We are proud of all our wines, but maybe proudest of our special selection of wines from Burgundy, France. What’s so special about Burgundy? Mostly, it’s just straight deliciousness. Partly it’s the grapes — Burgundy is the natural home of not only the greatest red wine grape, Pinot Noir, but also one of the two greatest white wine grapes, Chardonnay (the other is Riesling). It’s also how the wines can be enjoyed at a variety of price points, from honest Bourgogne Rouge at $20 a bottle, when you want simple, juicy pleasure to…well, it can really get frightfully expensive (and Burgundy does have a problem in the under $20 department — hopefully the falling Euro will rectify that soon — in the mean time go South to the Cotes du Rhone). Then there’s the nuance of the different vineyard sites, the fact that the wines are great both young (when they’re bright and vigorous) and old (when they’re mellower but full of complex earthier and foresty flavors), that they’re lovely with food, and that the region is full of dedicated wine-makers, many of whom made wines with minimal intervention from organically farmed grapes. But mostly, I’ll say it again, it’s that the wines taste good!
People object because they say that the wines from Burgundy are “fickle”. That buying burgundy is like crossing a “minefield”. This notion is greatly exaggerated, and just as true for many other wine regions, but it’s not totally false. For consumers who are new to wine, who aren’t really sure what they like or dislike, purchasing a Burgundy can be risky. If you haven’t tasted a decent number of Burgundies, I don’t recommend just walking into our shop and grabbing something off the shelf for $45. Burgundy (like Bordeaux and many other wines) does often go through a “dumb” phase, in between its youthful exuberance and its mature greatness. If you buy and open wine during this phase, you waste your money. We know which of our wines are dumb. Also, some, but certainly not all, Burgundy offers pleasures that are rather subtle. If your palate needs more, ask us to steer you in the right direction.
And older bottles — and we have more than a few selections — are always scary (not just from Burgundy). Your odds of getting an off bottle, whether from oxidation or otherwise, increase significantly as the wine ages. Fortunately, we are obsessive about storing our wines well and sourcing them from reputable sources. Also, we are generous with refunds and store credits when you get unlucky and open an off bottle (see our return policy here).
A word on allocations. Most of the great Burgundy that is imported to the U.S. is not available for purchase off the shelf (except sometimes at greatly inflated prices). There just isn’t enough, and what does come in gets eaten up by people in the wine industry and their favorite customers. We have very good relations with a number of excellent Burgundy sources, and often get small allocations of these rare Burgundies. We sell most of these wines before they appear on our list of regular inventory. If you are interested in receiving offerings of these allocated wines, please send us an email.
To see our very extensive selection of Burgundy, including great every-day drinkers, mature gems and new releases of highly allocated wines, click here .
