You're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Greg, I do communications at Binny's. I have Alicia with me. Hey, good to be here. Alicia Barrett, Wine education. And Alicia, we invited Barb so that we could open some expensive bottles and get away with it, right? Yeah, she has sign off on this, so we included you, Barb, so we could spend money today. Okay, I'm Barbara Hermann, I'm the wine director. We also have another guest, something of a, what are you? Illinois area wine legend, is that? I'm not sure. Well, we thought if we're going to go to Burgundy, that we would invite George Molitor, Fine Vines. The owner of Fine Vines, actually, an Illinois distributor that is very well respected for their outstanding Burgundy portfolio. So thanks for coming on, George. It's my pleasure. Have you been to Burgundy once or twice? Once or twice, yes. When was your first? Per year. Yeah. I want to know, I want to go back a few decades, actually, when was your first trip to Burgundy? And why has it been kind of a focus of Fine Vines? What made you fall in love with the region? I first went to Burgundy in June of 1994 with the wine director of Sam's at the time, Howard Silverman. I was his largest customer and I fell in, well, I'd already fallen in love with Burgundy, obviously. And we spent two weeks seeing 40, 45 domains. And two years later, I got an import license and started to sell Burgundy for a living. So was this your first wine that you were importing for Fine Vines? Yes. And we rapidly determined we could not make a living selling just Burgundy. So we expanded to Sancerre and Bordeaux and Châtainif-du-Pape and eventually all around the world. But Burgundy remains our first love. Okay. And Barbara, when did you first start buying Burgundy for Binny's? Actually back in the 80s when I first became wine buyer. And it was kind of an interesting time. There was and there still is a lady named Becky Wasserman, who at that time was fairly young in the trade, but she was living in Burgundy and selecting and working with some wonderful growers that had not been in the United States or had much of a presence. And she's still there now and she's still doing the same thing and she has just incredible reputation. But yeah, I was able to, I was bringing in wines from her like Pustor and Madame Duret and Monthly and others back then. Andre Moussey. Andre Moussey and Paul Mard. So I'm curious because what we all can agree on is how astronomical the prices have become in Burgundy. But what was it like in the 80s and mid 90s? Is price the only thing that's changed or are you seeing any kind of stylistic or cultural differences? You know, price is kind of an issue. I know what you're talking about and that's the stratospheric pricing that the most sought after wines like the DRCs for instance are going for and other wines like that. But you know, this is a really, really, really tiny area. I mean compared to Bordeaux which has 6,000 chateaus and makes millions and millions and millions and millions of bottles a year and a lot of it very, very inexpensive. This is like a little tiny sliver of Bordeaux. And I mean it's interesting. Some of the wines we'll be tasting today. I was, you know, it's just kind of like looking and seeing like their holdings and how many wines they make. So you know, there's one here that has about, I don't know, maybe 10 acres of land spread all throughout Burgundy and there he makes like about 20 different wines. So you're talking some of the price factor has to do with scarcity because these are sold internationally in many cases and you're talking about maybe a barrel of a wine or two barrels or four barrels of a wine and that. So that's what also makes it very kind of a trick and kind of very difficult. That makes it sound like a hobby. To just make one barrel? To just make a barrel of wine, yeah. No, it's their living. I mean, there are estates that have as little as 10 acres as Barb said and they make a living from it. So it's what has really changed in Burgundy though over the last 25 years is the quality of the wines. If you go back to the 1985 vintage, I mean, everything basically before that was troubled, shall we say, a lot of unclean vinification, a lot of stems, a lot of mold, everything going in the fermenters. When I was there, very few people had a sorting table. Now, everyone has a sorting table, usually two of them, and some of them are so fancy, you could buy a very nice Mercedes for what they cost. Any optical sorting going on there? You always read about it in Bordeaux. Absolutely. At the top of states, because those machines are incredibly expensive too. Since Olivier Bernstein was the first producer, I saw him have an optical sorting machine, and that was about 10 years ago, roughly. Quality is up? Quality is up, prices are up because, as Barb said, it's a fixed supply. Sure. I actually think I read it is only about 25 percent of production of Bordeaux. Before when was Burgundy not worth drinking? Not worth drinking. I mean, you're talking about one of the more famous wine regions in the entire world. There are a lot of great wines. And you're talking smack about the entire history of Burgundy up until, like the- I've had a lot of funky Burgundy since. Yes. No, there are a lot of great wines, but there are also a lot of really not so great wines. Okay. Good to know. It's generational as well, you know. The fathers never traveled. The children have traveled. I knew one winemaker in the haute cote. He had never even been to Paris. So, you know, people travel, they do stages in other countries. They do California, they do New Zealand, Australia. They come back, their eyes have been open to modern vinification techniques. A little bit better perspective. Right. And they don't just take the fruit and dump it in the fermenter and pray that it comes out well. Yeah. Did they always say that it was a reflection of the land? Where is, I mean- The terroir? Yeah. Right, right. Yes. Okay. I mean, and that too from Roman times and from when a lot of the church kind of divvied up that land, and the monks specifically kind of understanding the different climates and the resulting styles. But I think that's an important insight because we often comment on New World winemakers traveling to Burgundy for training and inspiration. And it's nice to hear that the New World is also giving back to Burgundy too. So everyone's learning from one another. With that, we should start on our first wine. Barbara never likes to go too long before she tastes, right? That's correct. The first wine, Domaine Pavelot. I'm not doing this. You do it. We're going to let George introduce his wines. Okay. George, are all these, all five of these you're bringing? I am the importer for four of these five wines. Which one's the odd stepchild? The fifth is imported by a friend of mine named John Turlotto. But he does sell the wine. I distribute the wine for John. Okay. So you may have tuned into our White Burgundy Podcast when we kind of went north to south from Chablis all the way down to Pouy-Fouisset. You mean these guys, right? Like they're definitely faithful Barrel to Bottle listeners. I was referring to the listeners, but hopefully Barbara tunes in every night and catches up on Barrel to Bottle. But today we're going to stick to the Cote d'Or, and George has brought some excellent wines for us to try. Wait, hold on a sec. Back up. So the people who listened to our last one, it was White Burgundy, we learned that for the most part, all the white wine in Burgundy is Chardonnay. So with that same level of pat-prophy stupidity, most of the red wine from Burgundy is Pinot Noir. There's some other stuff, but we don't need to get confused. Yes. Yeah. Mostly all Pinot Noir. A little bit of, a little bit of Gamay in here and there, but all Pinot Noir. Yeah, we're going to stay in the Cote d'Onoi and the Cote d'Bone, which together make up the Cote d'Or, which is the heartland here for some of the best Pinot Noir. So George, what's up with our first wine? The first wine is from Jean-Marc and Hughes Pavelot. It's a small estate located in Sous-Vignes-les-Bones, with a very deep, very cold cellar. So this is their Bourgogne Rouge, of which they make about 1,000 to 1,200 bottles every year. These vines were planted 50 years ago, and the fruit is all destemmed before it goes in the fermenter. Which is pretty typical, right? The destemming of fruit are more and more people doing whole cluster, or? Destemming is traditional, though, right? Destemming is traditional. Whole cluster is coming on very strong. Okay. I do want to emphasize what he said about the production again, because even other parts of France, if you're buying there, the producers talk about their production in bottles, because a bottle can be turned into something else, a magnum, a half bottle, blah, blah, blah. So therefore, whatever they make is in bottles. But he's talking like this is just, we would say, oh, it's Bourgogne Rouge, but it's a thousand bottles. That's less than a hundred cases. That's probably five barrels. Just be careful when you drink it, because there isn't very much of it. Right. Kind of doing this injustice maybe. So it doesn't just smell like so many Pinot Noirs that we've had, which are so fruit forward. There's a complexity here that even at this entry level of the region, you're getting a lot of complexity like game, smoke, like tea qualities, right? Yes. And it's quite savory. Yeah. Lomi, I would say. But a lot of dark red fruits too. And for Bourgogne especially, very round. I mean, almost kind of a luscious, a lot of it because of the vintage. The vintage, of course. It's a great vintage 2018. The Age of the Vines also helps. This parcel is down very near to the road, as they would say in Bourgogne. So it's predominantly clay soils. And probably then contributing to that roundness that Barbara mentioned, being a little bit more on clay instead of limestone. Can you share, George? So you mentioned that. So you mentioned it was from Sivigny-les-Bones, but it is Bourgogne on the label. So can you talk us through that? Well, Bourgogne, I mean, the hierarchy system of the Appalachians. OK. Grand Cru wine represents basically 2% of the total production. Premier Cru, if I remember the numbers correctly, is around 8%. But Bourgogne is over 50% of the total produced. So one of every two bottles carries that Appalachian. Yeah. And a lot of times people do kind of dismiss it. But what would your advice be to those looking to get into this entry level? Is it finding out kind of exactly where they're sourcing from? Or is it finding a producer you like and trusting that their entry level will be? That they're going to take the same level of care with it? Oh, yeah. This is made with the same level of care as his top wines. They're all vinified in the exact same manner in the same cellar. The oak here might have a little more age on it, perhaps, which actually helps it. It's a more neutral barrel. But if you're trying to discover Burgundy, the producer is always the place to start. Buy six bottles at Binny's of Bourgogne. Find the one you like the best. Go back and buy a couple more. This is on the shelf for $25.99. Barbara, any insights on just trends of the Bourgogne kind of level here? Are you bringing in this about the same amount that you used to? Are you seeing demand at the same pace? No, I'd say demand is going up. Not a lot, but I think but a bit. I mean, it's for different reasons. One is that it's doing very, very well in restaurants. I mean, and that's definitely having, and I thinking that that's helping to get people to try a lot of these wines. And they're getting some like a type of education from, you know, the Psalms and restaurants on them. So that's kind of rubbing off. I think, you know, for many years, we've suggested to people, you know, that, you know, if you like Oregon, you know, you're, you would be very comfortable, in particular, I think, with Burgundy, because a lot of these wines don't have quite of that, that bigness, you know, that a lot of California pinos have, but more of a sleeker style to them. And like, this is $25. That's a very average price for Oregon Pinot Noir, you know, nowadays. So it's not a, you know, it's not like a real jump that you have to go into to, like, to start drinking Burgundy. But I don't know, I mean, maybe there's other factors too, but, you know, more curiosity, all those kinds of things go along with it. But I'm seeing an uptick, again, not like a huge one, but definitely a lot more interest in Burgundy. I'm very glad to hear that. As a region that I love and want to see do well. Very glad to hear it. And I'm glad you actually mentioned the rising prices of the Willamette, because years ago, I think in my mind, I always thought, well, if you love Burgundy and want to discover something at a lower price point, you should go to the Willamette. But now, even to kind of get into your entry level, but really solid quality Willamette, you're well into the mid-20s, if not kind of in the mid-30s. So no longer is that kind of the obvious value proposition, especially when you have a wine like this, which I think shows really well for the price. And on top of it, they've had a really good string of vintages, too. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, note 21. Yeah, we hit a lot of rolled 7 this year, but there'll basically be no burgundy this year. So. That's Frost? Frost. Killing Buds? Yes. Wow. There's white and beige labels this time. Pat would be very happy. We had this tasting of five white burgundies, and they all had almost the same, that color right there. Yeah, that beige. That beige. Yeah. Yeah. Do they all use the same designer? They get a bulk rate or something? There's only a couple of printers in Bowe. They share color ink and paper apparently. There's a book of designs. Yes. You can choose your labels or you can have someone in Paris do them for a lot of money. So, tell us about this next wine. We're heading kind of all the way to the south of the Côte d'Abonne for this one. Yeah, this is from the Domaine Bachey Le Gros. This is owned by Christiane Bachey and her two sons, Samuel and Linaïque. It's located in Saint-Tonay-le-Haut, which means the upper part of Saint-Tonay. If you're familiar at all with Saint-Tonay, that's where the casino is. So, this particular wine... Sounds like a riot. So, I actually read, I read about this. Apparently, they're allowed a casino because they have a spa. Yes. And the French law basically says that you have a spa, you can also have a casino because I guess those things go hand in hand. But getting a spa license is the hardest thing. Everything is hard in France. As a grower told me once, he said, chaque jour est compliqué en France. Every day is complicated in France. So, anyway, this parcel or this vineyard called Les Champs Claude, sits right below the white Premier Cruise in Chassant-Morachet. So it basically sits on the commune boundary. Also very low down on the hill. So again, predominantly clay soil here. This one was, I think, the aromatic intensity was quite noticeable compared to the previous wine. It's incredibly floral, very fragrant, but still kind of quite some heft throughout the palate. However, the acid tone throughout is really gives it a nice lift. It's really beautiful. Well, it goes back to the vintage again. It's a beautiful vintage. When I tasted the 18s, this would have been November two years ago from Barrel. I thought it was the best vintage I had ever tasted in Burgundy. 2018. 2018, yeah. Wow. And now it appears they're telling me 2019 was better, but of course, France has been closed basically for the last year plus, so nobody knows. And if you only have 10 barrels of something, you're probably not going to send a mixed case to every retailer account so that we can all get a taste, right? There are no samples on the front end. Yeah. I was going to say, unfortunately, the typical way to buy burgundy is off a list. That's it. I mean, sometimes we're very lucky. You might get us, like they said, because George does bring in a lot of wine, so we can taste a number of things that he's bringing in. But otherwise, like I said, it's pretty much a list and you might just get like eight pages of selections and that's it. So wait, that makes you feel a little bit lucky, me. Feel a little bit lucky that I live near Chicago in one of the places where the market can actually support the import of this stuff. I mean, coast to coast or how many metropolitan areas can get access to this wine? Usually goes to the top 10 markets or so. You can list them off, New York, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Dallas, Miami. Suck it, Boise. You'll have a problem in Boise. Those people tend to go on to websites and have the wine shipped to them. Right. Or they buy it at auction. The auction market for Bourgogne has gone crazy recently, just crazy. This one is pretty good. Yeah. I mean, you're dialing up, like you said, the fruit is more intense but the acidity is too, so it doesn't get flabby even though there's a ton of fruit here. Yeah. I also start to see the oak come out a little bit more than the previous wine, just not overpowering it by any means. But we talked about generally older oak used in Bourgogne, maybe even a lower percentage, but now stepping that up with this wine, giving it some nice structure. Yeah. Well, these are very old vines as well. They were planted half in 1947, half in 1954. So there's some seriously old vines. Would you both say that Saint-Tonay is a good place to direct people to for more affordable Burgundy in a kind of a fresh, clean style? Well, yes. I mean, I think if you're looking for more affordable Burgundy, you have to go to some of the more outlying communes on either end. But I think this wine, again, because of the old vines, it's very meaty and quite lush, quite rich, I think. Yeah, it's a beautiful wine. There's no doubt. This isn't something that you have to worry about drinking in the next six months. Yeah. No, it will not fall apart. But to go to your question, the villages people, if you're looking for value in quotes for Burgundy, would be Saint-Aunay, would be a trio of villages called Marange. They all have another name appended to it. Just remember Marange. A place like Mercure, Gevrey, and these are both in the Côte Chalene, but they're great values. The village we're about to taste from Marsanay, which is also a source of great values for the moment. A lot of the vineyards are about to be classified as Premier Cru, so once that happens, the prices will go up. Yes. I want to get your thoughts on that if you think those vineyards warrant the upcoming Premier Cru status. But real quick, this Saint-Tonay from Bachey-le-Gro was on the shelf for $37.99. Thank you for hearing it with us. Okay. So now you want to goad him into talking smack about the region. Well, I've read various opinions that some people don't think that they weren't the Premier Cru, that they don't equal some of the other Premier Cru quality sites, but yet they definitely are the better vineyards of Marsanay, if that makes sense. The ones who have been selected, yes, they are the better vineyards of Marsanay. Yeah, because I represent the, actually, the young man who's leading the charge, or as they say, holding the book for the INAO is Sylvain Pataille, who's also an enologist. He's an enologist at many top estates in Burgundy, so he knows what he's doing. And this is a serious intellectual matter. This is like the classification in Pouille Fouissé. Right. You know, I first saw this, the map, the projected map 10 or 12 years ago. That's how long it takes to get these projects through the French process, if you will. So I have every confidence that, you know, the right vineyards will be selected as Premier Cru. I mean, there's no, you know, there's no tax to be paid as there were in the old days. Which is why certain vineyards were not classified Grand Cru because they don't pay the tax. Got it. Okay. Well, hurry up and go buy your Marsannay before those prices get up there. Listeners were now all the way up, we're switching back up to the Côte de Nuit and kind of the furthest point north there. So known for rosé but growing in its red wine production and now really establishing itself. Yes, this is essentially the suburbs of Dijon. You know, you have Dijon and there's a town called Chéneuve, and then you come to Marsannay-le-Côte, which is the biggest producing village. And what wine do you have for us from that? This is from the Domaine Bart. This is Marsannay-les-Longerois, which is going to be a premier crew. Domaine Bart split up as part of the Claire Dow family estate. So part of the estate went to Louis Jadot, part of the estate went to Bruno Claire, and the third part is Domaine Bart. And they are in Marsannay-le-Côte. Now the wines are vinified by Pierre Bart, nephew of Martin Bart's sister. And this is an estate I've been working with for close to 20 years in one form or another. So, been great values over that time. Yeah, and still is now at $35.99. Let's have a taste. It's getting kind of funky. It's Marsannay. It's the Côte de Nuit. Lomi, is that what you said before? Well, the other was Lomi. I would call this a little more feral, perhaps. I don't know, a little smoky. Smoky. Very smoky. Leathery. I mean, you're so close to Gevrey. A lot of those characteristics are very similar. Yeah. I'm also getting just a lot of mushroom as well. Well, the city of Dijon sits in a bowl essentially, so it's very cold there. So these are the closest vineyards to Dijon. So do you think it's recent rise in kind of popularity for Pinot Noir to make red wine rather than rosé, owing that to some of the warming temperatures and reliably able to kind of ripen these grapes for red wine? Or is it just based on consumer demand, that shift? I think it's a combination of both. I think they realize they can get more money for red wine than they can for rosé as part of it. I'm also seeing a pretty significant increase in the sale of Marsannay white. OK. A Chardonnay made from that village. But again, people are the prices have gotten so high in the main, the famous producing villages that people are looking elsewhere for stuff they can drink without spending a fortune. Yeah. So this is really good. So the way you guys described it, you're describing the austerities. The fruit is there still, but it's the under ripe raspberries, the ones that you actually pick off the vine, off the really pokey things that they grow on. They're not vines, I don't know what they are. Bushes? No, they're like twigs. They're like, yeah, it doesn't matter. Anyway, they're like that. We live in Chicago. I haven't been to a raspberry bush in a while. I grew up with raspberries in the backyard. They're full of bees. It doesn't matter. Along with that tart raspberry, not candy, but like tart raspberry, there is a tremendous amount of grip on this wine. It's tannic, it grabs your palate, it really just makes you focus on it. Yeah. It's really well-made. I mean, it's all on the black fruit side. Yeah. Dark blue and black. It always pains me when people, maybe they haven't had a great Pinot Noir and they just think of it as a wine that is thin and lacks body and lacks tannin. And you almost want to cry because they clearly haven't experienced great Pinot Noir before. And these wines have demonstrated that they can be very powerful, have a great tannic structure and give you that grip alongside its refreshing acidity. But they always will have that beautiful finesse and nuance that, they're the person that walks into the party and doesn't yell for everyone to look at them. But they're so subtly beautiful that you just, your eyes are drawn to them. Well, there's Pinot Noir and then there's Pinot Noir too. There's a lot of product on the market being sold as Pinot Noir that is 75.1% Pinot and what percent Mega Purple and other flavors are in it. Yeah. I'll just leave it at that. So that was the 2018 Domaine Bart Marsannay from Les Lingerois. Did you say that it's 36 bucks? 35.99 on the shelf. That's amazing. Yeah. That is fantastic. We do have actually, not every store has obviously the same inventory, but we have about maybe four different wines on the shelf, different Marsannay selections from Domaine Bart. This was one of the properties I visited the early part of March last year, right before the whole shutdown over the world took place. You both have been to Burgundy many times. I'm curious kind of culturally what that's like, and you've been to wine regions all over the world. How is it different? I'm sure our listeners maybe have gone to say Napa Valley before, so I'm going to maybe draw that comparison. What is it like when you go and taste with these winemakers? What's the energy and the feel? How is it different from when you go out to California? For me, it's a totally different experience. California, we're generally in their tasting room. They're on one side of the counter. It's more of a business meeting with tasting involved than anything else. I would compare Napa Valley to Bordeaux because basically in the Medoc, you have one central road and the wineries are all, the Gauchants are all along this one road, same as in Napa, you have the 29 or Silverado. To go to Bonne, first you have to realize the ambiance. It's a medieval walled city. The remparts of Bonne were built in the 13th century and they're still in use. The ambiance is totally different and the energy in the cellar, it's a one-on-one exchange between you and the grower, for the most part in French. There's no business conducted because the business is all done with the agent outside in their office. No actual like tasting space, you're just down there pulling samples out of barrels? Out of barrels, yeah. Sometimes they'll have an empty barrel set up and they'll have the glasses arrayed on the barrel and the spittoon. Some people have really fancy spittoons on wheels now that you roll around behind you. I have a mug. Won't go, won't last very long at a burgundy tasting. If you're doing 30 wines in two hours, that's a lot of fun. It's like you got to swallow a lot. And just as, you know, beside the whole ambiance and the style, because again, you're talking in this little tiny area, and it's like little tiny like village hamlets. You're going, you're driving through, and you come to a little tiny domain, and you are tasting a lot of wine, because even the smallest grower makes a lot of different wine. They might make 10, 15, 20 wines. If you go to Napa, you're making one Cabernet, and then maybe a couple of reserved Cabernet, second label Sauvignon Blanc. That's it. Yeah, a Merlot or maybe a Zin. Yeah. Bordeaux, it's a very small number. So it's also a bit of a, you really have to pace yourself too. You did describe one of the most potentially nerdy horizontal tastings you possibly could, which is getting four different Marsannay 2018 from Domaine Bart, and trying all the vineyards against each other. We tasted about probably 18 wines at Domaine Bart, and actually I did select a few more. They make wines from a lot of different vineyards there, plus they have holdings in other villages. What's the negotiate word? It's not domain, it's selection, something like that. Chris talked about it last time. Maison would be another word for that. Yeah, right. Maison-Louis Jadot. Yeah, it's the negotiate word. If it says domain, it came from their own vineyards. Correct. There are wines sold in Domaine Louis Jadot, and there's other stuff that they buy. Same for Drouin. There's Domaine Drouin, and there's the Joseph Drouin stuff. Can you speak to the rise of the small negotiate? We hear about the big names, right? But more and more growers are purchasing fruit from other vineyards, of course, to make more wine and satisfy demand. Do you think that trend will continue? And any names that we should be aware of that you like? Well, sure. I mean, the rise of the micro-negotiations, or micro-negotiations, if you want to call it that, has come over the last 12, 13 years, pretty much. I'll be very self-centered here and say Benjamin Le Roux is a name you should be looking for. The last wine here from Jerome Castagnier, he also has a micro-negotiations business. And so there's, due to the French inheritance laws, the Napoleonic Code, everything has to be split evenly. So if there's six rows of vines and there's three kids, each one gets two rows of vines. So somebody has to do something with the fruit and you're getting situations. Other situations, there's no one to take the inheritance. I deal with a Domaine in Montellis who has beautiful holdings in Merceau. Merceau Perrier, Merceau Genèvrier. None of the kids wanted to make wine, so they're selling all the grapes. They kept two barrels each for themselves. So this leads to the rise of the micro-negos. And so it's more common for them than to, if a child isn't interested in making wine, they'll sell the fruit rather than sell the actual two rows that they've inherited. Yeah, well it's hard to sell two rows obviously, but vineyard does change hands all the time, but the price of vineyard land and burgundy is also astronomical for the top crews. Shall we go to Pumard? Sure. So we keep mentioning how the 2018 Vintage was excellent. Any other vintages as of late that you would recommend? I mean, 14 comes to mind, but, you know, what were your thoughts on kind of, I'm thinking on our shelves, you know, some 17s. There were some issues there, but 17 and 16 and 15. What are your thoughts on those? Because I think they had a, did they have a string of bad luck there in Burgundy for a few years? Further back than that. Yeah, the last really bad vintage was 2004. And that was only really bad in red wine. The white wines from 04 are spectacular. Stuff that, you know, 2010, if you can still find 2010s, it's an amazing, it's a great legendary vintage. It's so well balanced. 12 was very good. 15 is excellent. 16 is excellent. Oh, they were both short crops, both due to weather. 17 is pretty good actually. People don't give enough credit. 18, 19, and 20 looked to be spectacular. But again, you're running into short crops in 19 and 20. Yes. Let's get into the frost then. Speaking of that, can you give us some quick insights as to what has been going on in France and across a lot of Western Europe, but specifically how they've been hit with frost and what the damage is this year? Well, the damage is catastrophic in the Côte d'Ivoire. In Marceau, Pellini and Chasson-Morochet, they think the damage is close to total. Because Chardonnay is very precocious, it buds before Pinot. Also, certain aspects of the landscape, especially in Chasson, where a lot of Pinot Noir used to be planted, has been pulled out over the last 40, 50 years, and Chardonnay has been put in. They tend to be low-lying vineyard sites, so they're particularly susceptible to frost. I don't have a lot of info on the Côte d'Ivoire, but the stuff higher on the slopes, apparently, and Pinot is less precocious, so it wasn't as far advanced. So there's some hope there, but nobody knows at the moment. Sancerre has got a big problem. Vacheros, I spoke to Wenger and Vacheros, he's wiped out. Chablis looks to be a total loss. Even Piedmont has got problems, and some in Tuscany too. So it went that far south. So stock up, run to Binny's, load up. So we're talking about a year where little to no wine production out of many European wine growing regions. Well, at least France and those two areas in Italy, yes. Going back to what we do have, which is beautiful 2018 Domaine Parent Pomard here, and Croix Blanche. The White Cross. Okay. And we are in the Côte d'Ivoire, which we predominantly think of white wine, slightly more than red, but Pomard and Volnais specifically, we attribute to red. Can you give us just a little bit of what a consumer should be expecting stylistically from Pomard, especially compared to Volnais because they can be quite different. Pomard is generally lower on the slope, generally more clay in the soils. So you're going to get a bigger style of wine. More of the top Volnais vineyards are high on the hill. So there's more limestone. It's a classic Argyle au Calcaire. The parts of Volnais that are on the slope below the road, the upper road, not the lower road, they tend to be village wines. So there's more clay because over the years it's just washed out. So usually wines from Volnais are more delicate, a lot more finesse, if you will, feminine. The wines from Pomard are generally more masculine toned to be sexist. Oh, this estate is run by two sisters. Actually, it's the second property we have here, which actually is run by ladies or a lady. Absolutely. They were certified organic in 2013. They're about to be certified biodynamic. So they make just lovely wines. They're lovely ladies as well. This is dense. There's a lot of weight here, a lot of really deep, deep fruits and we're back into that really dusted earth quality in the wine. But it's not shy. This is one of the most powerful Pinot Noirs I've had in my admittedly limited wine experience. Yeah. Well, the vineyard sits just below a Palmarge vineyard called Grands Epineaux, which is arguably the best vineyard in town. So it's just across the roadway, a small roadway. Chris said they would do this. He said that if you have the best land, you're like across the other side of the fence, it's not as good. But if you have the land across the other side of the fence, you're like, yeah, we're right next to the really famous guy. Yeah. Well, it's that way everywhere. It's that way in the road valley too. I have a girl who has a parcel and you step across the road and it shouts enough to pop, and you step to the other side of the road and it's Côte d'Ironde village. Right. Really good Côte d'Ironde village and it's a lot cheaper. Well, this is good. I could say that. Yeah. What do you think, Barbara? I think it's actually very, I know what you're saying about it being quite big, but I think there's a lot more fruits showing up in this particular wine than in some of the others we've had. I mean, fresh like the cinnamon and red berries, and just really much more expressive, I think. This is a very, even though it's round and it's full, it's very, very pretty. It's very charming. There's like a cushiness across the top of it. There's a pillow across the top of the leanness. Yeah. This wine certainly can age. Oh. When do you- A decade. Yeah, at least, right? Typically, to dig into pomards. When do I drink them? Yeah. Do I want to know? Young and old. Okay. My advice is if it tastes good, drink it. Okay. If my wife and I find something that's drinking particularly well, we'll just burn through whatever stock we have, so why wait? Yeah. Don't take the risk. Don't take the risk. If it tastes good, there's always more coming. There's a secret. Vigneron told me, he said, George, the vines will grow grapes every year whether we do anything or not. Except for 2021. So that's why you started Fine Vines to fill your cellar with burgundy, right? My cellar was already full of burgundy. When I started the business, my love of burgundy goes back to when I was a teenager. I was served white burgundy at the holidays by my father, who I blame for this whole endeavor. So I was tired of being told how much of a certain wine I could have. So now I'm the one telling other people how much of a certain wine they can have. Yeah. So it's- Barb's smiling because she has to take him to the mat sometimes. Yeah. No, that's not how it works in burgundy. Burgundy is very different. It's all about allocation. You would be surprised at what some of the allocations are. We do receive for burgundy. So there are some producers I get in- I'm not saying who they came from or whatever, but where I might get like a dozen wines and it's one to three bottles of each. And that is my allocation. It comes down to like, do I want to sit here, pull out my hair, and create descriptions for every one of these? But then if I don't do it, some store is going to say, how come I didn't get my six bottles of this wine for the three customers I have? So that's why it's, Bureini is such a mess. I don't know how to say it in that way. Well, it all starts with the growers because you can't just walk into a grower and say, I just want the two barrels of Latache and two barrels of Romany Conti, and you just keep the other junk. It doesn't work that way. They go, if you want two cases of this and two of this and two of this, you're going to need to buy some Bourgogne Rouge. You're going to need to buy some Village wine and some Premier Cru wine. I mean, they make a hierarchy of wines. They don't expect you to buy everything, but they expect support across the board. In turn, I have to do the same thing because I can't buy everything just to get the top wines, sell those off, and then sit with the rest. It's not a good business model. Everyone needs to pitch in. As we've tasted, there are gems and beautiful wines to be had at those regional classifications and the village classification. So for any of you listening that have friends that only drink Premier Crue or Grand Crue wines, you need to re-educate them on some of these. Or you need to have dinner with them frequently. Yeah. Because everyone will know who they are too. That's all right. We're hanging out in different circles. Well, they're out there, believe me. So is that bottle, is that one that we just tasted twice as good as the one before? It's stylistically much different. This wine to me is very perfumed, silky, round, elegant. Whereas that Marsanay is like the big, structured, more powerful in a way kind of wine and a much meatier kind of wine. So it's a bit different. I mean, I'm probably the last person to actually be matching wines. And matching wines and foods is really not my thing necessarily. But you could see how the Marsanay would be with short, you know, some kind of brie short ribs. And this is almost with like a roast chicken or I don't know, something much more delicate. Yeah. Even a nice sole or salmon or something like that. Yeah. I think what you're seeing here is Anne Perron's touch. I mean, she's been making wine for a long time between the organic viticulture and her touch. It's just a beautifully, beautifully precise one, I would say. I went back to the Marsannay and I'll probably just get to the answer of yes. You really? Yeah. Well, like Barb said, so stylistically different. Yeah. Wow. That's a big step. So let's then head, we're going to end in the Cote de Nuit, in kind of the heartland here for Pinot Noir, and you know, only I think about 3% of production in the Cote de Nuit is for white wine. So they definitely specialize in Pinot, and they are home to 22 of Burgundy's 23 bed-grown crews, correct? Yeah, and Gevrey is home to a lot of them. Gevrey and Vaughan is where the action is. When I was studying for my diploma, I made a, I sang myself a little song to remember the grown crews. Your mnemonic device. Do you remember that? No. What is it? Do it. I don't want to do it. Come on. Chambertin, Claude du Beche, Belle Charme, Mazoyer, Grille, La Trici, Hermasie, Rousseau. Rousseau is a grown crew all on to itself. If you can find a bottle, just enjoy it. Jim, I'm going to need you to make that into a ringtone for me. Okay, George, what do we have here? So this is from a young man named Jerome Castagnier. He has a whopping four hectares, which translates to 10 acres. Wow. Half of which is grown crew, so he's a very lucky young man. Can I say this? He makes 22 wines. Because I looked that up today. Well, some of those are the Negotiant wines. Okay. But he has a lot of cuvées. I mean, I have eight or 10 of them. So he actually was a former trumpeter and the Republican Guard and the French Army, if you will, the Army de la Republiqe. And he decided to go to leave the Army about 10 or 12 years ago and went back to make wine in the family domain. So he's a great young guy. I had dinner with him a couple of years ago at a house in Lake Forest. So okay, this one smells like perfume. This one smells super complex. You said mushroomy before that's in here, but there's also like baking spice. Correct. You know, bacon fat and a little char and a little bit smoke and toast. Yeah, the charred and smoky quality is, I think, more pronounced in this wine than the others we've had. Well, it's very classic, Gevrey Chambertin. It's got it all. Ground beef, leather, cedar, tart, tart cherry. Yeah, they talk about a spice box. Inside of an Indian spice box. You read classic in this. It's where you keep your napkins, right? No, but I actually I have one at home. One of these round ones with the lid I bought some years ago. And when you open it, when you smell it, it's very romantic. It's like that. Asian baking spice. Yeah, usually more pronounced in Vaux-en-Romainet than Gevrey, but it's got some of it for sure. So these vines were planted in 1957, and they sit just below the Grand Cru, called a Ludi actually called Souvre. A lot of people sell it under that Ludi. He just sells it under Gevrey Goulage. It's absolutely beautiful. This is on the shelf for $79.99. And I still want to make the case for what a great price that is for this wine. And I also, you know, we often hear people describe the shopping experience of Burgundy kind of like they're rolling the dice. And so I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on that. But hopefully, you know, we have four different palates in the room, four people that do love Burgundy, and these are really kind of solid choices. So hopefully you can take these and know that you're not rolling the dice when you when you buy these wines. But this to me kind of brings together all of the savory components, the smoky kind of charred components with the red fruit, with the acid that kind of every wine has exhibited. In a way, but it brings it together kind of perfectly harmoniously and can definitely age for a while. And this is 2017. Yes, this is 2017. Jerome's 2018s are just arriving in the country now. As far as the burgundy buying experience, it goes back to what I said earlier, find a producer you like. And generally, if you find someone who knows how to make wine, they'll be consistent and they'll know how to make wine in a good year and a bad year. If, you know, first of all, anything on the shelves at Binny's has been screened meticulously. So I don't think you're going to find any bad burgundy on the shelves. You know, the lady on my right is doing this for a very long time and has a very good palette. She's been supporting me since I started this enterprise. And I remember the first tasting I ever did was a Keehee's Bistro and a 900 North Franklin. And Barbara was kind enough to come and buy some wine. So we've been doing it ever since. But she deals a lot of people she knows and trusts. She doesn't take fly by night offers. Oh, it's I've got this cheap stuff and that's what you're going to get is cheap stuff because there is a price in the bulk market and everybody knows it. Thank you for walking us through these wines. I just want you guys to know the last week's episode of Barrel to Bottle was Ranch Water. Ranch Water. Right that sounds gross, right? It's like the new fad of canned cocktails, which is Topo Chico and Tequila and Lime Juice. It's this close to vodka and water. So anyway, what I'm trying to say is thanks. This one was a good one. You're welcome. Yeah. Greg was ready for some good stuff. Oh my goodness. So every time somebody says, what's the best thing you've had lately? I always pick some expensive wine, but it's really hard not to have this be the best thing that I've had lately. This is phenomenal. And I'm pointing specifically at this 2017 Gevrey Chambertin. Did I say that right? Yeah. So this is from Castagnier. Jerome Castagnier. And this is on the shelf for $79.99. I didn't already say that. But I mean, wow. You know, you forget sometimes that there's a reason that some of these regions are famous. And there's a reason that some of these regions are studied so carefully. And it's because they offer an experience that you just don't get in so many places around the world. That is very, very correct. That's a great summary of it, yes. Yes. They've been growing grapes in Burgundy for more than a thousand years. Okay. Well, this blind squirrel found a nut. And cool. So, George, thanks for coming. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. And Barb, thank you for lending your expertise one more time. Well, thanks for letting me be here again. Mike, what expensive wine are you going to open for us next week? You just give me a clue and I'll pick out some good things. Cool. So there you go. Thanks for listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. We'll be in your feed next week tasting various imported schnapps. Schnapps? Some bulls**t. Anyway, this one was a great one for me. I hope the audience takes something from it too. Thanks for sticking around through this episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Until next time, I'm Greg. I'm Alicia. I'm Barbara. I'm George. Keep tasting, please. Burgundy. Burgundy