The wines I love

This week I have been around to visit some of the vignerons who have a special place in my heart… wine friends producing some of the wines that I love or like.

On this trip through Burgundy, I brought two artistic friends, Dr Chua Yang and Su Lynn, who helped me illustrate and visualise these talks to perhaps bring another understanding of the wines and my work.

This week I visited Aurélie from Ledy Vins, Jane Eyre, Alexandrine Roy, Brice de La Morandière, Frédéric Mugnier, Pascal Mugneret, Jeremy Seysses, Marchand-Tawse and the Mugneret-Gibourg family to increase my understanding of the vignerons’ minds and thinking.

Sometimes a change of lens is needed!

It was a unique chance to speak to the vignerons from different angles of the work and the art of making wines. And yes … I call it art … when it’s at this level.

It is a new take on visiting and getting another, deeper understanding and appreciation of the vignerons and their wines …and it brought many reflections regarding the wines they produce and the work they do – and making the wines that I have so dear.

It also brought some ideas to implement this new visiting format into my daily work visiting producers in Burgundy…

It is a matter of love and delight

Drinking wine should always evoke emotions … joy, pleasure, delight… call it what you like … but it should never be indifferent or evoke displeasure and disgust.

No wine is perfect … some come close … but all have their small errors or caveats that make them alive and somehow add to the complexity. The bottom line it can still be a lovable wine if the qualities are bigger than the sum of the errors.

Striving towards technical perfection will, in my experience, often limit the wines, whereas striving to express what nature has brought to you can realise the full potential of the grapes – but all has its limits and balance. Nature is the king … but even nature can produce pure shit if you put a hopeless and careless vigneron at the rudder.

Is it a love story or a friendship

The wines I love and enjoy are often made by people that I like and respect. You can – in my view – taste the character of the winemaker through the wine … there is an implied link through the wine from the vigneron to my brain and heart. Can it be measured – no – but many people I know have this feeling of connection; also some of the great vignerons visited. But even newcomers can win my heart …

Sometimes you can feel this link quite strongly … but oftentimes an unbendable indifference … but luckily also sometimes a strong passion and depth. A passion that, amongst others, reflects the willingness to take risks, wanting to unfold the qualities of the wines.

So the wines I drink should be wines that evoke feelings and preferably be made by vignerons that I respect and like.

A wine should have tension and energy… if not, don’t bother. It should, in its youth, have liveliness and energy that will let your enjoyy and access the complexity of the wine and the terroir.

It’s the tension and energy that will be the driving force of the wine … even when it’s old!

There are no great wines

As a wine journalist, I like to compare and score wines … I admit … I’ve been there, and found out there is no T-shirt at the end of the long row of vines.

You should, as a reader, first and foremost be interested in whether I like or preferably even love the wine in the glass. The Vin d`émotion level …

The second parameter that is interesting is information about the current drinkability of the wine … is it young and closed, or just closed down … or is it ready to give you pleasure.

A description of the wine and impressions of the smells or scents – if you have a fine nose and a stiff upper lip – is anyhow just a reflection of my inability to express the complexity of a Burundian wine.

If you enjoy my descriptions, be my guest … and I do try, but I realise the combined complexity of the wine and the terroir filtered through my nose is a complex process for my brain

This is why … listen to my vin d`émotion scale and see the level of love … it’s that simple. And the core qualities of the scale should at least be recognisable on most occasions, while the points can disappear at the wrong moon.

Frais and Léger … has tension and energy … this is a minimum that you should never compromise on. Personally, I prefer tap water or Chateldon, rather than drinking a wine without tension and freshness.

But what about the points? … the 95 Michelin points, or is it still Parker points? If you like them … be my guest … some do, and this is why I still make them. But it is – if consistent a more or less fixed mathematical model … that could be programmed, except for a few outliers every year …

Speaking points, they are mainly meaningful when the wine has unfolded and is at least partly mature.

La Tâche 1990 was a promising monument of fruit and minerality when tasted in 1994 … when retasted in 2016 it has unfolded some of its magnificent complexity and greatness … and I am sure it will evolve even more complexity if I am lucky to taste it in 2026 or 2036. A great glass … and yes, in this case we can rightfully say great bottle.

Each bottle its occasion

The enjoyment of a wine is strongly correlated with the occasion, the company, the moon calendar, the glasses used, the temperature, your own well-being, amongst countless other parameters.

You can never fully replicate a tasting of a wine – even a few minutes’ time difference can make a difference.

It’s therefore about seizing the moment with good friends and enjoying what nature and the vigneron have given.

I don’t have the luxury of tasting wines only when I feel like it, and when I have good friends around me. But my advice: get some good friends and enjoy the wines with them … buying even big Grand Crus can’t replace good company.

… but this week I have been privileged to have my Singapore friends Dr Chua Yang and Su Lynn accompanying me on my trip to the different vignerons. Merci!