Why does Burgundy mean wine?
Let’s explain it from the beginning: in Burgundy we have been producing wine for 2,000 years…
And before?
The vineyard was like ivy: it parasitized the plants of the forest; and it reproduced with the seeds of the grape, which we made edible by cultivating it – pruning it was the secret – generation after generation. And thus we learned to preserve its juice and ferment it until obtaining wine only 2,000 years ago.
Here Iberian broths were food that could be preserved for months, like bread.
But its wild origin still means that each vineyard acquires its character by fighting to survive the adversity peculiar to each terroir. Therefore, in Burgundy the best wine is the result of the worst soil: pebbles, slopes…
Bread with wine and sugar were still my grandparents’ childhood snack.
Wine was food for a thousand years even in monastic culture, and in Burgundy, the Cistercian order, in the abbeys of Vougeot, Cluny…
And here in Scala Dei, Santes Creus, Vallbona, Vallclara, Vallsanta…
They gave quality to the sacred food. And in Burgundy they knew how to make them so pleasant for the powerful throughout France that they went from daily food to festive enjoyment without ceasing to be sacred.
Are they still torturing the poor vineyard?
The vineyard is like humans: it only gives its best in adversity. And to reach excellence and make us enjoy it, it must suffer. And you will get it in terroirs with poor soil rocks and not in rich, irrigated soils, which, on the other hand, produce good grapes for dessert.
Well, here in Iberia, there is hard land.
It is not enough: in addition, there are a thousand years of wisdom in how to convert the suffering of the vine into the pleasure of tasting its broth.
Where do those who fail go wrong?
In being in a hurry and greed: obtaining many kilos of grapes, for example, by watering or fertilizing, or by skipping winemaking stages. The temptations are many. And when setting prices…
The fool confuses value with price.
The price is a consequence of the quality, and when the opposite happens, when some fool believes that by raising the price the quality of the wine he sells improves, the person who buys it is as stupid as he is. I ask you not to contribute to this global nonsense.
If ignorance makes the barbarian a pagan?
I believe that we Spaniards and French have to evangelize global demand and explain to the Chinese, the Russian or the American that, even if they can and are rich, part of the culture of wine is not to pay more than it is worth and that The opposite is making a fool of yourself.
Aren’t burgundies overrated?
Perhaps, sometimes, the demand is greater than the requirement; but you will still find Burgundies – and we are a small region with little production – that are worth more than the 20 euros they cost.
Don’t you fear ancient powers, like priories; or recent, like California?
I won’t cite specifically, but wines with a lot of fruit, alcohol… are like an effective blow compared to the calm enjoyment of the nuances of a great Burgundy, which after the first glass makes you ask for the next one.
Pornography versus eroticism?
You say it, but I don’t dislike the simile: today there are wines that are porn of fruit and alcohol, and ours is eroticism.
Is virtue in diversity after all?
And we open the enjoyment of that diversity to a new global consumer who helps us maintain it: let’s learn together. There is a future.
Aren’t the Chinese and Russians buying great mythical domaines and chateaux?
The nouveau riche Parisian families attracted by the easy glamor of the world of wine already did it, but more in Bordeaux than in our Burgundy; because it is small and not of large castles, but of small plots and intensive work. And a lot of vocation.
Why does Burgundy have more than others?
Phylloxera devastated the vineyards in 1890, but we recovered them with the pinot noir and its daughter, with the gouais, the chardonnay, grafting them with an American variety; Then came the war and since then we have enjoyed 70 good years. But we believe that pinot chose Burgundy, not the other way around, and made it what it is.
Did you decide the vigneron or the terroir?
Both, and politics: in 1395, the Duke of Burgundy, Philip II, Philippe le Hardi, forced us to plant only Pinot Noir and prohibited other vines because the Crusaders had brought Gamay, a more resistant and productive variety, from the Middle East. but of worse quality.
Long live the duke!
And since then it was not the towns that gave their names to their wines: Chambertin, Montrachet, Romanée…, but the wines that gave their name and identity to our towns: Gevrey-Chambertin, Puligny-Montrachet, Vosne-Romanée… Our success is thus not individual of a millionaire owner or an elite, as in Bordeaux, but collective: of entire Burgundy.