157 Year Old Annual Auction

During our course, an annual wine tradition occurred in the heart of Burgundy, Beaune. The annual wine tradition was the Hospices de Beaune auction and it occurred on November 19. The auction attracts global audience including wine professionals, amateurs and aficionados.

This year, the 157^th auction achieved an all-time record of US$15.96 Million and a historic price of 420,000 Euros for the President’s Barrel.

                                            Source: BusinessTimes Singapore

This report, reminded me of the Mondavi story where Robert Mondavi introduced the Napa Valley Auction.

Referencing Jennifer’s post on the Vines of Mendoza where you get to own a small plot of your own grape, the Hospices de Beaune auction gives you a chance to own barrels of young wines that requires maturing over 1-1.5 years before bottling.  When bottled, the Hospices’ wine will carry the Hospices de Beaune label and your name if you want it – much like Mr Shu.

Article Extract on Hospices De Beaune

Eighty-five per cent of the Domaine consists of First Growths and Great Growths - an exceptionally high percentage.

The vineyards are mainly located around Beaune (Auxey-Duresses, Beaune, Meursault, Monthelie, Pommard, Pernand-Vergelesses, Chassagne-Montrachet, Savigny-les- Beaune, Volnay, Saint Romain and now Santenay) due to the geographical position of the hospital, and include prestigious names such as Grands Crus Mazy-Chambertin, Echezeaux, Corton Grand Cru, Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru and Premier Cru Beaune Clos des Avaux.

The average age of the vines is now around 35 years, and the total acreage of the vineyards owned by the hospices is around 60ha, of which 50 are planted with Pinot Noir, and the rest Chardonnay.

Some of the cuvées are from single vineyards, and others from the assembling of grapes from different plots. This contributes to the uniqueness of the Domaine's wines offered at the auction.

The work in the vineyard is carried out by 23 vignerons employed by the Hospices, working under the direction of Ludovine Griveau, régisseur and winemaker of the Domaine since January 2015. Each of these highly experienced vignerons is responsible for around 2.5ha of land. Their experience contributes greatly to the production of high quality hospice's wines, which express the typicality of the individual terroir of each vineyard,

Since 1995, careful farming is practised - no herbicides and all vineyard treatments are not to endanger the natural biological equilibrium. And since 2008, there has been no use of synthetic products and all work done according to the methods of biological viticulture. Harvesting is done by hand, the grapes being transported in small cases to the new vat-house, where the winemaking has been done since 1994.

It is this wine, from the many individual vineyard plots, still in their barrels and still in the process of formation and maturation, which are offered for auction, barrel by barrel.

The auction was held not in the hospital itself, but in the Halles de Beaune in the centre of the town.

A Question of Glass

Plenty of thoughts and reflections have crossed my mind over this compressed wine course and I have learnt so much. As we come to the end of the course, I cannot help but reflect on the first day of class where we were generously presented with our very own Gabriel-Glas.

I decided to do a little more research on the wine glass industry and the perennial question:

Does tasting wine out of a specialized goblet really affect the taste of the wine?

My original intuition was that different wine glasses make a huge difference in the ultimate enjoyment of whichever wine one is drinking. Buying into the marketing of the wine glass producers, I do believe that different wines require different shapes of glasses to ensure that you are drinking and tasting wines at the optimum conditions. I mean, do you really want to drink a glass of Domaine de la Romanee Conti with an Ikea glass? I want a burgundy wine glass for my burgundy!

Yet, as I dug a little deeper, I discovered that there is actually a whole body of research and literature that indicated that there is no discernible difference between glasses that could impact wine taste for the average wine consumer!

A key article on this was written in August 2004, Gourmet by Daniel Zwerdling – Shattered Myths. I would suggest taking a few moments to read the article unless you belong to the group below:

“In fact, you might want to stop reading this article if you’ve gone to a Riedel tasting and left as a convert. Because studies suggest you’ve been brainwashed.”

Although there is a huge body of scientific research that categorically state that there is no difference, I personally still would like to make a case for drinking wine out of my Gabriel-Glas and/or Riedel. Drinking wine for me requires the romance of a good wine glass. Where I can, I continually resist drinking out of a sub-par drinking vessel. I am not advocating drinking different wines from different glasses all the time. But I would advocate drinking from a well-made glass. Somehow, drinking from my Barolo from a coffee mug just doesn’t do it for me. Because:

“Riedel and other high-end glasses can make wine taste better. Because they’re pretty. Because they’re delicate. Because they’re expensive. Because you expect them to make the wine taste better. And that, says Brochet, can make all the difference”