Once again...

This time from the San Francisco Chronicle. I can't get enough of these articles and what's more is the non-chalant attitude that permeates them. That's right, while criticizing 'the French' for their 'holier than thou' approach to wine they completely miss the point that the French (and myself included) are trying to make.

As others master Pinot Noir, Burgundy's mystique evaporates

At face value alone, the title is ridiculous. It assumes that people have actually 'mastered' Pinot Noir and secondly that all things Burgundian were/are simply a ruse pulled over on an unsuspecting public. Of course, this is ridiculous. From the article:

" Any lingering doubts about that were shattered in 1976 by the famous blind tasting organized by merchant Steven Spurrier in Paris, where French judges picked a 1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon as superior to some of the finest French Bordeaux.

Burgundy lost any mystique it had for Chardonnay -- its main white grape -- in that same tasting, when a 1973 Chateau Montelena Napa Valley Chardonnay beat white wines by some of Burgundy's most famous producers."

I have opined on more than one occasion about the real and perceived significance of wines that 'win' competitions. I know people like to throw the 1973 show-down around like the ultimate 'gotcha'. Anybody who has ever watched a sport, much less played one knows full well that on any given day, one 'team' can and will beat the 'better team'.

It was like Model-T winemaking," Jensen says of Burgundy's most famous estate, Domaine de la Romanee Conti, where he worked in 1970. "I was expecting to see fancy machines and space-age gimmicks. We punched the wine down with our feet. I saw there was no secret to Burgundy winemaking. They had limestone- derived soils, but their winemaking was very basic."

This is unbelievable. I invite you te read it again. Mr. Jensen openly admits that tinkerings in the vat room or laboratory have little if anything to do with the final product. Does this lend any credence to that crazy French notion of terroir?!?

"In Burgundy, they raise their prices no matter what kind of vintage it is," says Clyde Beffa, founder of Redwood City-based K & L Wine Merchants."

With all due respect Clyde, can't one say the same thing about California Cabernet?

There's a stubbornness in being unwilling to admit other countries are now making a very similar wine," says John Winthrop Haeger, author of "North American Pinot Noir" (University of California Press, 2004). "The Burgundians have long said they don't make Pinot Noir. They make Morey St.-Denis or Gevrey- Chambertin."

And right here, we get to the heart of the matter. To read the above statement, it sounds as if Mr. Haeger dismisses out-of-hand that which the French believe and do. The fact is that in Burgundy they do make Morey St.-Denis and Gevrey-Chambertin. This is a basic truth. And if you were to go through Burgundian reds from the Côte de Nuits down through the Côte Chalonnaise it would become very obvious that the wines are, in fact, very different.