Vins d’Emotion: It’s About Love, First and Foremost

Enough is enough. I’m tired of producers of average Burgundies charging extremely high prices. While wise producers like Joseph Drouhin have decided to lower prices significantly (15% in many cases – bravo!), others are apparently continuing the suicidal policy of increasing them even further. Drouhin lowering its prices is a strong signal that the current trend cannot continue, in my view.

But this development also means that the Winehog needs to look beyond Burgundy to supplement his need for hedonistic, emotional wines.

So from this date (April 17, 2024), the Winehog will include vins d’émotion from other countries and areas.

More on the Winehog and his Mini on tour; first stop: Champagne

After spending a full day at Champagne tastings, I better understand why I have a love-hate relationship with this beautiful region, and with huge wine tastings in general.

Champagne is lovely. But tasting 100 or more of them in a day makes me realize that this is beyond me. While I can taste and rate that many wines – 50-100 points – the feeling of joy and emotion are no longer as clearly defined. This is extremely important, as it is essential to rating on the vin d’émotion scale.

So yes: I will continue to taste and rate Champagne and expand this area of coverage, as I love good Champagne. But it has to be con amore – avec amour – as with all other wines I write about.

I need the story, I need passion in the wine. I have come to realize that the vin d’émotion concept is applicable to all wine regions, and even food and other products that rely on talent, terroir, region, love, and care.

What made me change my mind

I had two tastings during the last week, and both gave me more hedonistic pleasure than many of my daily-bread visits in Burgundy

A vin d’émotion is a marriage, between lively, vivid acidity and delicate phenolic ripeness that assures complexity and, last but not least, a feeling of joy and energy.

This requires the winemaker not to over-extract, or kill the liveliness of the fruit in other ways. It can be pinot noir, riesling, gamay, aligote, or even rarer grapes like ploussard. Hedonistic pleasure comes in many sizes, shapes – and grapes.

This week two younger vignerons – one from the Rheingau, Eva Fricke; and one from Pupillin in the Jura, Benjamin Benoit of Cellier Saint Benoit – both gave me great pleasure, joy, and hedonistic fulfilment – the full monty. They delighted my palate in new, and great, ways. And neither was from Burgundy.

You can’t expect to find La Tâche greatness in each village, vineyard, or plot, but once in a while you will find a treasure. So search with me; it is an exciting journey.

I still love Burgundy with all my heart, but there are other wines that will give me something different, and sometimes something more. They can be that good.

I get tired of checking in with the same producers in Burgundy year after year, just to see all is still depressingly unchanged, and there is still no hedonistic glow to make you smile and laugh.

So in the future, the Winehog will be all about vins d’émotion, wherever their origins. Life is too short to taste annoying, tedious wines!

To vins d’émotion!

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