What is More Consistently Good: Burg or Bordeaux?

[J.Vizuete]

I just wish the people who don’t really like Burgundy would just stop buying it. Just don’t worry your pretty little heads about it and save the wine for people who love it. It boggles my mind how much money people are willing to pay for wines they don’t like in the hopes that lightening will strike.

I drink a lot of Burgundy between $50 to $75, at least a few bottles a month, and enjoy the vast majority of it. It is just at the next level up ($100+ a bottle), I experience more inconsistency than in other regions. It is entirely possible it is just me and poor buying choices.

Are you drinking wine from the same producers (say villages level wines in the group you like vs. premier crus from the same producers for the higher priced group) or are you going to different producers for the more expensive wines. Our Burgundy tasting group has traditionally done about a tasting a year where the theme is villages level wines. We are always surprised at just how good they are. I think there are at least two reasons to this. First, the wines tend to come from higher level producers - I think there is a tendency for all of us to try to jump to grand crus at the +100 category and go down a bit on producer since prices have risen so much (esp. since the tariff).

Also, while there are exceptions, I think more village level wines tend to taste good at say around 10-15 years old while higher level wines need more time. This difference even can be true among grand crus. A few years ago I was able to buy some Rossignol-Trapet 2001 grand crus at the winery for really good prices. The Latricieres Chambertins I purchased are really good, but the Chambertin I had was not near ready yet. Yes, the Chambertin is objectively the better wine and someday will taste better but for right now I get a lot more pleasure drinking the Latricieres.

I have seen posts about how there is something wrong with a Bonnes Mares or a Corton because they don’t taste really good at 10 years old. Well the wine is what it is and what it is is a wine that needs lots of time. At 10 years old, I would rather have a good villages wine than a Corton. At 25, my preferences might well be different. Not too different from Bordeaux. I am not drinking Latour or Leoville las Cases too often at 10-15 years old.

+1 great post

[Howard_Cooper]

I drink a lot of Burgundy between $50 to $75, at least a few bottles a month, and enjoy the vast majority of it. It is just at the next level up ($100+ a bottle), I experience more inconsistency than in other regions. It is entirely possible it is just me and poor buying choices.

Are you drinking wine from the same producers (say villages level wines in the group you like vs. premier crus from the same producers for the higher priced group) or are you going to different producers for the more expensive wines. Our Burgundy tasting group has traditionally done about a tasting a year where the theme is villages level wines. We are always surprised at just how good they are. I think there are at least two reasons to this. First, the wines tend to come from higher level producers - I think there is a tendency for all of us to try to jump to grand crus at the +100 category and go down a bit on producer since prices have risen so much (esp. since the tariff).

Also, while there are exceptions, I think more village level wines tend to taste good at say around 10-15 years old while higher level wines need more time. This difference even can be true among grand crus. A few years ago I was able to buy some Rossignol-Trapet 2001 grand crus at the winery for really good prices. The Latricieres Chambertins I purchased are really good, but the Chambertin I had was not near ready yet. Yes, the Chambertin is objectively the better wine and someday will taste better but for right now I get a lot more pleasure drinking the Latricieres.

I have seen posts about how there is something wrong with a Bonnes Mares or a Corton because they don’t taste really good at 10 years old. Well the wine is what it is and what it is is a wine that needs lots of time. At 10 years old, I would rather have a good villages wine than a Corton. At 25, my preferences might well be different. Not too different from Bordeaux. I am not drinking Latour or Leoville las Cases too often at 10-15 years old.

+1 great post

I added a bit to it so hopefully you still like it.

[JLee]

My understanding was blending helps a wine be more consistent year to year.

[Neal.Mollen]

I mean, they are two very different flavor profiles. If you “like” bordeaux and love burgundy (or vice versa) the answer is pretty easy.

For me, bdx much more consistently delivers pleasure because I refer the flavor profile. I like burgundy, own a fair amount (for me), and enjoy drinking it. It’s just not my jam.

[J.Vizuete]

+1 great post

I added a bit to it so hopefully you still like it.

Nah, points are all diluted down now… TLDR… JK Howard, I often appreciate your insight.

I don’t buy much red burgundy, maybe only 5-10% of my cellar, but often identify with the sentiment expressed in the OP and elsewhere in this thread, namely that the highs are higher with Burgundy. I once heard it expressed that if tasting through France, a new wine drinker might pick 9 of their 10 favorite wines from Bordeaux, but the one that haunts you forever (so artfully phrased by Sean) will always be Burgundy.

My cellar is pretty well rounded (at least I think) and reflects what we drink. Fifteen percent or so sparkling, 35% whites, and 50% reds from diverse regions with varying degrees of age. So when I buy red burgundy, especially a $100+ bottle, it’s an effort to scratch that special dopamine itch that only RB lays claim to. The other wines I’m holding are intended to please in a different way - The volume and power of a Realm cabernet, the funk of a Cayuse syrah, the purity of a PYCM chard, the precise minerality of a Vilmart champagne. Those other genres deliver on their purpose at a very high rate.

Those with a long time interest in red burgs who have developed a complex framework may appreciate the simple elegance of a well stored village level wine from a good producer. You could open a 2001 Hudelot Noellat Chambolle for instance and be quite pleased if it shows as a resolved, mature wine of good character, even if there are no fireworks. Whereas if I buy the same wine at auction at $70, I’m likely wanting more from the wine than it has to give.

In this regard, I think the burgundy aficionados on the board have it right, because their intended purposes for buying and cellaring red burgundy are diverse and thus allow for expectations more aligned with reality.

[Chris_Seiber]

In the last several weeks, I have experienced the highs and lows of Burgundy. A couple of wines were absolutely wonderful, one friend proclaiming a very nice premier cru wine “brilliant” and saying it entirely changed his perspective on drinking fine wine (he is a relatively new collector). Over the same time period, I have had two Grand Crus that were really disappointing. (I am purposefully excluding the exact wines to avoid the inevitable debate about vintage, producer, etc.). Let’s just say all of the wines were well reviewed by Burghound and were drank during the appropriate drinking windows.

Tonight, I had my third straight Bordeaux over the same time period that exceeded expectations. None of the three hit the highs of the best performing Burgs, but all were more than enjoyable especially for the price (between $50 to $100).

I have twice as much Burgundy as Bordeaux but am starting to regret it. It seems I am disappointed almost as much as I am happy and I’m getting tired of $100+ bottles of wine that are mediocre.

I feel like I’ve read similar posts over the years beginning on the Ebob Board, but always dismissed them as trolls. Now I’m not so sure.

When you say “consistently good,” do you mean (1) if you picked out 20 random examples from the region, how many of them would be good, or (2) would a person with moderate familiarity with the region have a high likelihood of picking out producers, vintages and maturity that will turn out to be good?

I kind of doubt you meant question (1), which seems kind of pointless, as there are many good and bad wines from any region. If you meant (2), then I do think Bordeaux is much easier to predict. If you said “spend $600 on 8 bottles of wine from the region you haven’t had before that will drink well,” you could probably hit on 7 or 8 out of the 8 in Bordeaux without much difficulty. There are far fewer different bottlings, larger production, more consistency, more predictability about what age the wines will show well, etc.

That isn’t my way of saying “Bordeaux > Burgundy” in the least, just trying to focus on the question of “consistency,” at least based on my guess as to what question you are asking. Maybe “predictability” would be more what I’m really getting at than “consistency.”

[T_Altmayer]

Yes, perhaps predictably would work better.

I admit I may be drinking wines too soon or even too late. Had an 01 Faivelely Clos Des Corton that was fine, but expected more as it lacked real complexity. I had an 05 Lambrays that a friend served and thought it would be too young (and it was), but it was also wonderful. Similarly I had a 99 d’Angerville Clos des Ducs (one of my favorite producers) which I had high hopes for and again, it was flat (not a flawed bottle from what I could tell).

I hesitated to provide examples because the focus would be on the individual wines, but this seems to happen more than I would expect. I’m not bashing Burgundy, just expressing a frustration.

[David_Glasser]

Trying to put aside the issue of personal preference for style, once you know which styles and producers you like, I think they are equally consistently good.

The difference, and I think Juergen said it first in this thread, is that Burgundy is more complex. It takes longer to learn the territory and figure out which producers and terroirs are to your liking. If you’re starting out or throwing darts to make your picks, your perception will likely be that Bordeaux is more consistent.

[David_Bu3ker]

Consistently good: Bordeaux
Sometimes mindblowingly great: Burgundy

[Jay_Miller]

For me the question only makes sense limiting it from the start to producers you know you like (of course all regions are inconsistent if you include the dreck).

Doing so I’ll answer Bordeaux simply because Burgundy has the annoying habit of shutting down, then opening up, then shutting down again, then opening up again. Mind you I think that annoyance is worth dealing with since the payoffs are so great but it can’t be denied that Bordeaux evolves in a more linear fashion and once it opens up it generally stays open.

[Howard_Cooper]

It is interesting. I often find the opposite with Bordeaux from many of you. I have had a bunch of Bordeaux that for me are mindblowingly great - including 1952, 1996 and 1998 Haut Brion, 1967 and 1990 Cheval Blanc, 1979 Ausone, 1959 Latour, 1982, 1986 and 1996 Leoville las Cases, 1970 Leoville Barton, Leoville Poyferre and Palmer, etc. Yet, while there certainly are a lot of very good lesser Bordeaux, I find a lot of Bordeaux (going by Robert’s definition that Rolland is not Bordeaux) to be technically good but a bit boring. On the other hand, I can find some pretty simple Burgundies, like recently a 2016 Chorey-les Beaune from Dublere to be quite satisfying. I think this is a result of two things I have said before: (1) we tend to know well what we like best and (2) for our favorite types of wines we tend to like both good and great wines but for other types of wines we may only like the great ones.

[Tomas_Costa]

For our favorite types of wines we tend to like both good and great wines but for other types of wines we may only like the great ones.

This is something I had already thought to myself but had never seen verbalized in such a direct way, and I think you’re totally right. I am not the world’s most passionate fan of port (ironically, for someone born in Porto), but the greatest wines I have tried were ubdoubtly ports - simply because I have tasted some priceless examples thanks to the generosity of others. I wouldn’t buy those, since they are outrageously priced by any conceivable standard, but I also don’t go out of my way to buy the simple rubies or tawnies. Hardly any of the elements I appreciated in the mind blowing 150 year old cask aged ports are elements I identify and appreciate in the simpler, less expensive ones. I have a dear friend who is mostly into California, Douro and Alentejo reds, most of which we might consider to be ‘Parkerized’, yet he has told me that one of the greatest wines of his life was a mature Henri Jayer. It is much the same phenomenon.

[Jayson_Cohen]

For me the question only makes sense limiting it from the start to producers you know you like (of course all regions are inconsistent if you include the dreck).

Doing so I’ll answer Bordeaux simply because Burgundy has the annoying habit of shutting down, then opening up, then shutting down again, then opening up again. Mind you I think that annoyance is worth dealing with since the payoffs are so great but it can’t be denied that Bordeaux evolves in a more linear fashion and once it opens up it generally stays open.

This is a good point. Until reading this, I was going to say unequivocally that they are both consistently good.

[Gabe_Berk]

If wanting to know which is more consistent to how the producer wants the wine to taste over time, Bordeaux is more consistent IMHO.

Drink Burgundy younger for less variation in taste/experience.

[RichardFlack]

Bordeaux is more consistent. Burgundy is more consistently good.

… and also more consistently disappointing

[Greg_K]

For me the question only makes sense limiting it from the start to producers you know you like (of course all regions are inconsistent if you include the dreck).

Doing so I’ll answer Bordeaux simply because Burgundy has the annoying habit of shutting down, then opening up, then shutting down again, then opening up again. Mind you I think that annoyance is worth dealing with since the payoffs are so great but it can’t be denied that Bordeaux evolves in a more linear fashion and once it opens up it generally stays open.

I’d also include Bordeaux’s tendency to survive questionable storage much better (imho) than Burgundy. I have fairly little hesitation buying older Bordeaux, whereas an older bottle of Burgundy is often no better than a coin flip. (And I’m not even including premox.)

I drink more Burgundy than Bordeaux, but definitely find Bordeaux consistently better. I don’t know if I’d have a different view if I was generally drinking wines I’d cellared myself, but also suspect I will never be able to answer that question.

[Marcu_Stanley]

LOL this debate doesn’t just predate the internet, it might predate the printing press. What is the over-under on this thread, a hundred pages? Or maybe it will fizzle out because there is nothing new to say on this one.

Once you’ve had the experience of a good Burgundy just blowing wines from every other region off the table like they were Miller Lite in comparison, it’s hard to avoid chasing that Burgundy dragon. I love Bordeaux, yes it’s more consistent if you avoid Rolland-ized wines, overextracted 2005 and 2010 right bankers, etc., but Burgundy has another gear…

with that said Burgundy has become a LOT more consistent, including at the village level, over the past 10-15 years. One reason for the increase in price. The experience of weird underfruited musty-tasting Burgundy is a lot rarer than it used to be.

[Nathan_Smyth]

Bordeaux… None… hit the highs of the best performing Burgs

Burgundy is a Personality Disorder [look it up; it’s right there in the DSM-VI, under the heading, “B u r g u n d y”].

The sooner you confess this to yourself - that you’re mentally ill - the sooner you can go pay some con man $500/hr to convince you to begin Cognitive Behaviorial Therapy in his practice.

The CBT won’t actually do you any good*, but you’ll enjoy paying for it, since it’ll remind you of wasting all those $$$s on GCs which didn’t quite perform.


[*Because you made the fatal error of tasting the good stuff.]

[James_Billy]

Burgundy is like a secret club with no rule book. When you buy a bottle of Burgundy, there’s no instructions on the back label: "drink within a few years to enjoy the fresh fruit flavours or leave for 10 years in a weak vintage (whatever that is) at village level or 15 years for a premier cru or a village wine from a good year… and so on. Add or take away 30% depending on the producers style. Please be aware that this is just a rough guide and YMMV.

In practice, buy hundreds of bottles from various producers to find some that you like. Keep opening them (even though they are damned expensive compared to many other regions.) Be prepared for lots of disappointing experiences and after this time you might work out a rough guide to drinking it with a reasonable amount of success. Many people don’t.

If you are lucky enough to come across a Jasper Morris or Bill Nanson book you might get a short cut into ‘the knowledge’, but plenty of other ‘experts’, wine salespeople and Burgundy vignerons will give you advice that conflicts with this just to make things even more difficult.

Easy isn’t it?

Now be prepared for Howard’s harsh reply…

[J_D_o_v_e]

For me the question only makes sense limiting it from the start to producers you know you like (of course all regions are inconsistent if you include the dreck).

Doing so I’ll answer Bordeaux simply because Burgundy has the annoying habit of shutting down, then opening up, then shutting down again, then opening up again. Mind you I think that annoyance is worth dealing with since the payoffs are so great but it can’t be denied that Bordeaux evolves in a more linear fashion and once it opens up it generally stays open.

+1