Freaking Awesome Village !!

Greg_K · May 11, 2020, 3:20am

Ah, so it’s an entirely different standard then. Let’s keep changing the goalposts further.

Also, it’s not 125 - it’s readily available for $100. And that’s for the 2015, a very highly rated vintage.

Charlie_Carnes · May 11, 2020, 4:46pm

… a great village wine scratches a different itch than an OK Grand Cru.

Intriguing thought. Can you expand on this?

When you open Grand Cru bottles, it usually comes with some sense of gravity and high hopes. They ideally are opened after several years of aging. They are “special occasion” wines, which mean they too often fail to meet (unrealistically) heightened expectations. A village is wine is a grip-and-rip bottle, with little sense of obsessive anticipation. I also generally drink village wines on the younger side – for the fruit and freshness.

Village is Sbarro’s pizza, GC is Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon.

So back to the main point, I don’t want to eat haute cuisine every night even if it were affordable. I don’t want to drink GC wine every night – if that makes sense. Sometimes I want an unfussy, open-knit delicious village wine that doesn’t ask much of me – Dujac MSD or Bouley Volnay.

Intriguing indeed, and I get it and agree for my part. Your Dujac is a perfect example. The 2017 Chambolle was downright stunning. I blazed through a few bottles and got so much pleasure. I accidentally opened the Malconsorts; once I realized what I had dome I anticipated too much and was disappointed. Obvious no-one should be opening and dinking Malconsorts 2017 right now, as there is none of the playful smartness that the village wine offered. The village definitely scratched an itch, one that I like to scratch as often as possible. Another recent of amazing precocious village was the 2015 Trapet GC. That stuff was beautiful in its own right, and I couldn’t get enough!

Charlie_Carnes · May 11, 2020, 5:03pm

Another great itch scratcher lately was the 2016 Tawse Vosne Romanee

Marcu_Stanley · May 11, 2020, 6:18pm

Besides Corton, up until the last year or two there were quite a number of Clos Vougeot, Echezeaux, lower range Chambertin GCs, etc. from mid-range producers available for $100 or under. Jadot, Drouhin-Laroze, Mongeard Mugneret, etc. etc. are all examples of producers where those kind of Grand Crus were available for $100 or sometimes well under until fairly recently.

Now those wines have moved up into the $110-125 range. Huge surge in Burgundy pricing over the last 1-2 years, driving many of us out of the market.

Danius_Barzdukas · May 11, 2020, 6:26pm

Exactly, the terminology “Village” starts to mean very little when the price is well into Premier Cru and maybe baby Grand Cru territory.

Again, what “baby Grand Crus” are available at $100? Several people have made this blanket assertion, but have yet to offer a single example.

Besides Corton, up until the last year or two there were quite a number of Clos Vougeot, Echezeaux, lower range Chambertin GCs, etc. from mid-range producers available for $100 or under. Jadot, Drouhin-Laroze, Mongeard Mugneret, etc. etc. are all examples of producers where those kind of Grand Crus were available for $100 or sometimes well under until fairly recently.

Now those wines have moved up into the $110-125 range. Huge surge in Burgundy pricing over the last 1-2 years, driving many of us out of the market.

Welcome to the sidelines. Some of us have been driven out of the market, or at least driven into the forest to search for unfound gems, since the 2005 vintage. There’s other wine out here. It’s not burgundy, but it’s okay.

Greg_K · May 11, 2020, 6:44pm

Exactly, the terminology “Village” starts to mean very little when the price is well into Premier Cru and maybe baby Grand Cru territory.

Again, what “baby Grand Crus” are available at $100? Several people have made this blanket assertion, but have yet to offer a single example.

Besides Corton, up until the last year or two there were quite a number of Clos Vougeot, Echezeaux, lower range Chambertin GCs, etc. from mid-range producers available for $100 or under. Jadot, Drouhin-Laroze, Mongeard Mugneret, etc. etc. are all examples of producers where those kind of Grand Crus were available for $100 or sometimes well under until fairly recently.

Now those wines have moved up into the $110-125 range. Huge surge in Burgundy pricing over the last 1-2 years, driving many of us out of the market.

Ah, well then. In other words, despite the contentions, there aren’t actually any?

Marcu_Stanley · May 11, 2020, 7:47pm

The original contention was about the $125 a bottle quoted price, there are lots of minor grand crus still available for that level. I’m sure that there are still such bottles available in Europe for under $100 a bottle.

And people getting a bit left behind in the head-spinning Burgundy pricing insanity doesn’t call for a snark attack. Two years ago you could find a fair range of Jadot and other grand crus for $70-80 a bottle. It takes some of us a bit of time to catch up to how downright sensible and reasonable and thrifty it is to buy a good village for $100 a bottle.

Greg_K · May 11, 2020, 8:05pm

Besides Corton, up until the last year or two there were quite a number of Clos Vougeot, Echezeaux, lower range Chambertin GCs, etc. from mid-range producers available for $100 or under. Jadot, Drouhin-Laroze, Mongeard Mugneret, etc. etc. are all examples of producers where those kind of Grand Crus were available for $100 or sometimes well under until fairly recently.

Now those wines have moved up into the $110-125 range. Huge surge in Burgundy pricing over the last 1-2 years, driving many of us out of the market.

Ah, well then. In other words, despite the contentions, there aren’t actually any?

The original contention was about the $125 a bottle quoted price, there are lots of minor grand crus still available for that level. I’m sure that there are still such bottles available in Europe for under $100 a bottle.

And people getting a bit left behind in the head-spinning Burgundy pricing insanity doesn’t call for a snark attack. Two years ago you could find a fair range of Jadot and other grand crus for $70-80 a bottle. It takes some of us a bit of time to catch up to how downright sensible and reasonable and thrifty it is to buy a good village for $100 a bottle.

Your contention was “it’s a $100 wine but that is still into the territory of decent lower level Grand Crus”. It’s not. That is neither snark nor an attack.

Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m · May 13, 2020, 1:52am

… a great village wine scratches a different itch than an OK Grand Cru.

Intriguing thought. Can you expand on this?

When you open Grand Cru bottles, it usually comes with some sense of gravity and high hopes. They ideally are opened after several years of aging. They are “special occasion” wines, which mean they too often fail to meet (unrealistically) heightened expectations. A village is wine is a grip-and-rip bottle, with little sense of obsessive anticipation. I also generally drink village wines on the younger side – for the fruit and freshness.

Village is Sbarro’s pizza, GC is Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon.

So back to the main point, I don’t want to eat haute cuisine every night even if it were affordable. I don’t want to drink GC wine every night – if that makes sense. Sometimes I want an unfussy, open-knit delicious village wine that doesn’t ask much of me – Dujac MSD or Bouley Volnay.

That makes sense to me. But, for an “OK Grand Cru,” as you put it, don’t you down-shift your expectations for those bottles, or are you still expecting the full Grand Cru experience? For bottles I believe are going to be “OK Grand Cru”, I typically expect an experience similar to a good-to-excellent 1er.

Barry_Rothof · May 17, 2020, 7:25am

IMO with more depth, power and fruit intensity than the Armand Rousseau Gevrey Chambertin !!