5% of the Tip of the Terroir Iceberg

This is the first Burgundy Trip 2008 post. You can expect a steady stream of these for the next few weeks. There is no other way, I hope you'll understand...

What an incredible trip! There is no way to overstate how amazing it was. I drank some stupendously great wines, ate some great food, and hung out with great people. I also learned a lot about terroir in Burgundy. The main things I learned about terroir are this:

1) Terroir is real in Burgundy. It's not an invention of elitist wine snobs in order to intimidate people. Nor should the nuances of terroir elude 95% of the population. Quite the opposite. Drinking wines from producers such as those we visited (Mugnier, Roumier, Des Croix, Pierre Morey, Lucien Le Moine, Domaine de L'Arlot, Philippe Pacalet, Rousseau, Dujac, and DRC, although I missed that one), I bet that 95% of moderately experienced wine drinkers would see that Nuits St George is different from its neighbor Vosne-Romanée, and completely and totally different from Gevrey-Chambertin. That Aux Combottes and Clos St Jacques make vastly different wines, even though they are both vineyards in Gevrey-Chambertin. To take it a step further, wines from the same vineyard can express different characteristics depending on the parcel held by the producer (I haven't personally experienced this yet, but I believe it to be true).

Maybe all this sounds obvious to you, and it wasn't a big surprise to me either. What did surprise me was how truly profound are the differences between the various terroir. It was formative for me to experience this myself - there is no longer any element of blind faith.

2) Discerning terroir can depend on a few factors. In extremely ripe vintages (recently 2003 and 2005), the nuances of terroir can take a back seat to the aromas and flavors of ripe fruit. And even in classic vintages that are said to demonstrate clarity of terroir (recently 2006 and 2007), fruit that is not grown or vinified cleanly will not produce terroir-expressive wine.

3) When I begin to get a little bit better at something, inevitably I then realize how much there is to learn. On this trip I understood how desperately little I actually know about Burgundy wine. Maybe 5% of the tip of the iceberg - that's where I am.

4) Nuits St Georges really does make savage wines, very muscular and structured. Morey-St-Denis wines really do have an interesting contrast between the gamy, funky nose and the fresh burst of bright fruit in the mouth. I always heard that Gevrey-Chambertin is supposed to be the most masculine and powerful of the wines, yet I experienced them to be the most gentle in their youth, with decidedly feminine perfume and lacy fruit, often finishing with something zesty, like citrus peel. I learned to reject the accepted vocabulary and to think for myself over Gevrey-Chambertin. I always heard that Chambolle-Musigny makes the silkiest and most seductive wines, and maybe this is so with bottle age, yet I experienced them to be smoky and almost rigidly structured in their youth. Vosne-Romanée is the most difficult for me to define, even in broad terms. Probably because the wines are seamless, complete.

5) I have a thing for Échézeux and Grands-Échézeux. Clos St Denis isn't bad either.

Coming soon to Burgundy Trip 2008: Burgundy dilettantes, Charolais beef, and thoughts on wine buying strategy. Don't touch that dial.