Friday, April 1, 2011

Tasting 2009 Burgundy

As many of you may know, I have just returned from a trip to Burgundy, France. Burgundy is one of my favorite wine regions, producing many of the best examples of Pino Noir and Chardonnay in the world. The tricky part about Burgundy is that good vintages only happen every other year, and great vintages only pop up two or three times a decade. On top of this, the best wines from Burgundy are among the most expensive in the world, regardless of vintage, so this is not exactly an easy wine to shop for. Now the good news. 2009 was an excellent vintage in Burgundy, with lots of warm weather and an early harvest. I could not have visited at better time, in terms of wine tasting anyway, as most of the wine from the 2009 vintage is still in barrel for another month or two. This gave me the rare opportunity to barrel taste red burgundy to get a idea of the quality. Yes, I did taste quite a bit of luxury priced, lovely, juicy, floral, perfumed nectar that costs more than my school tuition. No, that's not the only thing I did. I really wanted to find great bottles of Burgundy that I could offer my customers, and I did. One of the greatest things about a vintage like 2009 in Burgundy, is that even the inexpensive wines clearly show the quality of the vintage. This is the perfect vintage to introduce people to Pino Noir as the wines are dark in color, loaded with fruit, and unusually full bodied. I knew I would be waiting for a while before I would see any 2009's roll into the Seattle area, so I tracked down some great wines from he 2008 and 2006 vintages to offer at the shop. Keep an eye out for my expanding Burgundy section. Louis