Last Night's Tipple

Finished off the bottle of 2005 Albert Bichot Bourgogne Rouge last night, and my impressions remain the same: it's pleasant enough, I suppose, but there's not a whole lot of there there. Not much nose, not much flavor, not much of anything. Maybe it's possible to get a good Pinot Noir for $13. I just haven't found one yet.

For decades in the 19th and 20th Centuries, the most widely-accepted theory of the spread of viticulture in Europe, Africa, and the near East held that vitis vinifera was first domesticated in Mesopotamia and was subsequently transplanted to Europe and Africa mostly by the Greeks and the Romans. There are a couple of problems with that theory. First, wild ranged all over the Mediterranean basin as far north as Belgium up until the late 19th Century. It's highly unlikely that anyone would have transplanted clippings of wild vinifera, so it's likely that the vine was indigenous to most of this area. Given this, why should we think that domestication happened in one and only one location? Second, there's the matter of the pinot noir grape. It's not like any of the near Eastern grape varieties that the Romans were known to have distributed throughout the Empire, but there is decent evidence that it or something like it has been cultivated in Burgundy for almost 2000 years (Columella, writing in the First Century AD, describes a pinot-like grape growing in Burgundy), and there is evidence of vine cultivation in what is today France before the advent of the Romans. Furthermore, consider pinot's offspring. Chardonnay and Gamay, two of the best-known, are both products of presumably accidental field crosses between pinot noir and gouais, a white variety known to have been brought to France from the near East by the Romans. (There are many other pinot-gouais offspring, including aligoté and melon de Bourgogne, the grape of Muscadet.) Both of these grapes are unusually hardy, growing well in a variety of environments. Chardonnay, in particular, can and does grow just about anywhere and is usually capable of producing good or great wine wherever it grows. It's a truism of genetics that genetic diversity between parents is more likely to result in hardy offspring than genetic similarity, and genetic diversity is frequently the result of distance. That doesn't prove that pinot noir was domesticated in northern France, of course, but it is suggestive.

Last Night's Tipple

It's widely believed among the marketing types that American wine consumers prefer New World-style varietal wines to Old World-style denomination of origin wines because the labeling of varietal wines is simple and easy to understand while the labeling of denomination of origin wines is complex and confusing. And Burgundy is the most complex and confusing of the denomination of origin wines that I can think of. There's the generic AOC Burgundy (both rouge and blanc). Then there are the wines from a specific region within Burgundy (eg, Côte de Beaune-Villages). Then there are wines from specific villages (eg, Gevrey-Chambertin, Rully, Meursault, and Pommard), each with its own AOC. Then there are the single vineyard wines, which can be either Premier Cru or Grand Cru (eg, La Tâche), each again with its own AOC. All in all, there are over 700 AOCs in Burgundy, some of them as small as 1.8 hectares (Romanée-Conti). It's a lot easier to buy a California Cabernet Sauvignon than it is to have even a rudimentary understanding of how wine in Burgundy works. It's intimidating.

The only grape permissible for red Burgundy is the Pinot Noir (Gamay is allowed in Bourgogne Passe-Tout-Grains and Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire, two less restrictive and less prestigious AOCs encompassing the same territory as the Bourgogne AOC). Pinot is a famously finicky grape capable of producing thin, acidic dreck. There are some grape varieties that will usually produce decent wine even in difficult circumstances. Pinot Noir isn't one of those. People who love Pinot Noir are usually disappointed by its expression. But when it's right, whoo boy, is it ever right. At its best, it is pale, aromatic, and delectable. The problem is that it is not often at its best; and when it is, it's extraordinarily expensive.

The 2005 Albert Bichot Bourgogne is not extraordinarily expensive. In fact, it's pretty cheap, about as cheap as an AOC Burgundy Pinot can possibly be. Albert Bichot is one of the major Burgundy negociants (merchants who buy grapes and wine from individual growers, then age, blend, bottle, and market the result), although not really in the top rank like Louis Jadot and Louis Latour. This wine has a lot of violets and vanilla on the nose, and the palate is relatively light in body with a good deal of tannin. I wish that there were more fruit, and I wish that there were more acidity; but it probably is a decent value for the money. I will admit, though, that I was a bit disappointed.