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Burgundy Insights from the Winehog

a Curve Ball in Burgundy …

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The Burgundians are sensitive people, and for that, I love them. Pride in family, village and the institutions. Tradition in Burgundy is very important. Compared to Denmark, these values seem to hold much more weight … local relations are truly important.

These values however can sometimes make it pretty difficult to be a true critic. If you want to speak frankly and without a filter about the vignerons, wines, appellations and even restaurants, this is often taken very badly. Not only by the vigneron himself, but by his friends and followers as well.

This is clearly not “comme il faut” as they say here … So, I mostly don’t despite the abundance of rather subpar restaurants and wine producers.

Behind the scenes, the Burgundian vignerons often make fun of and ridicule the other less competent vignerons for their misfortunes with brett, volatile acidity or worse. On the surface, it all looks nice and clean … and we like this.

I have therefore decided to take another angle to give you, the Winehog reader, the otherwise hidden, and sometimes even dirty side, of Burgundy … A fictive setting, so any resemblance to real life is a coincidence. And remember, this is great mixture of irony and sarcasm. So, don’t try to crack the code …. there are far too many!

The storyteller is a Danish wine journalist who has an ongoing 30-year love story with Burgundy. You think you know me from The Winehog … but remember, this is with added fiction, sarcasm, irony, and a touch of dry Danish humour.

I have some generic characters: the hopeless vigneron, the greedy restaurateur, and the very shady wine merchant.

People who knows me also know that I love Italian food more than anything. So, not to push the sensitive French minds too much … I have chosen a somewhat speedy and greedy Italian restaurateur.

Its generic setting – one restaurant and one vigneron who makes all the errors and mishaps – would be unusual here, but not entirely incredible! The wineshop could have been “fakes and greed” … but the more tourist-friendly L’argent Gris … is more street-smart, or so the owner thinks.

The vigneron is called Marcel and owns Domaine Bretta. The restaurant: La Putain and the wine shop: L’argent Gris … are owned by other fictive characters.

And remember, this can be infested with a heavy dose of irony and sarcasm …

Let the short stories begin …

Episode 1: Harvest time … soon

We are now in the middle of August. Conversations with vignerons are largely centred around harvest, a hot topic.

… less than one month from harvest, and things are starting to wind up, or it should be at least.

In fact, many, or most, have their harvest team set , and to some, a part of the harvest team was planned even before the flowering was done.

There is nothing wrong with the well-known 100-day approach (even Marcel Bretta knows it). However, this would often overshoot the harvest time by 10 days at least.

Vigneron and winemaker Marcel Bretta at Domaine Bretta is busy calculating tirelessly as he has already booked the “prestateurs” – a hired team of vineyard hands – one, or perhaps even two weeks too early and is now trying to repair the financial damage.

If we harvest one week too early, it could help a lot and be done without very serious unripeness of the grapes.

This is why trust and quality checks are extremely important for négociants … especially if they get the juice or grapes from a place like Domaine Bretta.

One is often surprised how much top-end négociant wine like Corton Charlemagne that comes from domaines just down the ranks … many oaks in a great year in some cases …. and more to the négociants than they bottle themselves!

As Marcel often says to his colleagues, a couple of days or weeks does not matter in the end, as long as you know your winemaking and the yield is maximised. Optimal harvest time and ripeness are like measuring elastics with a ruler!

Sadly, the vintage yield in 2024 is pretty lousy – so there is no chance to win back the full loss even by harvesting a bit early. Bretta has only laughter in his mind when he sees vignerons have the harvest team sit and wait for optimal ripeness … what a waste of money, he says.

Happy days were in 2023 when Marcel Bretta bragged about having 83 hl/ha from one Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru … ouhlala

As he says, high yields and heavy extraction go very well hand in hand – and you can even quote him on that!!

about a Curve Ball

A Curve Ball is made by Steen Öhman – the Winehog … Copyright, All Rights Reserved © Winehog 1989 – 2024

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