Finding an unforgettable wine was not something I set out to do when I first started experimenting with alcohol. My northern upbringing, with its socialist political ideologies, would have precluded such an ambition. In my late teens, my choice of wine – from a supermarket or off-licence - was dictated by budget. By the time I reached my twenties, I was living on the shores of Lake Geneva, and things were starting to look up. There was a bigger budget, I had sophisticated friends, and a car – which though old - could nevertheless be relied upon to get me to Beaune and back in the day. I didn’t know much about wine, but I did know what I liked, and in the early 1980s, the Swiss Franc was a rock-solid currency for having a good time in Burgundy’s wine capital. It was in Beaune that I fell in love with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.
A few years later I was back in the UK, with a much-reduced income and a mortgage to fund, meaning the wine budget was back to where it started. Still, the die was cast, and the allure of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir never truly went away. My wine collection always had a small section devoted to Burgundy, albeit of rather modest bottles from the region, and wine had now become a passion. Most years I would travel through France on holiday with my young family, and we would stop in Burgundy on our way down to the south. The children grew up, left home, and I eventually retired. Now was the time to expand my wine knowledge through formal training. I signed up for WSET classes and undertook all levels. Next, a degree in International Wine Business. Success encouraged ambition, and I enrolled for Wine Scholar Guild qualifications.
It was to be another 40 years after my first visit to Burgundy for the unforgettable wine moment to happen. It was a late spring evening in Beaune, and I was with a group of fellow wine students who had met during a week’s immersion tour of the region. This week-long course would lead to the Wine Scholar Guild’s Bourgogne Master-Level qualification. The venue was the much-celebrated Caves Madeleine in the centre of the city. I cannot remember what we ate, but the wine we chose to accompany our dinner was a bottle of 2020 Meursault by the legendary winemaker, Coche-Dury. With rather more flair than I was accustomed to, the wine was poured and as the honey-hued liquid developed in the glass, aromas of citrus and yellow stone fruits, blossom and hazelnuts swirled around our table. On the palate, this perfectly balanced wine released an explosion of fruits and chiselled minerality, with a silky finesse that engaged all the senses. The finish was long and seductive, with excellent tension, its complexity revealing itself as it evolved. This was a Meursault like no other I had tasted. No wine in all my years of drinking came close to this. We sipped slowly, making it last, and when no more could be persuaded out of the bottle, we ordered another Meursault, from a different producer. Not all wines of the same appellation are born equal, and the Coche-Dury remains to this day the pinnacle of my Meursault experience. (Apologies to my parents for that last statement).
For the rest of the week the profundity of that first bottle stayed in my memory, and I swore if I were to be served a dozen different Meursaults, I would be able to pick out the iconic Coche-Dury in an identity parade.
An unforgettable wine experience is made up of many factors: the place, the company, the occasion. Wine, after all, is so much better when drunk with friends, when it can be discussed, analysed, compared, and appreciated. I doubt I would have derived the same level of enjoyment from this bottle without the benefit of wine education and years of experience. Unless one understands the components that make up such a beautiful wine, one cannot fully appreciate the sum of its parts. The bottle that evening was a product of its terroir (where Chardonnay is king), the producer’s strict limit on yields, harvesting of the fruit by hand, and diligence in the vineyard and winery at every stage. Exceptional wine relies on a combination of perfect fruit and the skill of the winemaker: a conversation between nature and man. The producer’s role is to underpin all that is natural in the terroir, without attempting to alter it, turning the crop into the best expression of itself. In Burgundy, the all-important climats were created by the earth’s movement millions of years ago and for centuries, generations of winemaking families have farmed this land. History and tradition abound in this region and are what give Burgundian wine its sense of place.
Without wishing to fall into the trap of overstatement, the bottle of Meursault I enjoyed on that evening in Beaune constituted an elixir of magnificent proportions, a wine with magical properties. I may never taste this beautiful wine again, but I am happy to have enjoyed the experience once. My budget these days does allow me to drink more wines from Burgundy, and that once small section in my cellar has expanded over the years. But that particular bottle will never find a place in my racks due to its demand on the world market. Unavailable in retail outlets anywhere – indeed the estate’s entire production is sold even before the harvest has begun - its cost on the secondary market would be completely out of my price range.
Perhaps there is another unforgettable bottle waiting for me to drink. I like to think so, but if there isn’t, I will continue to regale my friends with this tale of a magical bottle, in a quintessentially Burgundian setting, shared with a bunch of fellow wine students on a night out in May.
Comments