on wine (2)

In the late 1980s we gave a dinner to my colleague and his favorite student at the occasion of graduation. It was a hot evening and we ate on the porch of Super House (named for the President who built around 1890), my campus home where we then lived. We drank 2 bottles of 1981 Decize les Maranges, a Cote de Beaune that had just received its own Appelation Controlee. The grower was Bernard Bachelet, whose wines were then unknown to me. As it turned out he was old fashioned in his cultivation of the vines and thus nearly "organic" (a concept that did not yet loom large among my concerns). The 2 bottles were the last of a case that I had begun to serve soon after they became available in NYC., in 1984 probably. The reason that I did not treat them as "lay-aways" were the reports that the 81s had been overrated at the time of vinification and bottling. As it tuned out we rather like them and these last 2 bottles were excellent. I have been buying that wine ever since as well as other Bachelet wines from the southern Cote de Beaune. The name of Decize les Maranges was dropped from the labels as too difficult for Anglophone consumers (some English writers counseled to look for such names, for example Pernand-Vergelesses as they were likely to be great quality for the price). The wine became known as Cote de Beaune Villages and because Bachelet held Pinot parcels in nearby communes that could also be bottled under that name if they did not measure up for the appelation Santenay, etc., the wines may actually have been improved. The Bachelet wines have meanwhile been split among family members some of whom market under their own names. But so far, they have retained their high standard.

These reflections were occasioned by a discussion at one of my recent lunches for the available members of the Chiens Chauds (hotdogs) that I gave monthly in the last years of my teaching and the first few years after we moved into this house when, because I retired, I had to surrender Super House. This time we drank one of my 2000 burgundies, a Santenay-Beauregard, 1r cru (from Roger Belland). As they remarked how good a wine it was (they are always courteous, but this time right as well) I said I had been hesitant to open it because that year appeared to have been over-hyped at the harvest and first bottling. The recommendation has been to drink it up. One rating dropped it to 5-7 (of 10) and another still has it at 6-8, noting that it can be drunk with pleasure now, and that the best wines will continue to improve. Santenay, although a softer Cote de Beaune (presumable because it is at is southern end and on less hilly land) is one of our favorite wines. As a result of the vagaries of American wine suppliers I had never had this Beauregard before and it proved to be a welcome surprise. It must be among those better wines that will continue to improve. Unfortunately I did not buy any of the 2000 because of the drop in its rating by the time they came on the market here. This one arrived in a case of presumed 1999s that I had ordered from my N.Y.City merchant (how chic!). Apparently the stock boys are not always very careful when the fill an order. (I also came home once with 2 cases of Bachelet C.de.B. Villages 2002 when I had ordered 2003; as I drank these young, that is they are all gone now, and after opening them before our meals, they were better than average, probably because Bachelet makes "better" wines).

Contrary to the 2000, I chose to buy several first growths 2002. They also were rated as much better than average at a moment when I had a positive balance in my budget (because a trip scheduled for the Spring break was cancelled) and subsequently taken down a notch. Among these are a few Savigny-les-Beaune Les Vergelesses from Louis Jadot, a staid old Burgundy house, and some Aloxe-Corton Les Vercots from Antonin Guyon whose other wines always proved very good indeed. A more certain buy were 6 Chassagne-Monrachet whites from Bachelet. Because of the 2 months visit of my partner's father this summer we drank better than average wines regularly, not because - as she said - he drinks great wines at home in France, but because her parent always treated my very well when I went with her to visit when she taught in Avignon in the Bryn Mawr summer program. All three of these wines turned out to 8s and I decided to be somewhat more selective when we drink the remainder, probably only with my partner's uncommonly good Sunday lunches or when the Sancerre that she prefers with her fish, runs out.

I would not be surprised that the steady 7 for the better 2000 and 2002 burgundies and their continued drinkability is in part caused by he absence a a real great vintage since 1999. True enough, 2005 is said to have come close and 2006 may be one of them, but meanwhile one has to help the growers get a return on their investment. I have not yet drunk any of the last two years, except for a few commune or burgundy rouge wines and they all are very promising for their more exalted first growth neighbors.

In my previous blog I alluded to the inflation in wine prices which, for example for the Cote de Rhone Villages is greater in the US than in Provence. In the summer of 09 the wines of Cairanne and even Gigondas were $0.50 to 1.50 higher than last summer as about 8 euros, while in NY and the Pennsylvania (Super)stores it was 1.50 to 3.50 more at about 16 dollars. No doubt each of the various handlers raises the charges a little higher and the exchange rate also is a factor. Anecdotal info suggests that these types of wines at that price range are drunk by pretty much the same income and educational groups in France and the US although Americans may be more knowledgeable (certainly more interested) than their French counterpart. And unlike most places here, these wines are easily available in French supermarkets, even if in the smaller (convenient) store in a bloc of city houses with apartments on the upper floors. The demand for these wines, unlike that for first growth burgundies and classed bordeaux with a relatively small and fixed output, may not increase much as there is a lot of competition from elsewhere (and the average wine drinker may have become more anti-foreign in the process of digesting the bad economic conditions and the continued - public - greed of Wallstreet coupled with the wave of popular hostility - even if it's not by wine drinkers - to THEM (Wash. DC etc.).

Since my retirement in 1999 and the end of my "golden parachute" in 2001 (which coincided with a sharp decline in my stock market related monthly income) my budget has not kept up with the general annual inflation and I have had to curtail my buying of wines of first growth quality, even when they are on promotional sales (the "manager's selection of the month" in our State Stores). But as they are lay-away wines and I may thus not be able to drink them anyway, I don't mind it all that much (other than at moments of reflection about the general decline of the standard of living of the $150.000 or less income groups). Of course, my general expenses also decline, for example I eat less and out less frequently (see my Healthcare(6) blog), go to New York (theatre, shopping, a restaurant 2x/year instead of 4x - or even 1x/month in the 1980s and before), wear no more ties (each the price of a pretty good bottle!) and as I wear jeans and sport shirts nearly every day, I haven't bought a suit since 1986, or sports coats (mostly woolen or imported tweed) since 1996 or dress slacks since 2002. I hardly ever buy hard-bound books and paperback mysteries only 2x/year (I am rereading many of the 1000+ I saved thinking that in my retirement I might live in Maine and have a summer "mystery book" shop or a stall in flee markets). Thus there is still some money to buy better than average wines ready for consumption.

I have tried to reconstruct my price "limits" for the past 3 decades from stray remarks in my diaries and from my collection of catalogues. In the 1980s I tried to buy the Sunday and special occasion bottles (lay-aways) for around $20 and each decade after that I found that similar wines were about ten dollars more. Occasionally I bought a few bottles for double the average in memory of one from the same vineyard from a comparable excellent year. Our so-called "every day" (we don't actually drink wine every day) bottles were usually less than half the price of these amounts. For truly special celebrations, private ones or for an academic honor, a paper read or published, we have champagne, brut, of a vintage year but of a champagne house's low end and now it's almost always a non-vintage Gosset of around $35. While thinking about the inflationary spiral of the price of wines, I remember buying the most expensive burgundies in Princeton (where I was using the library) such as a '69 Bonnes Mares ( a grand cru) for less than $10 a bottle in 1972 (when I made $12.000/yr); now their price has increased more than ten fold, mostly since the late '90s (while my - net retirement - income increased only 4x). On the whole I have been forced to agree with the precept of one of Martial's epigrams (in the Gary Wills translation):

Better a lesser wine of vintage right
than famous [growths] with prices out of sight.

Yet. . . ! There are surprises, even in my modest cellar. As the last of the 95s began to look pale and thin, we finished them by the end of 2008. But as I was rearranging the 96 shelves to make place for recent vintages that were still in their boxes (i needed a box for a collection of wines to give as a wedding present to the daughter of a former colleague who's still a friend), I found 2 bottles a '95 Vosne Romagnee Les Beaux monts (premier cru) from Bertagna. In 2004 we spent 2 days in Nuits St. George and Vougeot with some friends who truly appreciated the Burgundian vineyards, the food and the wines. One of them came to lunch on a recent Sunday and brought a new "acquaintance" and I decided to serve these two bottles that I had bought in 1999, the first year of my retirement' "golden parachute." My diary says: The wine was extraordinary, as if it could last more years in the cellar and yet it was now eminently drinkable (having opened it an hour before to make sure it was still o.k.). The color was dark, robe and bouquet lasted through the 2 hours of the meal (of inch thick lamb chops and tomates provencales). The aroma, of raspberries (rather of mulberries or cassis) was more fleeting (ephemeral others might say).
This had been one of my more extravagant purchases, thinking "I'm not likely to be able to afford then again AND they were a reminder of the first great burgundy my partner and I drank at an evening picnic on the wall of the Clos de Vougeot with the Beaux Monts in front of us. That was 1981.

Addendum: Among the generally bad environmental news there was an item on TV5-Monde (the French equivalent of PBS) showing some 700 nude persons neatly arranged among the vines (men in one vineyard and the women in another) to alert people to "global warming", which a Greenpeace article speculated is the cause for higher sugar (alcohol) levels in grapes with less acidity thus affecting the balance - and their quality -in the wines.