Burgundy tasting knights select 2006 vintage wines

Mon Mar 17, 2008 10:52am EDT
By Marcel Michelson

VOUGEOT, France (Reuters Life!) - A French castle, knights and some 900 wines on offer for selection. Welcome to Burgundy’s Tastevin.

The knights of the Tastevin selected some 300 Burgundy wines this weekend, mainly from the 2006 vintage.

Their selections make it easier for consumers to choose a bottle or two amid the myriad of names and appellations in France’s number two wine-growing region after Bordeaux.

The knights, members of a selected brotherhood, wore ribbons with a silver tasting saucer during the ceremony at the cellars of the Clos de Vougeot castle, where monks first planted vines in the 12th century.

Wine buyers, top sommeliers, growers, politicians and journalists were on hand to help with the tasting of 881 wines. Divided over 48 tables, juries of 5 members each tasted 15 to 20 wines and gave them notes before the overall score was reached.

Selected wines can now be sold with a special mention on the label.

The Knights of the Tastevin were formed in 1950 as Burgundy wines needed a quality label. Big names like Romanee-Conti did not need any help but many makers of Nuits-Saint-Georges, Santenay, Savigny-les-Beaune and others needed the distinction.

At the 81st spring tasting on Saturday, several jurors handed out relatively low notes and the general opinion was that the few 2005 wines available were better than those of 2006.

Etienne Grivot, a wine grower in the Vosne-Romanee village, said the wines were unstable because of the recent big swings in air pressure due to the weather.

“They can handle low pressure, they can cope with high pressure, but the swings up and down in recent days are not good for a fragile wine such as made from Pinot Noir,” he said. “We should select the date of the tasting according to the lunar calendar.”

For Yves Nicolas, a wine buyer for the Colruyt chain of supermarkets, the Tastevin seal comes handy.

“The real wine lover does not need it but the average consumer gets lost among the many wines. And the big names you will not find in a supermarket because they are too expensive,” he said.

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