Bordeaux, Burgundy A Vintage Rivalry [Hardcover]

There seem to be two themes running throughout this book.

First, "terroir" is less about soil, exposure and climate and more about taste, culture and economics. Thus, M. Pitte remarks, just as a great violinist cannot attribute 90% of the quality of his performance to the Stradivarius he plays, neither can a vigneron and winemaker attribute 90% of the quality of his wine to a particular plot of land. While M. Pitte defends "natural" winemaking, including the use of natural yeasts, selection massale and so on, he also rejects the notion that great wine "makes itself." This is an interesting discourse. Pitte seems to believe that the historical development of the "first growths," "super seconds" and "grands crus" is as much a cultural development as an inevitable outcome of the superiority of the chosen sites. He opines that there are plenty of places in Bordeaux and Burgundy that could have evolved into the equivalents of Mouton or Clos Vougeot -- and might still do so if popular demand, investment, talent and politics allow. He also identifies "great growths" that are on land one might not expect to produce top notch wine -- but they do nevertheless. It's an interesting notion, and I'm not sure I disagree.

Second, Bordeaux is cerebral, the wine of strait-laced bankers and financiers, right down to its square shouldered bottles and the Bordelais' obsession with cleanliness and clarity reflected in their tradition of carefully decanting old wines. Burgundy, on the other hand, is wild, sensual, voluptuous, and something of the rogue, a place where a winemaker will gleefully pour the dregs of the bottle into his glass and declare it the best and richest part.

This theme plays itself out in a variety of anecdotes, historical references, quotations from essays and poetry and you name it. When the Bordelais celebrate a great occasion, they do so in a restrained way, says Pitte; while the Burgundians are inclined to sing, dance and whoop it up. A banquet in Bordeaux is a reserved affair; in Burgundy, it likely entails course after course of rich food and wine.

Whether you lean towards Burgundy (as I do) or towards Bordeaux (like many others), this will amuse and entertain. You will see plenty of names you know -- Robert Parker, Michel Rolland, Emile Peynaud, Nicolas Joly, Claude Bourguignon, Henri Jayer, Aubert de Villaine.

Somehow, however, much of this book seems to rely on stereotyping as much as anything else. The writing includes a lot of those old fashioned sexual metaphors that were once common in wine writing -- this wine is a buttoned up schoolgirl, that one is a buxom barmaid, and so on. If this sort of stuff offends, you won't like the book. I simply find it quaint and a bit silly.

There are undeniable differences between the wine trade in Bordeaux, where grand 100 acre estates are owned by reinsurers, banks and luxury goods houses; and Burgundy, where even a heavy hitter may own only a fraction of a hectare of a grand cru like Le Montrachet or Le Musigny. But to read Pitte, one might conclude that the folks who make and sell Bordeaux are from Mars, while their counterparts in Burgundy are from Venus -- and each may well be a different species that is unable to interbreed.

It's a bit much.

Still, Pitte makes some smart and provocative observations along the way, and the book is a hoot to read.

A good window to view the seldom seen facts about what's really happening in the French wineworld rather than the winetalk one usually hears in these hallowed halls. The author is a type rarely met to-day amongst the tieless crowd of MBAs with diplomas in the use of a pocket calculator but who do not know whether Denmark is a country or a cheese.

Asko Karttunen