Vint Wine Podcast
The Vint Wine Podcast, a production of Vint Marketplace, offers an insider’s look into the world of wine and spirits through engaging interviews with renowned writers, Master Sommeliers, Masters of Wine, winemakers, and growers behind some of the world’s most celebrated wines. Hosts Billy Galanko and Brady Weller guide listeners through thought-provoking stories and expert perspectives—helping you deepen your knowledge about the wines you love, while gaining rare access to an industry typically reserved for insiders.
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Vint Wine Podcast
Bordeaux and Burgundy - Similarities, Differences, and a Few Things to Know
In this episode of the Vint Podcast, Billy Galanko and Brady Weller go solo and chat about the differences between Bordeaux and Burgundy, share key tidbits that you need to know when approaching the wines of those regions, and discuss some of the impacts that changing climates could have on the wines. They tell a few stories about tasting Tazmanian wines, scoring huge discounts on Bourbon, and building out a more complete whisky collection. Enjoy!
The Vint Wine Podcast is a production of the Vint Marketplace, your source for the highest quality stock of fine wines and rare whiskies. Visit www.vintmarketplace.com.
To learn more about Vint and the Vint Marketplace, visit us at Vintmarketplace.com or email Billy Galanko at Billy@vintmarketplace.com.
Cheers!
You're listening to the Vint Podcast, where we bring you interviews and stories from around the world of wine and spirits, from winemakers and critics to sommeliers and master distillers. We'll explore the people and businesses who are instrumental in shaping the future of today's food and drinks culture. Enjoy the show. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Vint Podcast. My name is Brady, joined back in the studio from a night of long travel by Billy Galenco. How are you feeling?
Speaker 2:Billy. Pretty good, it was 30 hours of travel. We woke up at like four o'clock my time. Monday flew out to Atlanta. We had a nice talk with Mark Bell's class at Emory. There's like an MBA and undergrad class on alternative assets. Nick, our founder, and I went. I did the wine stuff, he did more of the asset class stuff. Then afterward we ended at 9.30. Mark was nice enough to want to take us out to eat some food. By the time we got back to our hotel it was midnight. Just in time to wake up at five Eastern to get on a plane to come back here.
Speaker 1:It's great, did you guys? You tasted wine at the talk too, right, yeah, you like to have a taste.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can talk about that a little bit more later. Remember, when we go into some Bordeaux and Burgundy, the differences between the two regions. I think that'll be our core topic for today. We had a regional, a general Burgwonia Rouge and then a Crue Boudoir Bordeaux as well from the Homedoc. Both are actually showed really well. We were happy with what they were. We can talk about them a little bit more in a bit as well. You were telling me you had an interesting whiskey acquisition story. What is it about?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've talked in the past I think I probably shared a few stories of being able to pick up bottles of bourbon for good prices for those out there who searched for highly allocated bourbon.
Speaker 1:We were in Washington DC this weekend for a friend's bachelor weekend trip sort of thing. Our Airbnb ended up being in a little bit rougher of an area, like the actual house in the street we're on was nice, but just off of it it was a little tough. So we said let's go down to some of the liquor stores and see what they have, because it's very common in these places where they maybe sell a high volume of lower priced just think Franzia and Yellowtail and a lot of beer the distributors will then give them some of the highly allocated stuff so common to see at a pretty run down liquor store really high value secondary bottles of bourbon and so we went up there and they did have a few things and I think it was just a perfect storm because they said that they had just gotten the shipment in. But when we went to ring up a few of the bottles there was a bottle of Blanton's straight from the barrel, so like a special edition Blanton's that.
Speaker 1:I think probably secondaries for somewhere between 150 and 220. And it rang up for $14. And so my buddy purchased that immediately. And then it turns out it seems like it was just obviously a pricing error that they made. But so he had that bottle for $14, got a bottle of Stagg it used to be called Stagg Jr for $50, where secondary is $400. We got Weller Special Reserve and EH Taylor for MSRP as well, which are typically double MSRP and secondary.
Speaker 1:So we ended up getting like $800, $850 worth of bourbon for $110, maybe $120.
Speaker 2:Something like that. So are you guys going to try to flip it or are you just going to keep it in a more palatable drink?
Speaker 1:Most of it, actually all of what I ended up with would be second and third bottles for me of stuff I already have.
Speaker 1:But the price was just so good. So whenever I get a situation like that, I'll feel around and see if there's anyone that has something to trade. So I was just actually, before we got on, texting someone to trade a couple of the bottles, but he's being super conservative in his valuations of what I have, so it's not going well. Might find someone to trade with. That's a pretty crazy find, literally once every 10 year. Haul for bourbon hunters Pretty rare.
Speaker 2:Are those fines? Are those considered taters, or are they not? It's not that cool.
Speaker 1:So the Weller Special Reserve that we got is definitely a tater, the Blantons is definitely a tater. Those two would be. The stag would not be necessarily. I don't think wouldn't call it a tater. It's definitely something that everyone wants but it's so scarcely allocated that I wouldn't necessarily call it that. And the Blanton's straight from the barrel. I've never seen that bottle. I've seen all the other bottles that we got in physical in person. I've never seen that Blanton's bottle. That was really interesting to see.
Speaker 2:Nice. Well, that's exciting, you can find something like that.
Speaker 1:We were done. We came through Virginia to go in, so we stopped in a couple of the ABC stores because the one that we happened to stop into was a more specialty shop. I don't know if you remember when you were in Virginia, but some of them have run of the mill and others have sort of like curated, maybe more things.
Speaker 1:And they had so much whiskey both Scotch and Bourbon Canadian whiskey at this one, and so we picked up. I picked up a bottle of Oban 14, which I'd really like their entry level. Little bay, scotch, you're really on the Oban train, huh, I am and I picked up a bottle of Distillers Edition like the 2022 Distillers Edition, oban and we smoked them with or smoked them, drank them with some cigars that weekend. So it was great.
Speaker 2:Nice, that sounds like quite the quite the memorable bachelor party in like in a good way, a little different than you will sell it.
Speaker 1:We probably had a dozen Scotches and Bourbons there, so that was fun and so it's nice when you eat the taste through, I think the only whiskey.
Speaker 2:I had, a whistle pig tenure this weekend, oh nice.
Speaker 1:Never had a big.
Speaker 2:I hadn't either. And then we talked so much about it and we had the Boss Hog on our collections and we always talk about how we like rise. So now every time I've seen it, I had an older bottling of there. It might have been like an entry level Boss Hog when I was in Texas over in the summertime. And then this one there's like a bar down the down the road and I think you would get along with it really well. They had really good deals on all of the BTAC stuff and, like a lot of the American whiskeys were just very affordable by the glass. So this was like 18 for a really strong pour, but they had a lot of the like BTAC stuff not like not like the top, top tier, but trying to think of what, but it was. It was affordable. It was like between eight to $12 a glass for some of the things that you would actually expect to pay a lot more.
Speaker 1:I also had my first Irish whiskey. I hadn't had an Irish whiskey before and I picked up Redbreast 12, which is supposed to be, I think, like reference point for, like consumer level, Irish whiskey. I don't know if you have any opinions about that, but it was pretty like mellow and sweet and underwhelming for me, but definitely unique compared to all the other whiskeys in my collection. So I'm glad to have it, but was underwhelming where I thought it would be at, but I'll have to come back to it.
Speaker 2:It was the first pour out of the bottle. Yeah, you have to let me know more. You think I've had a few Irish whiskeys over the years and not the stereotype but the commonly held thing and now they're transitioning more or that. Irish whiskeys are always triple distilled, whereas like Scotch is like double distilled. That's transitioning. There are some Scotches now that are triple distilled and Irish whiskeys being made in different models, but that is the tradition, so maybe that's what you're tasting. I actually haven't had the Red Brest 12, although they are a sponsor on a podcast. I listen to a lot and not this podcast, but they could be if they're listening.
Speaker 1:I'm sure they're listening. The Red Brest sent us an email, yeah, so now I've rounded out my whiskey shelf, which is cool, after we talked with our friends who have found North and acquired some of that. Now I have Canadian whiskey, bourbon, american whiskey, generally Japanese, scotch and now Irish whiskey all represented in at least one bottle on the shelf. So that's cool and I want to keep exploring and definitely want to dig deeper into both Japanese and Scotch Although I've got a fair number of Scotches now but Japanese especially is where I want to pick up a few more things.
Speaker 2:I think there are Scotches, the rabbit hole. You can get it down forever. So I think Japanese, you can dive in and get a good sense of the top distilleries, styles and they're unique, take-somethings without getting too too many bottles. You know what I'm saying. You don't need to get the hundreds of distilleries. You can get a sense with five or 10.
Speaker 1:I think I'm going to go narrow and deep in Scotch, narrow and deep in Japanese. Whereas with bourbon I'm deep and wide, I feel like I'm with Rye American Rye too. I have a ton across a bunch of producers.
Speaker 2:Nice. Yesterday Nick might have gotten an intro for an Irish distillery podcast interview, so maybe we'll have more on that as well in the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Cool.
Speaker 2:And then this weekend we sides that. What was I getting to say Besides the wow? I'm like in the whistle pig. We had gone, I had a few interesting wines, so let's see, I've titled them off, wow, now I'm blinking on them. We'll just sit on the highlights.
Speaker 2:This is going to be great podcasting, but the main one was I found I found a Tasmanian Chardonnay from a small producer that I had actually visited while I was there, that you don't really see very often. It was poured by the glass at its wine bar. It's called Holm Oak, h-o-l-m Oak. That was pretty cool. It's like a female run winery I think it's the winemaker and owner. And it was cool because I went to their cellar door and it's just was like one of the cellar doors where it feels like just like a small house with a little counter in the middle and it was very low key, casual and communal and the owner was pouring the wine and it felt so casual and it was just pretty cool to see something that was that much of an intimate experience where you got to meet all these people and it seemed like I went off the beaten path in Tasmania, which is already off the beaten path, and then just to see it by the glass. I was so excited I got a couple of glasses at a wine bar, also had another Riffauch at a wine bar at the same time and I think we talked about it on here before.
Speaker 2:It's like a Slovenian. It's right over there in the Friuli Slovenia area and it's a grape known for basically not its fruit characters, kind of its ancillary or I guess it's not as very tertiary, but they know where. It tastes like pine, it's like really like foresty piney. It's like a lot of interesting notes that aren't necessarily your typical red wine grape notes and this one was a little little more typical. It had more like plum and dark fruits coming through as well as kind of the the non fruit character, which I was a little bit disappointed by. But I could understand where they want to have it, because they're a wine bar and they want people to drink it and make it more purgeable rather than somebody looking for just weird, weird stuff. So it was still cool.
Speaker 1:Nice, tell me, tell me more about the. You said you had an intimate. Was it like a house where you had first had the wine? Like the intimate experience? You said you felt like you were off the beaten path, but was it? Yeah?
Speaker 2:It was. It was they call tasting rooms in Australia and a lot of places in the world sell their doors, so basically it was like at the winery and by the vineyards, so it was like a small little tasting room that was in the shape of just like a, a very small like house, just kind of like a a cabin sized type feel, and like in the owner and the family. You know, I guess it was basically the people who were directly involved in making the wine, were pouring the wine and there wasn't like that many people there. So it was cool. I got to just chat with everybody, get the rundown of the wines and of course they were good and it was. It was nice to see something, something like that finally being imported to the U S. I think our our friends who wrote the how to drink Australian book. I think their import company is trying to bring in producers like this size, but it's nice to see them finally making it to the U S, so that's cool.
Speaker 1:That is, and you're the whistle pig that you said. Did you go to whistle pig when you're up in Vermont? I fear what you told me. Did you get to go? You didn't go, no, no, no, we didn't do any of the silks. Yeah, I had. I had thought about trying to go up there, and then I figured how it was. It was either it was just too far from where we were at or they weren't open the day we were trying to do it. I think it was just too far because I think they're in kind of the south of the the state, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2:I think that makes sense, where they might have an experience further north too.
Speaker 1:Something interesting about whistle pig is, at least on the secondary not even the secondary market. But you'll very often see, like when they have boss hog releases or even some of their older age statements, that their price really high at liquor stores and almost no one will buy them at those prices. So like liquor stores will just say price it, price the bottle at $500, and maybe they'll have an allocation of a bunch of other things too that they marked up like towards secondary pricing and all of those bottles will go, but the whistle pig won't. It's like really common that they're marked up really high for some reason. So it's interesting, although I think that their pricing is fairly high at MSRP. To begin with I think the boss hog is pretty high MSRP, like in the four or five hundreds, if I'm not, it might even be more than that, but well so I like it.
Speaker 2:They're good stuff. I don't know if they're crazy price that.
Speaker 1:Sure, and that is true, like the whole Rai thing. It's weird that I haven't had more of that. But, um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Should we talk a little bit about? You want to share about your time in Atlanta? I know we'd tease there a little bit at the beginning.
Speaker 2:Let's lean in. I guess that'll be our kind of core topic today. We don't actually have an interview for today, it's just going to be me and Brady. Part of what we discussed with the class yesterday was Bordeaux and Burgundy, as they are the two largest wine regions traded by volume or by value Sorry, I'm livex right now.
Speaker 2:So we got into and it was very interlevel class. So what are the core general regions, what are the general grapes? And then getting into a little more new odds, how are they classified? And then dissecting the differences between the two and then really giving people a one sober about what they were and then along with tasting. So we did have a general. And then we also had a Bordeaux, a career bourgeois, which we can talk about what that is in a little bit, I think Jane Anton and also who was the other woman we had on is on the tip of my tongue. We had her on in June. Also, she helps represent the group bourgeois as well.
Speaker 2:So it was really cool and it was. The class seemed to enjoy it. One of the professors came up after and said he learned something. He doesn't normally learn something from the speakers, which I was like that's interesting, but okay, and he had other speakers, I don't know. It was cool. How do you want to go into the difference between the two? Do you want to share with the people what they are the outset, or do you want to pose some common questions that you have heard from people in drinking?
Speaker 1:I think we're on. Just start with the main things that people need to know about the two regions, and I think that for most people that's going to start with what varieties are common to those regions, and then we can maybe go from there. But do you want to just talk about Pinoir, chard and then the Bordeaux varieties?
Speaker 2:I think I guess the way that I posed it first yesterday is like, when you look at it, france, we were talking about wine and spirits as an asset. Yesterday we're not talking about as much the wines. So we zoomed in from France down to Bordeaux and Burgundy and just to give a sense of the size of each region and it really helps lay, we'll talk a little bit of the history and the size, because I think that gives you a kind of view on why the wines are made, how they're made nowadays. So I had these old wine folly charts. I don't know if the numbers are specifically correct, but the ratio gives you a sense. So they're saying there's 70,500 acres planted in Burgundy, 290,000 acres planted in Bordeaux. I think that's probably higher.
Speaker 2:But so that gives you first a sense that Bordeaux is a really large, really widely planted region and it's been commercially driven for hundreds and hundreds of years, because Burgundy is a lot smaller, it's full of these smaller climates that basically they were originally founded and produced and farmed by the monks, the monks, the church, the church. So basically they were honing in on the best parcels, trying to basically figure out where to make the best wine, not necessarily purely financially driven, where in Bordeaux everything was always a little bigger and they were always trying to figure out can we get some more yield? Can't we just basically get wine to sell to foreign markets? So that was the origin of both and then since then they've evolved into having many classification systems and being the top wines in the world. But I think that's kind of a foundation that most people don't understand is how much wine Bordeaux actually produces on an annual basis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and people just making the association between, like I mentioned, the different varieties that are common to those regions, because the way that the industries have developed there is very different than over here in terms of how products are marketed and such. We always talk about varieties, varietals, like it says Cabernet Sauvignon on the label, versus. That's not the case when you're drinking wines from France, actually across France.
Speaker 2:And then to your point. Going back to what I was saying too, is the reason that they're not. The selection of grapes are chosen for each region are also part of this larger scheme. So the monks honing down in Burgundy identified the Chardonnay Pinot Noir grapes is growing really well in their climate. It's a continental climate. It's cold in the winter, cooler in the summertime than some other regions. It's not known as a hot region, although it's getting warmer with climate change.
Speaker 2:So they pick these perfect grapes and they really wanted to express terroir, whereas in Burgundy or Bordeaux, excuse me, they have a number of grapes. Almost all Bordeaux you drink is a blend, both the red and the whites, so we can highlight those grapes first or as well. So the red grapes are going to be Cabernet Sauvignon, cabernet Franc, merlot, malbec and Petit Ferreux. Those are the Core 5. You get their Carbonnay if you want as well, and part of the reason they have these blends is they all ripen at different times. Merlot was a little earlier, kevsov is a little later. So that was their way of basically ensuring that they would be able to produce a crop each year. There are various budding times and various harvest times, so whether head at the beginning or end of harvest. They weren't necessarily out of luck. The white grapes are Sauvignon Blanc and Simeon. Similar region reason, but it was really a red wine driven region.
Speaker 2:Do you know, brady, on that same note, what the most planted grape in Bordeaux is? And then I'll ask you the same for Burgundy. I do it's Merlot. That's smart, you're spot on. Most people think it's Carbonnay Sauvignon. Just because of the Medoc and some of the top wines, most of the first growth are oh, I think almost all of them are heavily or not the first growth. But most of the crew class A wines are actually all Carbonnay driven primarily as well. Most people tend to lump that into the whole region of Bordeaux. What about Burgundy? What do you think is most planted?
Speaker 1:I don't know this one, but I'm going to guess it's not a trick and say Chardonnay, yep, you're right.
Speaker 2:What I think is interesting is it's Chardonnay by, I think, a large amount. I think it's 60% of the grapes planted, Something close like that. It was more than I expected. But when you think about it, the Coach Chardonnay is in the Mackleonay which are further south, and Chardonnay they just produce a lot of Chardonnay.
Speaker 1:That's what I was thinking. I was thinking of Chardonnay and I was like there's a lot of wine there.
Speaker 2:And I think it's 60% white wine. So there is a small roundup of Aligoteg produced, but it's Chardonnay by a good shot. That's what's up.
Speaker 1:I was going to say Aligoteg because I know maybe they just make it on like a massive commercial scale or something.
Speaker 2:No, no, it's just Chardonnay. But it's interesting the variation between the different regions. Chardonnay from the Cote de Bones and some of those top premier crude places aren't anything like the wines that you can maybe get in the Mackleonay or down the Coach Chardonnay that are maybe a little riper and more easy drinking rather than long-laged. That's two parts there. I guess when we were diving in further from there we went back and forth on Keyre Regional differences. Maybe I'll just rattle those off and you can tell me. Maybe we can elaborate on whichever one you think is more interesting to you at the time. So here if you have the Key regional difference between Bordeaux and Burgundy, just if you're ever talking to a friend and you want to explain it high level. So one is blend versus single variety. Bordeaux, like we said, almost always a blend, burgundy, almost always single variety wines. The next one is the classification system. We can go into this a little bit more. Bordeaux is based on the producer, not the vineyards. I think many people forget that the producers and classified in the 1855 classification even the first growth. They can continue to add vineyards to their holdings whenever they want. They could put that in the grand van if they want and it would still be considered a first growth, whereas the top wines in Burgundy are just classified specifically based on the vineyards and the parcel that it's on. It doesn't matter who's making it, it'll still be a grand crew trying to think of one like a limousine. It would be a musine. So that would be that, and then I'll quickly run off the rest.
Speaker 2:The key types of business Bordeaux has their producers, the Chateau, and then they have what they call négociants or brokers who help them sell the wine. The key businesses in Burgundy are the producers, the domains themselves, the farmers, the people who actually farm and produce the wine, not always farmers, but the domains, people who grow and produce the wine. Then there are négociants there which are different than the Bordeaux négociants. Those are folks who buy either wine or grapes from other folks who have made it already and then they produce that and sell it under their own label. Then the other key differences land holdings Bordeaux tends to have. The average farmer has at least two to three times the size of the average holdings of Burgundy farmers. This is true. There are some small farmers even, especially on the right bank and in different areas of Bordeaux, but they tend to for the most part have much larger holdings.
Speaker 2:Part of this, as we discussed actually yesterday, are down to the Napoleonic code issues and I don't know if you're familiar with that, but basically after the revolution and then when Napoleon came to power, he basically enforced the idea that your land had to be evenly divided between your children when you die.
Speaker 2:That was heavily enforced in Burgundy because it's all family owned small farms. Bordeaux was able to get away with it a little bit more and keep their large parcels because there's very commercially driven and a lot of the companies were actually held by commercial entities, even if those were family run. So I thought that was interesting and that has led today to the top. And then also the classification system has led today to the top producers in Bordeaux, like First Gross will, their grand van will be maybe 10,000 to 20,000 cases each, whereas some of the top wines say, like from the Grand Crew, romani Conti will only be like 500 cases, where some of these Grand Crews will be very small produced. So the top wines in Bordeaux are produced in much larger volume than the top wines in Burgundy, as a rule of hand or hand of whatever that's saying Rule of thumb.
Speaker 1:What you just mentioned about the case production really blew my mind. I didn't realize how much wine for instance Petrus made, which my number is for the First Gross produce.
Speaker 2:Yeah, petrus and LaPanne are a little bit of anomalies for Bordeaux. They're on the right bank to the left bank. I think I can't remember how many Petrus produces, but I think that's closer to the 5,000 mark. I know LaPanne is very small but like any of the first gross, I think the smallest one is 10K and it goes all the way up. It's 10 to 15, and it goes up to close to 20 as well.
Speaker 1:The price is. I think it's an interesting way to think about. Well, I'll talk about from an investor perspective and then from the consumers. From an investor perspective, comparing the two regions on the producer level is really interesting, thinking about production volume and price per bottle on secondary markets.
Speaker 1:You might see something like Petrus and be like oh what is it? $100 to $5500 a bottle and then Romani Conti, for instance, can run $25,000 to $35,000 a bottle, but it's like a company's. You really should be comparing market cap versus share price Thing of bottles issued as price per share of a company. If you have more shares issued, the price of the stock is going to be lower. I think it's interesting to compare those two heavy hitters in the regions with their actual issued asset.
Speaker 2:But, that said, I would use almost any other producer as an example for Bordeaux, because Petrus and Le Pen are actually single vineyard wines, so there is close to burgundy as you're going to get in Bordeaux, and Petrus has this special clay on this hill that they can expand.
Speaker 2:True, it's bigger, but if you had the Clovoucho, if that was all owned by one company or one person, they could produce. I think it's close to 10 hectares in size. That's the biggest wrong crew in burgundy. So it's really the ownership model also is what has led to the top wines in burgundy being produced in such small quantities. But to your point, there are monopoles, single vineyards like Romani or Romani, and then also Latache, things like that. I think there's actually a vineyard and now, if to double check me, I think there's one called La Romani and one called Romani. I just think Romani no, it's Romani Conti, and love Romani, and then always confused with La Cacaname. Anyway, that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 1:I think the other comment that I would make is the classification system in burgundy is far superior to Bordeaux, given exactly what you said, that the first growths were determined by producer and not like the actual ground that they farm, which to me just defeats the purpose of classification. Obviously they're going to make great wine wherever they make it, because they're a quality producer, but it just seems like an unhelpful way to classify the actual wines once they're in bottle.
Speaker 2:But I agree, and it's been an element of hot debate for years. But let's take one step back and tell everybody how these wines were classified and see if we can get a little more to the bottom of it. But so basically in 1855, in preparation for the World's Fair in Paris, the government basically asked the producers or they wasn't necessarily producers, with people like merchants pretty much in Bordeaux to rank their wines so that they could highlight the top wines to the world as they visited Paris. And what they did is they basically went through their pretty much priceless, almost went down in order of price and classified the top four at the time, now five because Mouton has become a first growth. But basically they ranked all the top vineyards, one through classes, one through five.
Speaker 2:So there's class A, primary ground, fruit, class A, the first growth, and it goes down. Second growth, third growth, fourth growth and then fifth growth. These were all almost 100% done on price, had nothing to do with the vineyards they'll land. So those same chateaux can produce wines of various quality, they could expand their vineyards, they could contract their vineyards over the years, but still be called first or second or third or fourth or fifth growth, the first growth in my wine history book by Hugh Johnson. They do note that these wines do produce wines of unique character and there's certainly a terroir element in Bordeaux. I'm not saying that the wines those were based completely on nothing. The prices did have some meaning but over the years, with the vineyards expanding and the farming techniques and the quality, it's been really interesting to see. There's definitely some wines that should be elevated. There's certainly some wines that also should be demoted, but they will never do that because this is just a tradition and it's a very French style of wanting to honor the tradition there.
Speaker 1:That's good context to have for, I think, especially for collectors and enthusiasts, once you get in to the nuances of the region and what makes certain bottles special or sold after. Then the other thing that you said I think it was the first point that you made was the varietals, obviously, the main difference between the regions and the single vineyard versus blends. I think that's probably the number one thing that the average consumer should understand about the regions.
Speaker 2:Single variety versus blends.
Speaker 1:Single variety or blends is maybe the number one thing that people should know, I think mainly because there's a lot of misconception about what a blend is. I feel like a lot of folks think that wines that are a blend of a number of varietals are lesser than a single vineyard expression, which just isn't true. Or you hear people say I really like blends, which is not really a way to classify your interests in wine as you drink more. I think that for the average consumer who hasn't done a lot of work and research, that's really the thing to the first thing that they should understand about the two regions.
Speaker 2:We're talking about blending varieties here. I think what most people don't know and I certainly when I started studying I was like I don't want to have a wine, I want a 100% cavernay or 100% chard. I was just like I don't want this stuff to be blended. Also, that I know that the rules around the world it has to be basically like 85% of X variety in most regions to be called that variety. Almost everything you had probably was sneakily blends anyway. Then also, for example, I was talking about village or regional level burgundy. Those are also wines especially if they're made by negotiations that are blended from different parcels all around the region. It's basically that the art of winemaking is almost always includes blending, whether it be different parcels within a vineyard, with different parcels from different vineyards, different varieties. I think anybody who looks at blending as a negative thing I don't think that's three of the things the best wines in the world can be our blends, to your point.
Speaker 2:I also think it's interesting that the manipulation of varieties and the use of different varieties just has their own purpose in Bordeaux, as opposed to burgundy. I think it goes back again to wanting to have that crop. I think both regions are heavily vintage or they were at least. There's heavy vintage variation. You could have a really bad year when things don't get ripe, because Bordeaux is a very cool climate for growing grapes like Cabernet, sauvignon and sometimes Marlowe as well Then, for example. Also that's why they grew up Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Even then, the weather can be hit or miss there too.
Speaker 1:I think the vintage variation is also something people should really take into account as the necessity of blends, as well as the impact on single variety wines, for sure, even outside of Bordeaux, like you said, some of the top wines in, really the top wines in almost every other region, especially in the West, are blends of some kind. Just thinking here in the US, our friends at Ridge like through Manabello is five varieties, I think four or five varieties that's modeled after. Bordeaux, it rises to the top.
Speaker 2:There's some obviously like Screaming Eagles, single variety. If you're going to get trying to think of something else that's like Great Exile, maybe some Armitage could be 100% Cera. Cornass is 100% Cera. Champagne's a blend. The top coat roti typically have some vignette in them.
Speaker 2:I would like to go back to the idea of vintages now. I think I was trying to mix it in an interesting way or in a crappy way, because it didn't work. It is interesting to see how important buying for a vintage is and how one vintage could be more expressive than others. I'd like to get your thoughts because I think we've discussed it a fair bit on the podcast about what you think the future of the meaning of vintage variation is going to be, because I think it used to be a good vintage in Bordeaux as the year that everything got ripe enough. Same thing in Burgundy, but now you're getting years where everything's getting almost too ripe. I still have the opinion that I think the best vintages now are going to be these moderate vintages, rather than the warm ones, or maybe even in the future might be the cold ones, because they're going to be the least common and maybe they'll be more sought after.
Speaker 1:Just trying to think back and pull from our different producer conversations that we've had and it seems that there are a couple of different factors that rise to the top when trying to answer a question like that.
Speaker 1:One is technology has progressed so much just in the last 20 years in terms of being able to be extremely accurate with how you blend a wine, when you pick all of these kinds of things that make it much more tenable to make an excellent wine and kind of a quote unquote off vintage right.
Speaker 1:I think the producers are becoming smarter in terms of being able to adapt quicker on the fly when they see that they're having an issue. Maybe that would have really ruined their yield in the past or drastically reduced the quality. I think that they can work around that a little bit more. I think you're right, probably that there'll be regions where yields change because it got cooler and there'll be other regions where the quality will be affected because it was hard to keep early ripening under control. But I think that technology helps with both of those situations in certain ways. I think the hierarchy will start to go more towards quality. Producers will continue producing quality wines and vintage variation will still matter, but I think matter more as you get down the producer stack, because that makes sense.
Speaker 2:It does and that's what everybody tends to say, even these days is like when you really want to see a first growth in Bordeaux, shine. Look at a quote, unquote, bad vintage or an off vintage and just see how much better those wines are than run of the mill Bordeaux. Then that again shows the resilience of the land itself but also the quality of the wine making. And the same goes for the ground crew in Burgundy, because it end a really cold year. The cold air rolls by and a wet year. The water rolls through the vineyards, because the best plots in Burgundy tend to be these mid slow vineyards. So I think that makes a lot of sense. I think you have to spot on there.
Speaker 1:I think the style can also just change a little bit. It's okay if some of these producers like if the style just saying Bordeaux becomes a little bit riper, I think that's okay. No-transcript. I think what's important is producing the best wine that you can, wherever you're at in the world and whatever particular vintage. It is right. I think they'll probably actually do a disservice to the consumer and to the wine world in general if we expect producers to cling to a style maybe that they produced 50 years ago or even 30 years ago, if we expect them to stay with that exact style over the next 30 years. I think it's actually interesting to see the producer adapt and execute other styles in a high-level way, because obviously you can create an incredible wine, whether ripened earlier or later, true but I still think, for everybody we've talked to, they want to have their distinctive house style Bordeaux wants to produce wine that tastes like Bordeaux.
Speaker 2:So I think two things One, they're going to be allowing the new grapes in Bordeaux, including some Portuguese varieties that ripen later, so in theory they would still be able to create the same style wine that they're producing now, but just might include different grapes, which is super radical for them to want to include new grapes. So I think that's one route. And then the other route is your route that you're saying too. But I think what eventually it's going to do for collectors is there's going to be some sort of window that's generally agreed upon as a cutoff, where it's like the wines after this period are different than the wines before, and it might be the style of the wine or it might be just the components that are in there. But I think that's going to be an interesting element for collectors because I think there's going to be a pretty interesting delineation of a five or ten year period, of a before and after, and it would be interesting to see how that impacts investment wines in general.
Speaker 1:And eventually it won't be. You said the classic Bordeaux style. 50 years from now, maybe we'll talk about identify three or four different kind of classic Bordeaux styles, quote unquote and, like you said, make those time delineations, whereas it won't be always looking back, oh, what was it supposed to be supposed to be? Whatever the climate is there at that time, that's what it's supposed to be.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Thing is maybe a little bit more progressive way to think about how the Britishers adapt.
Speaker 2:I think that's interesting. I think now if you want to pivot over to Burgundy and talk about the same topic. So for those who don't know the way Burgundy is classified as general Burgundy, they have to be wines. The great stuff to come from within the bounds of Burgundy Villages is the next level down. It could be the level of anything from that general village. The next level up is Promethrew, which comes from a certain primary group vineyard, and then the next level up after that is a Grand Cru with just to come from a Grand Cru vineyard. So for those, what I think is going to be interesting as climate change goes on.
Speaker 2:Actually, one of the wines we had yesterday is from a negotiant who came back to Burgundy. He's producing what's considered quality wines now from both his own grapes and others, but he's really big on the, the Ho-Kotanoe, ho-kotanoe, ho-kotabone, the top of the hill. So for Burgundy that can't introduce different grapes and everything's land-based. I think the cool shift is going to be what are the new Promethrew vineyards? What does anything ever get upgraded to Grand Cru? Do things get downgraded? I think that would be really interesting to see over time, because Burgundy is a little bit more flexible that way, where they do upgrade vineyards from time to time, we might be seeing a whole new swath of vineyards become available because the land's tenable now. I think that's going to be really interesting to see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I wonder if a lot of like velage wines become like increase in value and just general positive perception, as maybe the climate warms a little bit there and there's wines get a little bit riper, I think like some ripening with a velage level wine, maybe that doesn't have quite the finish or the robustness or maybe some of those tertiary notes that you get as you go up in classification. I wonder if some of the ripening there actually assists in making like helping to develop a little bit more interesting wine at that level.
Speaker 1:Just wasn't added ripeness and fruitiness.
Speaker 2:maybe there Stereose that tends to be like the Premier crew. So if you look at, if you think of Burgundy, everything is planted. You picture like a table and then it just slightly goes down into the right. So basically there's a table and then, like you can picture a ramp, it's like a small, a long series of hills coming down from the what's it called.
Speaker 2:Something massive, but anyway, so basically the massive central like a skateboard ramp, but it's called like the massive central, and then it goes down. So if you picture that the middle of that slope are the Grand crews, typically up and below, or typically the Premier crew. So they still they're at the top, they're not the coldest and they're not the bottom, they're still getting this blow. But then the villages tend to be closer to the bottom of the hill and then the regional tend to be like on the flatlands. So at your point I think I don't know if the village as itself is going to be necessarily getting the upgrade, but I think from where they will be taking the fruit, will it? Maybe it will be better because the bottom of the hill is also where the cool air tends to pool. Maybe there won't be as much cool air to pool. So I do think it's just going to change the game.
Speaker 2:The wine we had yesterday was actually there was a Pinot Noir. Everybody agreed. There was a few wine drinkers in the class and the professors agreed that it was a nice expression of a Bougain Yerouge. There's a $25 bottle and it was literally. I'd actually never seen this before. It had fruit from every like major, like kind of sub region in Burgundy. It actually had Pinot Noir from the Côte d'Aoui, côte de Bone, chalene, macenay and even even Beaujolais. I was like, wow, this guy literally full grapes from everything that he could, all Pinot Noir, but it was. It was really interesting to see that, that full mix, and I think you might be starting to see more of that as well.
Speaker 1:That's interesting when, like talking about the blending conversation, like single, single, single variety, single vineyard, right, there's just as much blending going on in that wine as there are in blending the different varietals in a Bordeaux wine.
Speaker 2:That's what I was, that's what I was trying to get at. It's like, basically, this guy literally picked Pinot Noir from different areas because of its structure in different areas. Maybe it's a little warmer for the South, more lean in certain spots, so I thought that was. That was really neat. So you might see more of that mixing in some of maybe this Hôte Côte de Bone stuff at the top of the hill. Maybe it's now starting to get ripe enough that has an acid character. Where things are getting too ripe at the bottom, you blend the two. You basically get what you're going for in the first place. So maybe there maybe that'd be more, just more planted vineyards, or I don't know. It'll be interesting to see how they manage that and all the yield and the work in the vineyard. There's going to be so many different variables, but I think it'll be fascinating to see how it works out.
Speaker 1:Did you have any comments yesterday after the tasting of? I don't usually drink wine, but this was really interesting and made me appreciate the wines we had more. Or did you have any of those conversations?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, first they did the raise of hands to see who liked which wine better. I think it was closer to two thirds, like in the Bordeaux which was like a 2018, fairly Tannock, really classic kind of style Bordeaux. So that was interesting to me. But then after class and I know where people came up the business people wanted to go ask Nick questions and then they had some some of the same ones came to ask me wine questions. Other ones were just asking me wine questions, but one guy was like my parents I travel with my family a lot.
Speaker 2:I've traveled before and we have I've gone to all these wine regions, but I've never really taken the time to learn about it and he asked me where I would recommend to start, and there are other folks who were part way on their journey and wanted just to know more. How do I identify up and coming regions or what I thought certain wines may evolve, like this conversation over time. It was really interesting and I thought the purchase weeks was pretty good yesterday. Apparently, that class has very little participation normally, so the professor said it was great and I was like, oh, that's good to hear, so it was interesting, but it was I. It's always fun to take a step back because I had I always talk about it how I get into the weeds really quickly. It was a good exercise and trying to explain things to people who were just starting to learn their wine journey and explain it in a manner that doesn't sound boring and dull and makes you want to learn more, that was a fun exercise.
Speaker 1:That's cool. That's awesome. I'm glad you guys got to do that. Hopefully we get to do more of those. And if you're listening and have a student group or any other kind of group, I would like to hear from us, happy to put something together.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I will fly so early in the morning and fly out again so early to get there, but so there was. I hope everybody found what we just went over Interesting. It was more high level. I just wanted to talk on some topics roughly that I think that people may be interested in learning about the regions, but we have a number of great interviews coming up, scheduled in late November and early December. So get excited. There's a bunch of folks including people from, like my favorite, one of my favorite wine TV shows, hopefully a wine education website publication that everybody knows, one of my favorite wine books. So we have a bunch of really good interviews, pretty pumped for the last half of this year, the last two months of this year.
Speaker 1:And feel free to reach out with any sort of suggestions, recommendations, producers you'd think that we should chat with, always happy to take those and excited for the end of this year, but also have a lot in store for 2024. Now that we're past 100 episodes, we can really hit our stride.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can really let it rip. Watch out everyone. We're going to go wild next year. I think that's all for me for this episode. Brady, do you have anything you want to add? Before we head out, I always get to do the closing. Nope, that's it. It's all good, all right, we'll see everybody with another episode next week. Cheers.
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