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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: Wine, women, song.. and audio

Post Subject: The Ghastly Ms. BizePosted by de charlus on: 8/8/2013

The dreadful Ms. Bize did indeed have a small holding of DRC, but this is ancient history and very acrimonious. Nowadays de Villaine detests her with a passion beyond words, but then again, he must derive enormous satisfaction from what abuse she inflicts on all those wonderful holdings. Now, I know many people in the wine world and practically every serious collector in Europe, and there is not one who would not take a DRC, Dugat, Dugat-Py, Meo-Camuzet or de Vogue instead of one of her jammy, oaky, unsophisticated and essentially terroir-less Parkerized liquids. Who, in that case, is buying? The Asian market, which is purely about prestige, and when prestige is the factor sui generis, they will convince themselves that that Dom Leroy Griotte-Chambertin is the best thing they ever tasted, that is, of course, assuming that the stuff ever leaves the bonded warehouse and gets drunk, by no means a certainty. Parker is tossing about aging figures as of old, but let us not forget that the vast majority of those legendary '28s contained a solid dose of Hermitage. The Asians believe that if they can age a Grand Cru Burgundy from a "top" producer for 40-50 years, then they must be onto a colossal winner. I pity the wealthy numbskull who parts with his cash in order to actually drink what I'm sure will be swill, but then, the "Tiger Economy" will be laughing all the way to the bank.
Yes, Romanee-Conti is to my mind better than all things earthly in a good vintage, followed closely by La Tache and Richebourg. The Grands Echezeaux is the bargain of the lot, and there's nothing wrong with the Echezeaux. Try to look out a 59 Richebourg DRC; lovely drinking right now, and to my mind, underpriced.
As for Ms. Bize, the reason that her Grand Crus are so disappointing is that her vini- and viti-culture renders them all but indistinguishable from far less grandiose DOCs; this is emphatically not the expression of terroir in any form, and much like an orchestra ad-libbing during Mozart's Requiem - coarse, unsophisticated, lacking in respect for greatness and generally crude and stupid. This is not to suggest that it's impossible to produce ultra-rich, intense wines still deeply expressive of terroir; try a Charmes-Chambertin Dugat in a good vintage, a Meo-Camuzet, a Musigny de Vogue - it's just that she sees the quickest, easiest route to colossal wealth in becoming an acolyte of Parker, a man who has as much knowledge about real Burgundy in his head as I do in my big toe.

de Charlus

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