January
2009
Now I get it
First of all, let me make this perfectly clear; I’m not a wine expert. Not even close. That’s kind of sad when you take into consideration the quantity of wine I consume in a year. I guess that I’ve picked up a few things along the way. But one I hadn’t was the fascination with the wines of the Bourgogne. Sure I have enjoyed some, but none really stood out as worth mentioning…until now.
I was lucky enough to join some of my French friends in celebrating Christmas Eve. One of them had the foresight to pack a 1997 Edmond Cornu & Fils’ Savigny-Les-Beaune in his checked baggage and spirit it across the pond from Paris.
Let’s stop here and say that subsequent googleing has brought to my attention that this particular wine is not one of the quintessential great wines of Burgundy, nor even an honorable mention. It’s a village wine. It just happens to be made by a very good winemaker.
In the glass, the wine looked well past it’s prime. The browning extended well beyond the 1/8 inch comfort zone, extending well into the glass. Any color intensity that it might have had was long gone. The words weak/pale came to mind. To say the least, what we saw didn’t bode well. BUT, raise the glass to the nose and the aroma was so bold that each and every one of has the same reaction. Our eyes nearly popped out of our heads. The cherry literally exploded, followed by spice and the scent of violet. This couldn’t be. The color, the brackishness…the nose it didn’t make sense. Could this be magic that is Burgundy?
This one bottle has jump started my quest to 1) find the wines of Edmond Cornu & Fils here in the US and 2) renew my interest in the Bourgogne.
