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ALLEN D. MEADOWS and DOUGLAS E. BARZELAY: Burgundy Vintages: A History from 1845. Burghound Books, Tarzana, CA, 2018, 583 pp., ISBN 978-0-692-19412-6, $79.99.
Even Burgundy wine enthusiasts, when confronted with a heavy tome called “Burgundy Vintages: A History from 1845,” may take a deep breath. The book's authors, former banker Allen Meadows and retired lawyer Douglas Barzelay, both not merely enthusiasts but obsessives, have disgorged thousands of personal tasting notes for almost every one of those 175 vintages. The earliest, an 1845 Clos de Vougeot, was on the vine in the year that Texas entered the Union as a slave state. Most of the entries carry detailed impressions from both authors, often based on tastings of multiple bottles of the same wine. Meadows (a.k.a. Burghound, publisher of an eponymous wine-rating periodical) tends to be the tougher grader. As an example, Barzelay highly praises Domaine Ponsot's 1961 Clos de la Roche as a “brilliant wine, the essence of Clos de la Roche” (p. 255). He awards it 98 points on the 100-point scale. Meadows will have none of it: “I confess to being disappointed, as I had expected great things, particularly given how taken Doug is with this wine. Perhaps one day” (p. 255). His score: 88.
That divergence of opinion over the same wine (if not the same bottle), even when tasters are ultra-experienced and respectful of each other, goes to the heart of what keeps us interested in wine: It is a liquid that whispers its intimacies to each of us differently.
It would seem to be a no-brainer that even the best bottles of Burgundy's pinot noir, typically lighter in color and tannin than the Medoc's best cabernet sauvignon, are doomed to lose out on longevity. That notion is put to rest in these tasting notes. “I couldn't get over just how spectacular the mouthfeel and unreal complexity were and even at almost 160 years of age, this is cruising along like it will live forever,” enthuses Meadows over Bouchard Pere & Fils’ 1958—oops, I meant to type 1858—Chambolle Musigny (p. 33). Here, the authors did find common ground; Barzelay judged the same wine to be “both powerful and elegant, with great harmony and still a lot of power on the finish”...