INSIDE BURGUNDY
By JASPER MORRIS MW

Published by Berry Bros and Rudd Press on 26th October 2010 at £50

(Contact vicky.williams@bbr.com or telephone 0800 280 2440)

656 pages

Richly deserved, Inside Burgundy has won the Annual André Simon award for the best book on wine published in 2010.

This is the latest in a series of books on Burgundy published recently, and it is the most important as is covers the whole of the region. It is also a very fine book.

Jasper Morris, who is now 53-odd, has been importing Burgundy for three decades, and lives, now more on than off, in the region, in a house in Bouilland, up in the valley beyond Savigny-Lès-Beaune. As such, he has more opportunity than most to get to the bottom – if any outsider can get to the bottom – of this fascinating, very individual, region. The results of this 30 years of 'apprenticeship' – for, if we are suitably humble, that is no more than it is - are admirably presented in this book.

I understand that it was originally to be entitled The Sex-Life of Burgundy. Sadly there is little left of this concept. I had been hoping, for example, for a resumé of the extra-marital affairs of the Duc de Rossignol, owner of the hunting lodge above Volnay in the years preceding the French Revolution. After all, why otherwise is almost everyone in the village called Rossignol? Perhaps a monograph will appear next year. On the first of April, no doubt.

A large round of applause must go to the producers of Inside Burgundy. It is admirably laid out. The maps – in the Côte d'Or based on those of Sylvain Pitiot and Pierre Poupon – are excellent and appear exactly where they should in the text, largely in between the summary of the vineyards and the list of the growers therein. Those of the Mâconnais are particularly useful for, as far as I am aware, no other book on Burgundy presents this area in such a detail. Over all, Inside Burgundy is very user-friendly.

I am much obliged for the account of the prevailing winds and how the weather is likely to be depending on the direction the wind is coming from. Though, when it comes to the wind on Palm Sunday announcing the dominating wind of the summer - a Burgundian on dit, repeated in this book - I ask myself: has anyone done any research?

Each chapter, appellation by appellation, follows the same pattern: after an introduction the vineyards are listed, usually in alphabetical order, with the grands and premiers crus first, followed by those non-classed lieux-dit where the author has unearthed a separately bottled example. These climats are classified. Le Musigny is described as an 'outstanding grand cru', while Romanée-Conti and others are called 'exceptional'. Les Amoureuses, as it should be, is elevated to grand cru status. Clos Saint-Jacques is listed as 'exceptional premier cru or grand cru'. Then we have those appointed premier cru, of which the best are noted as 'exceptional premier cru' (inter alia Suchots, Malconsorts, Boudots, Les Saint-Georges, both ends of Epenots), and one, Caillerets in Chassagne-Montrachet, which is called a 'leading premier cru'. Apart from this last designation, which seems to me an unnecessary complication, I agree with this. The description of the vineyards is detailed and geologically exemplary, with quite often an interesting observation on the origins of the name ('Latricières derives somewhat tenuously from the Latin for 'nothing much''), and a list of the major producers. Of particular interest is the break-up of the growers in Echézeaux within the lieux-dit which make up this large vineyard. This was information I did not hitherto possses. Wisely, the hill of Corton is discussed separately lieu-dit by lieu-dit.

This is followed by details on the growers. Here I feel Jasper Morris has missed an opportunity. Why were they not classified like the vineyards? Yes, the senior members are given more space, and there is a list of what they exploit, but no star-rating (one, two or three, in a Michelin sense), of the best. Nor is there enough in the text, apart from negative remarks on those such as Camus and Rebourseau, for the reader to make up his own mind about grower X against grower Y. In addition the author could have to some extent rectified this by giving a list of the stand-out wines he has sampled at the three- and ten-year on tastings we both attend every year, in the section at the end of the book on vintages. But this opportunity, too, has been missed.

I agree with vast majority of growers Jasper Morris has singled out. Yes, they deserved to be singled out. But I feel he has been a little indulgent to Dominique Laurent, whose wines never seem to live up in bottle to the promise shown in cask, and to Lucien Lemoine, whose wines I find concocted. Moreover he has been gentle with those growers in Morey and Gevrey who had, even if this is now a fault of the past, a tendency to over-extract.

Who has he missed out? Not many. The brothers Guyon in Vosne, Olivier Jouan in Arcenats, Michel Gaunoux in Pommard, Latour-Giraud and René Monnier and one or two others in Meursault are a few of these which came to mind, plus a good dozen or so in the Côte Chalonnaise, which in general, as it always does, gets a bit of a short shrift. On the subject of Meursault I also think that not enough is made to differentiate between the wines produced up slope, above the premiers crus and further along the hillside to the north, and those made from the flat land below the village. The (unofficial) designation deuxième cru, for the former wines, is very useful here.

Inside Burgundy is well-written, with plenty by the way of personal quote and interesting little aside to break up the text, and so despite lots of detail on the wine-making techniques, it is never heavy going. It is also up to date and very free of errors and typos. I noticed five. (And I list these in no way to make myself seem superior, but so they can be corrected in a second edition.) In the list of major merchants in the introduction the vineyard figures for Jadot are asterisked indicating that they include major holdings outside the Côte d'Or, but not those of Bichot, Drouhin and Faiveley, who similarly have vineyards elsewhere, though this is rectified in the pages further onwards. In the section on Grands-Echézeaux the text has been garbled to make it appear that Jasper Morris prefers Echézeaux to Grands-Echézeaux. The patron of Drouhin is Robert Jousset (not Jeausset) Drouhin. The Domaine de la Pousse d'Or has sold its Santenay, Gravières to the Château de la Crée in that commune. And in the Chassagne chapter the name of Bernard Moreau appears twice, firstly over his own domaine holdings, and then next door over those of Jean-Marc Morey.

All in all Jasper Morris is to be warmly congratulated and thanked, as must Berry Bros for having sponsored the work. I wish Inside Burgundy the success it deserves.