Red Burgundy: An Intro
Anything that can be said about the swirls of confusion relating to Burgundy’s whites certainly applies to the reds as well. More so, actually, because in the region’s heart, the Côte d’Or, there is more red than white made. The white-hot pinot noir is the grape, and because it is the only authorized one for reds, it is also just about the only straightforward thing about Burgundy.
But that is as far as the simplicity goes. And the region’s difficulty for consumers isn’t just related to the obscurity and profusion of the countless place names or lieux dits that are beyond the mastery of even the most dedicated (and addicted) pinotphile.
No, actually the more relevant problem for consumers is that for every wonderful red from Burgundy, there are apt to be at least a dozen others from the same vineyard and in the same price range that are less than wonderful. They may be drinkable, but they will be a disappointment.
No red grape is held to a higher standard of consumer expectation than pinot noir, and at the same time no red grape is as constitutionally incapable of having such a role.
It’s not the variety’s fault; even putting aside the “heartbreak grape” cliché that gathered such unstoppable momentum post “Sideways,” there is more than a modicum of truth to it, and the reason that pinot is far from the red of choice for winemakers the world over. It is thin skinned and temperamental, showing a sensitivity to its surroundings no less acute than a teenager’s. I may be unlucky, but in my tasting experience, I’ve found far more inconsistency in Burgundy’s reds than whites.
Even though this is truly Burgundy’s golden era, there are still producers making barely credible wines (anyone, it seems, can make a drinkable wine these days, but it’s becoming harder to make interesting wines).
Even more so than for the whites, consumers must know the producer for the reds. When done as it ought to be, red Burgundies range from the floral and pretty to the austere and formidable.
These two gross generalizations might be said to hold for the Côte de Beaune and the Côte de Nuits styles, respectively. Beaune’s Pinots are forward, red fruited (strawberry, raspberry, cherry) and highly perfumed. Those from the Côte de Nuits, the northern “half” of the Côte d’Or, are typically more earthy, closed and black fruited. Both will show cedar, forest floor and brown spice attributes.
The other important red Burgundy area is Mercurey (the leading commune in the Côte Chalonnaise sandwiched between the Côte de Beaune and the Mâconnais), and it might be said that the style of the reds there is somewhere in between, meaning that the pretty Pinots won’t be quite as lovely as Beaune’s, and the muscular ones not quite as burly as those from the Côte de Nuits. They will, however, be far cheaper on the whole.
Expect pricing to run similarly to the ranges set out in White Burgundy: An Intro, meaning high teens to mid-$20s for Bourgogne Rouge, then quickly up to $50 to $100+, depending the premier cru vineyard and producer, then easily again to multiples of $100 to the sky is the limit for grand cru level. (For a discussion of Burgundy’s vineyard hierarchy, please see Intro To Burgundy, the Wine World’s Most Complicated Region.)
The last aspersion I might cast on Burgundy’s reds is that they do not, in my experience, age nearly as gracefully as the whites. Many would undoubtedly disagree with me, but I’ve had my share. The vast majority of which I was fortunate not to have to pay for, so my motives in being less than overwhelmed most of the time might be somewhat less suspect than a collector’s, who after paying an awful lot for what is typically an extremely expensive wine on release and often more so on the secondary markets years later, almost has an unconscious need to validate the investment.
Usually, though not nearly always, an aged red Burgundy exhibits little of the charm of its younger self. They are more dried out than layered, more leathery than evolved. The whites seem to become more interesting versions of themselves as they approach middle age and beyond; the reds seem to go from sinewy young adulthood directly to resembling that sun worshiper after 50 years of worship—wrinkled and worn out. This is not to say that there are not ethereal, memorable reds with multiple decades of bottle age, just that I’ve been underwhelmed more often than weak in the knees upon tasting them.