We received the sad news during dinner last night that vigneron François Lamarche passed away yesterday. François was the proprietor of the eponymous domaine in Vosne-Romanée, and we imported his wines for a number of years in the early days of Scott Paul Selections. He died yesterday in a freak tractor accident, and will be sadly missed. Our hearts go out to his wife Marie-Blanche and the entire family…

Today we took the group to taste at two legendary Côte de Nuits estates, starting with Anne-Françoise Gros of Vosne-Romanée (she and husband François Parent share a winery facility in Beaune – all the wines for her estate, her husband’s, and daughter Caroline Parent’s are made there.)

We had originally scheduled to taste with Caroline, who then had to change her travel schedule, so her brother Matthias was slotted in. He then got sick, so we ended up very happily tasting with Madame Gros herself! An absolutely lovely range of wines – especially the Vosne-Romanée Aux Reas which was showing beautifully today. (We are now importing the A-F Gros wines, starting with the 2011s this fall – stay tuned!)

Tasting with Anne-Françoise Gros

Then we headed up the RN74 to Chambolle-Musigny, to lunch at Le Millésime with Domaine de Vogüé winemaker François Millet and GM Jean-Luc Pepin, who generously brought 2 bottles of 2001 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru (the young vine Musigny) for us to enjoy over lunch. Wow. Mon dieu. I am so honored and thankful that François and Jean-Luc make the time for us and are so amazingly generous. The 2012s in the de Vogüé cellar are just starting malo, in fact some have yet to start. Even at this awkward stage, the crystalline purity of these magical terroirs shine. And I am always blown away to be reminded that with the Musigny and Amoureuses François never punches down – ever. One pump-over at the beginning, and one more just before racking the wine out of tank, and that’s it! Amazing…

Massive storms around France have caused flooding and are wreaking havoc, and a killer hailstorm in Vouvray (in the Loire Valley) wiped out more than 70% of the vineyards there on Monday. Yikes! Rains are supposedly headed to Burgundy tonight or tomorrow, and all fingers are crossed here. After what they’ve lived through here in 2012, they just don’t need another monkey-wrench in the works. Just something resembling a normal crop, please – that’s all we ask!

A serious day of tasting on the Côte de Beaune yesterday, starting with the gorgeous range from Thiébault Huber at Domaine Huber-Verdereau in Volnay. The tiny 2012 vintage produced only a barrel or two of some of his top cuvées, but the good news is the wines rock. Volnay, Pommard, Meursault & Puligny were all showing well in barrel, and the in-bottle 2011s are drinking nicely already.

We moved the troops a mile north to Thiébault’s beautiful Clos du Colombier, a monopole in the center of Pommard, where we lunched in the shade of an old linden tree with Thiébault and family and 4 magnums – the ’11 Meursault, ’11 Volnay Robardelles, ’11 Clos du Colombier, and an exquisite ’06 Pommard Bertins 1er.

Thiébault & Marielle Huber

That should have been enough for any day, but of course we had more tastings and meals to come! Thierry Violot-Guillemard, one of the great characters in all of Burgundy, rocked us in his cellar with a few of the ‘12s in barrel (still finishing malo. He produced only 32 barrels in total from 2012 – in an average year he’d make 130!) Then we ran the gauntlet of all his ‘11s in bottle, with the Clos des Mouches, Epenots and Rugiens standing out as always.

In the cellar at Buisson-Charles...

After a cruise through the Grand Crus in Puligny & Chassagne, we hit Domaine Buisson-Charles in Meursault, where winemaker Patrick Essa rocked our world with a selection of 14 different wines, finishing with a ’95 Meursault Tessons that left everyone speechless. They lost 60% of their crop in 2012, but as elsewhere, the quality of what remains is fine indeed.

Patrick’s wife Kate joined us for dinner at Le Chevreuil in Meursault, where we wrapped up a great day with lovely bottle of ’06 Volnay Fremiets from Marquis d’Angerville. After all that, I slept pretty well…

The annual Scott Paul Burgundy Immersion tour is off and running. And thank god I’m running, or I’d have already put on 10 pounds. We are eating and drinking way too well, but then that’s the whole idea, n’est-ce pas?

We started as always with a lunch at Chez Guy in Gevrey-Chambertin – jambon persilée, oeufs en meurette, 12-hour beef cheeks, pain d’epice crème brulée – just something light to start. Washed it all down with ’10 Henri Boillot Meursault and ’11 Humbert Frères Gevrey Vieilles Vignes. A good start indeed…

After a mini Burgundy 101 seminar that I taught for the group, we grabbed dinner at the lovely Bistro au Bord du l’Eau at the elegant Hostellerie Levernois just outside of Beaune. Shrimp Ravioli, 12-hour lamb shoulder, warm molten chocolate cake – all with Bret Brothers ’10 Pouilly-Vinzelles and Nicolas Rossignol ’10 Volnay…

Then we began in earnest on Monday morning, with a vineyard seminar walking through the vines in Pommard and Volnay, and then drove down to Fuissé for a tasting and lunch in the cellar with Christophe Thibert at Domaine Thibert. From barrel and bottle he took us through 13 different Mâconnais whites (of the 23 he produces!), with a look at the ’10, ’11 & ’12 vintages. Lunch in the tasting room consisted of an array of charcuterie, salads & roast chicken, followed by cheeses, fromage blanc, and raspberry tarts…

Then it was back to Beaune for some shopping in town in the afternoon, and then on to a gastronomic delight at the wonderful Auprès du Clocher in Pommard, always one of my very favorite meals in Burgundy. 7 courses later, including the ridiculously good warm mousse of Époisses, we waddled home happy and in a bit of a food coma. ’10 Roulot Meursault Luchets, ’09 Bouzereau Meursault Perrières, ’07 Violot-Guillemard Rugiens, and ’07 Clos des Ducs provided superb libational accompaniment…

And that brings us up to date. After my run into Beaune and back this morning, with a quick stop in Pommard for bread, we’re off to taste today at Huber-Verdereau in Volnay, lunch in the Clos du Colombier vineyard with Thiébault Huber, taste at Violot-Guillemard in Pommard, tour the Grand Crus in Puligny & Chassagne, taste at Buisson-Charles in Meursault, and dinner tonight at Le Chevreuil. Other than that, not much going on…

The sun is out and it’s another beautiful morning on the Côte! Im getting ready to head out to pick up our tour group at the station in Dijon and get our tour underway. By the end of the week, we will have had private tastings in the cellars with 10 great producers up and down the Côte d’Or and the Mâconnais, will have eaten lunches and dinners at seven of my favorite restaurants in Burgundy, lunched in the vineyards with the winemakers, seen the new movie at the Chateau de Vougeot, hit the farmer’s market in Beaune, toured all of the Grand Cru vineyards, and probably gained several pounds each. (Hopefully my daily runs in the morning result in a net gain of zero!)

First up – lunch today at Chez Guy in Gevrey-Chambertin. Pics and all the gory details to come…

The village is dying. That’s what I’ve heard from three people here in the last 24 hours. They’re referring to the village of Volnay, home to 277 human beings and about 400 acres of some of the best Pinot Noir vineyards on planet earth.

So why is Volnay dying? It’s because the village bakery is closing on June 30th. A village in France without a bakery is like a ghost town, apparently. All 277 of the inhabitants here will now have to go to Pommard or Meursault for their twice-daily baguettes. And with the bakery goes a huge part of the identity of the town, it seems. Only one commercial establishment will remain in the village, the venerable Cellier Volnaysien restaurant – a great place for an old-school Burgundian lunch (and dinner on Saturday nights) where the menu hasn’t changed in about 150 years.

But back to the bakery. Fabrice and Brigitte have owned and run the place for the last 25 years, and they’re retiring. For the last 18+ months they’ve been looking for someone who wants to buy the business and carry on, but have found no takers. It’s a good business – not only do they provide great bread and baked goods to the villagers of Volnay, they deliver the bread to another dozen or so smaller villages and hamlets on the Côte de Beaune. It’s hard work and long days – which is apparently why no one wants to take over the business.

The system in France these days allows one to go on welfare, and receive as much income as those who work, along with all the free healthcare and myriad government benefits to boot. Thus there is little incentive for people to work, and I’ve heard time and again that any job that is considered “hard work”, no one here wants to do. Vignerons can’t find people to work in the vineyards. No one wants to get up in the middle of the night and bake bread. Even in the kitchens of Michelin-starred restaurants, they’re having trouble finding people that want to work. Those are all considered “hard jobs”. Why do one of those when you can live fairly well on the dole?

I love Volnay. I’ve been hanging my hat here for years now, and the rhythm of my life here for a few weeks every year will certainly change. The great vineyards and wines of Volnay aren’t dying – those are eternal. What’s dying is the notion of Volnay as a stand-alone village. In just two weeks from now that era will come to a close, and it’s very sad indeed. I will savor every last morsel from Fabrice’s oven for the next two weeks, and I will surely feel the loss when I next return in the fall. And on top of everything, the bread in Pommard sucks!

What a stunningly beautiful day in Burgundy – one of the prettiest I’ve ever seen. Sunny and 75, and boy do they need it and deserve it after a truly rotten spring. A lot of the vignerons have been very depressed here, between the meager quantity of the 2012 vintage and the cold and very wet start to this year. Here’s hoping that it’s smooth sailing from here on in – they need a “normal”-sized harvest and a year with a little less stress would be nice…

A view up the hill to Montrachet

Thiébault Huber says that he would love to come work harvest with us in Oregon if the season allows. If the present patterns continue we should be about 3-4 weeks ahead of Burgundy this year, so we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

Our group of 10 clients arrives tomorrow morning in Dijon for our week-long Burgundy immersion tour. I spent the morning going over the schedule and routing with my right-hand man Brooke, and we are good to go. Stopped in Vosne-Romanée for a nice lunch at La Toute Petite Auberge, which is much improved since my last visit. Will head out to Meursualt to pick up a fresh baguette in just a bit, and probably stay in tonight with some cheese and charcuterie and take it easy. A great week lies ahead!

Got up before the church bells and took a nice 10K run through the vines in Volnay, Pommard and Beaune this morning. Then grabbed my customary baguette and the newspaper from the boulangerie in Volnay, and then took a cruise through Meursault, Puligny & Chassagne to get a good look at the state of the vines in the Côte de Beaune.

Looking good in Meursault Genevrières 1er Cru

Everything looks healthy and clean, just very late – not unlike what we went through in Oregon in 2010 & 2011. At this rate they will definitely be 3-4 weeks later than us, so I’m going to propose to all our producers that they come work harvest for us in Oregon for a week or two before they have to go back to Burgundy. We’ll see if anyone takes me up on the offer…

Down in Puligny I noticed a parcel of the 1er Cru Les Pucelles where the vines had all been pulled out and the ground had recently been plowed to get ready for replanting. If you ever wondered where the intense minerality in Puligny comes from – check this out! The large stones you see here are about 2-3+ FEET long and 18+ inches wide. These are some massive hunks of limestone…

Huge hunks of limestone in Puligny-Montrachet Les Pucelles 1er Cru

I’m off to lunch and catch up with Thiébault Huber at the Cellier Volnaysien. More as it happens…

Kelley Fox and I put together the final blends for our 2012s on Tuesday, and there are going to be four different wines from this rockin’-good vintage. A La Paulée, of course (from blocks of all four of our vineyards), eight barrels from Maresh Vyd. that will make up the ’12 Audrey, and two more micro-cuvées. There will be a single-vineyard wine from Azana - our new estate parcel on Chehalem Mountain, and another single-vineyard bottling from our blocks of Nysa Vyd. in the Dundee Hills.

If I had to compare these wines to anything in the past, I would say they’re a cross between 2002 and 2008, but better. Yes, they are THAT good. Great fruit AND great acidity, with a beautiful minerality that cuts through with laser-like purity. Save some room in your cellar when these babies start to come out in spring 2014…

I am writing from my Burgundian home-away-from-home in Volnay – the ancient guest-house attached to the winery at Domaine Huber-Verdereau. It always blows my mind that these buildings were requisitioned by German soldiers in WWII, and that the officers lived and worked in this very room for a few years during the war. Thiébault Huber’s mom was born right here in this house, as was her mother. It really is a privilege and honor to stay here.

I’ll be exploring the vines the next couple of days, and then our group of 10 customers arrives on Sunday morning for the annual Insider’s Tour of Burgundy all next week. The forecast looks beautiful – this is gonna be a good one. Stay tuned for all the hedonistic details…

There’s a lot of chatter now about ingredient labeling for wines. It can be a fairly complicated issue, but I’m totally in favor of it. I think consumers should know what has been added to the beverage on its way from the vineyard to the bottle. Most people would be quite surprised to see what is actually in some wines.

A visual of our ingredient list...

It all starts with grapes, of course. In the Scott Paul wines, our ingredient list is pretty simple -  grapes, and a minimal dose of so2. If ingredient labeling becomes mandatory, you are likely to see ingredient lists longer than your arm on many wines. The latest federal ruling now allows wineries to voluntarily list any additives they’ve used, but the sentiment is definitely moving toward a mandatory listing, as with all other food products. You’ll be seeing a lot of mentions of “gum arabic”, “velcorin” (you don’t event want to know what that is), “mega purple”, “tannin powder”, “oak chips” and a laundry list of other winemaking tools and tricks. It will certainly be interesting to see how this plays out.

New York Times wine writer Eric Asimov wrote a great piece on all this last week, which you can read here… Eric will be here in Oregon next month for the International Pinot Noir Celebration – hands-down the best wine event on US soil every year. This year’s festivities are sold out, but please plan to stop in and see us in Carlton if you’re headed out here for the events.

Another lousy day in Burgundy...

I’m off to Burgundy next week, for our annual Insider’s Immersion Tour and some time visiting our producers before and after the tour. I’m especially psyched to have rock-star chef Gabriel Rucker of Portland’s Le Pigeon joining us over there for a few days. We’ll hit a bunch of my favorite restaurants, and Gabe is going to cook for us one night after we hit the markets and the butcher shops during the day. I am salivating already…

Stay tuned for a ton of posts and pics from Burgundy – it’s gonna be a good one!

Early spring this year in Oregon teased us with plenty of sunshine and heat, only to retreat into a more typical pattern of cool, gray & rainy – with a few patches of blue sky creeping in throughout the day. It used to drive me nuts when we first moved here. Now I’m just used to it, perhaps resigned to it might be the better term. Springtime in the Willamette Valley is a crazy, mixed bag to say the least.

At any rate, we’re about 15-20 days away from flowering. We definitely needed more rain, so I’m happy to let it fall for another 10 days or so. Would fair, dry weather be too much to ask for during flowering? Just once, maybe? The vines are looking very happy to this point, and we’ve been shoot thinning and positioning and getting the wires up. So far, so good.

Not so much in Burgundy and Champagne, however. Yikes! The rain and cold have prevailed all “spring” long, and things are off to a very late start. If there is a wine god, please send the Burgundians a normal sized crop this year. Many will not be able to endure yet another tiny vintage. I’m headed over to Burgundy in about two weeks. It will be bizarre to roll into my home-away-from-home in Volnay and see the vines at a stage where we were in Oregon about 5-6 weeks ago…

Leaves finally pushing at Clos du Colombier in Pommard, Domaine Huber-Verdereau

I just read and re-read a great interview in the French magazine Bourgogne Aujourd’hui with Jacques Lardière, who just retired after an astonishing 42 years at the helm of Maison Louis Jadot in Beaune. Back in my days as the Managing Director of Domaine Drouhin I had one of my most memorable tasting experiences ever in the cellars at Jadot – Jacques poured about 65 different wines for Véronique Drouhin and me one afternoon. He is winemaker-warrior-poet, and to hear him hold forth on the magic of Burgundy is truly a beautiful thing.

In the magazine interview they asked him what stood out to him the most in all of his 42 years of making wine in Burgundy. His response – “the decline in quality that came with the introduction and popularity of the Dijon clones.” Wow. That is a pretty heavy statement. He’s not alone, in that regard, however. Most of the Burgundian vintners I’m close with that had planted the “new clones” in the 80s have mostly pulled them out and replanted, having been so disappointed in the quality and the over-productivity of the clones. They’ve gone back to propagating field selections form their own best vines, and are infinitely happier. If nothing else, it makes me glad we planted a wide mix of selections and Pommard clones in our Azana vineyard back in 2008…

Azana Vineyard on Chehalem Mountain - May 2013