Burgundian thoughts

This weekend, glass in hand, I got to explore my deep and abiding love for Burgundy. Not only was there the legendary annual Burgundy tasting at Caves Augé, but there were other bottles of the Côte d'Or's fine chardonnays and pinot noirs hiding, it seemed, behind every corner (all right, every bar and wine rack).

To make an exhaustive list would exhaust me and certainly frighten you, gentle reader, as to my liver. So let's just say that what seems interesting to me at the tail end of the marathon is the principle of less-is-more applied to Burgundy.

I've always applied this to "little" wines like Cahors or Corbières - the high-end stuff is invariably overoaked, overextracted, etc. But Burgundy? Well, where more up can you go than a Lafon Meursault Perrières? Now, I'll tell you: a Chassorney Saint-Romain.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not purporting that the little crus will amass and destroy the grand ones. Last night (I'll say this all offhand, like) we drank a 2000 Rousseau Ruchottes-Chambertin that left one just askew with longing. But what is key, here as elsewhere, is balance, simplicity, what the French call évidence.

And I have found that a few times in the past days, in curious new places.