dark red with hints of purple. Blackberries on the nose along with blackcurrants and blackberries. Classy notes vanilla and some liquorice as well. Very attractive. Full-bodied and beautiful balanced taste ...

Chablis wines are dry white wines which are characterized by  their purity, crispness, sophistication and minerality . The Chardonnay varietal gives results in Chablis unlike anywhere else. It draws its personality and character from a  subsoil that is 150 million years old , and ripens in ideal conditions, in a semi-continental climate, which allow it to attain a good balance between sugar levels and acidity.Today, the area planted in Chablis is just over 5,400ha. In 1955, after  the phylloxera crisis  in the 19th century which ravaged France's vineyards, then two world wars, Chablis covered no more than 550ha of vine. Nonetheless, not all the appellation's territory is planted as yet: the delimited zone comprises 6,800ha spreading along the valley of the Serein, the river which runs through the wine region from south to north before flowing into the Yonne.These are identified by precisely delimited production zones, and are subject to strict production regul...

Photograph: Jason Lowe Here, in this article, Berry Brothers & Rudd Wine Director Mark Pardoe MW offers insight on one of the key factors affecting Burgundy 2016. It is an unvarying truth that, when assessing a new vintage in a series of intensive  in situ  tastings, one or two themes emerge during the sequence of visits that come to define the character and essence of the year. Of course, the severe spring frosts are the headline news for 2016 but, re-reading my notes from my two weeks in Burgundy in early November, two other more arcane topics are also a constant presence. Mildew and whole-bunch are referred to regularly in our descriptions for the wines, so merit further examination and explanation. Today, I’ll be considering mildew; tomorrow I’ll look at whole-bunch. As if the Burgundian  vignerons  didn’t have enough to contend with after the 2016 frosts, nature hadn’t finished with them yet. Mildew, encouraged by a cool and damp late spring, appea...

Photograph: Jason Lowe The BBR Wine Director Mark Pardoe MW reflects on the fashion for whole-bunch: When it came to harvest time in 2016, I wonder how many producers in Burgundy pushed their hats back on their heads and shook their heads in weary disbelief. After the litany of the year’s adversities – frost, mildew, uneven ripening, drought stress and a late harvest – in the end 2016 delivered a perfect harvest of ripe, juicy small berries of Pinot Noir, with perfect skins and wonderful ripe tannins. On reflection, I suspect not many; the ups and downs of recent vintages have created a sense of  Weltmüdigkeit  among some Burgundian  vignerons . Fruit being harvested in such perfect condition brought another of Burgundy’s discussion points firmly centre stage: whether or not, or in what proportion, to use whole bunches (or whole-cluster, as it is also known) in the fermentation process. Until the arrival of de-stemming machines (which remove the berries from t...

OUR VINEYARD The estate currently farms 6 ha. Focused on Nuits Saint Georges and Chambolle-Musigny appellations, we only produce red wines from the Pinot Noir grape variety, although 1.30 ha in Nuits produce a white wine from chardonnay (90%) and pinot blanc (10%). p> Our approach to viticulture is rigorous. The vines are pruned short and bud selection is very strict. Leaf-canopy surface is optimized for greater photosynthetic activity, yields are limited, and disease and pest control is carefully managed. All this allows us to farm naturally, even if we are not certified organic. With our soils, we do not use weedkillers, preferring the plow (and sometimes the hoe!) to control weeds. But as excessive plowing can be bad for the soil and the vine, during the winter we sow a natural grass which helps to avoid erosion, and encourages soil fauna. We are very careful to avoid soil compaction problems, so we use very lightweight tractors for spraying and hedging. In additio...

Photograph: Jason Lowe Here follows the Berry Brothers & Rudd report on the 2016 vintage in Burgundy. Frost, mildew and small harvest are the main items. BBR Buyer Adam Bruntlett details the 2016 growing conditions, and how Burgundy’s vignerons triumphed against the odds The 2016 growing season was one of the most testing for many years. For the Côte d’Or and Chablis, the most significant climatic event of the season came shortly after budbreak, on the night of the 26th and morning of the 27th April. As temperatures descended to -4°C on the night of the 27th, what the  vignerons  term a  gelée d’hiver  (winter frost) caused damage to low-lying parcels, particularly in the villages of Savigny-lès-Beaune, Chorey and Ladoix. But the frost damage was a two-pronged attack, with a  gelée de printemps  (spring frost) causing damage to many of the best-exposed sites. The previous day’s rain had frozen on the buds and, as the sun rose, its rays had ...

This is a stunning wine from Beaune and Albert Morot. The Bressandes plot keep impressing me with velvety structured wines at an affordable price. Smooth red fruit on the nose with hints of pepper and some earthy flavours. Silky firm tannins on the palate with a lovely delicious and long finish. Wines does not get better than this. Just more expensive. Beaune 1er cru Bressandes 2012 Albert Morot Ca 28€

I came across this red in the local wine shop and it is an outstanding generic Bourgogne rouge. The notes below are from the Bibendum web site. This bright, racy Bourgogne is drawn from three parcels. One-third comes from some old vines in the Hautes Côtes, one-third from vines in Maranges (villages level) and one-third from a Bourgogne parcel on the edge of Puligny-Montrachet.  The Puligny component brings perfume, the Maranges brings generosity of the fruit, and the Hautes Côtes brings the structure and again, plenty of high grown perfume. Naturally fermented in concrete tanks with less than 10% whole bunches, the Bourgogne Rouge was aged in used barrels this year as Marc Bachelet felt the wealth of the fruit in his reds required no new oak.  This wine habitually sells like the clappers, and the 2015 is as good as we have tasted with deeper, silkier fruit than usual. In other words, be quick!  The 2015 Bourgogne Rouge has an attractive bouquet: raspberry preserv...