Highly Recommended for Burgundy fans...

books:


	• The Wines of Burgundy: Revised Edition Clive Coates M.W. University of California Press, 2008 - 896 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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Highly Recommended for Burgundy fans...

This is the long-awaited second edition of Clive Coates' Cote d'Or book. It contains an amazing level of details on the Burgundy producers, regions, districts, and vineyards. This edition also covers vintages from 1959 forward, up to and including a brief review of the 2007 vintage. It's mind boggling how much information there is. And it's also envy-inducing to realize how much wines Mr. Coates has tasted over the years. :-)

The first chapter is fascinating reading for a wine newbie like me. It contains information on the wine making process, vineyard management, and how to best enjoy the bottles. I especially love the Vougeot map where each producer's plot is outlined. (See Maps: The Cote de Nuits page 15). And having tasted the 1997 Jean Grivot Vosne Romanee Beaux Monts and found it full of fruit and elegance (despite that vintage's reputation), I am very happy to see that Mr. Coates has elevated Domaine Jean Grivot to 3 stars. Of course prices for Jean Grivot's wines will be rising accordingly now that Mr. Coates has given the Domaine a higher rating but, c'est la vie, non?

Happy reading and tasting!

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Indispensable.....

Burgundy is perhaps the most confusing wine region in the world. This book is THE BIBLE on burgundy. To anyone wanting to understand the differences between each climat or producer, this IS the book to read.

I find it pretty easy to read. Although one warning: This is not a book for the wine beginners. You'd be better off going for "Red and White" as an introduction, then THe World Altas of Wine as an intro to Burgundy (and other regions/countries) first. If you have conquered the burgundy section in the world altas and still yearns for more, this is the book to get.

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A Good Sequel

Clive Coates' previously published "Cote d'Or" is unsurpassed in its comprehensive research on Burgundy's vineyards, vintages, history, and profiles of Burgundy's domaines. He was a much younger man then, active in his profession and in better health, hence the gargantuan effort he poured into that epic volume is impossible to duplicate over a decade later by a man in retirement for several years now and in lesser health. I don't view his just published "The Wines of Burgundy" a "revised edition" as the subtitle states, but rather a sequel. In this sense he has published a fine volume that extends the reach of his first book on Burgundy. Both volumes should be on every Burgundy lover's desk.

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New... but is it improved?

If you go back and look at the reviews for the first edition of this book, "Cote d'Or," you will see I could not heap enough praise on it. I awaited this revision to see a compendium of Mr. Coates' tasting notes for the years beyond 1996, where the original volume dropped off. A lot has happened in Burgundy in a decade, and I expected to see Clive's typically insightful comments on the new wave of young winemakers, the effect of global warming, the continued move toward organic and biodynamic methods, the move away from exaggerated use of new oak and so on. And I really wanted to see which domaines might find their way for the first time into the extended section of detailed domaine profiles; what new tidbits of news would be included about the old standbys, and whether any would be pulled because Mr. Coates believes they have lost their touch.

Well, the first book was a tough act to follow, and I'm not yet convinced this one lives up to its promise. I may get more comfortable with the new version with time, but I think the decision to abandon the detailed profiles of key domaines that took up about 350 pages of the first edition was not merely bad judgment, but a fatal error.

The introductory section was and remains a nice, succinct overview. The section on Chablis seems quite perfunctory. Biss & Smith's "Wines of Chablis" (Writers International 2000) has more to offer, albeit it is not as up to date. The section on the Cote Chalonnaise is short but seems quite useful, and I know of no single volume in English devoted to it that would compete.

But all in all, it seems the Lord taketh more than he giveth back in this revision.

One more quibble -- the tasting notes swallow up most of the volume, not because new vintages are added, but because they are now in a large type version. Being ten years on since the first edition myself, perhaps I should appreciate this. But it strikes me as padding. Had the notes in this book been done up in the original typeface, the new book would be perhaps 600 pages long, I'd guess, or about 250 pages shorter than the original. and at that, there would be plenty of room for the extended profiles of the great domaines. So why was this done? I'll state the cynical view here... it would have required a very considerable effort to update the original domaine profiles, so rather than attempt that daunting task, they were simply yanked.

All in all, it seems to me the book adds a tiny bit by reaching out beyond the Cote d'Or, but takes away a great deal by eliminating the fascinating domaine profiles that were the heart and soul of the original volume.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a very good book. But for my high expectations, based on the original, perhaps I would be raving about it here. But grading in context -- as Clive Coates would be the first to advocate -- it doesn't sing "grand cru."

I think I will find myself going back to the ten year old "Cote d'Or" more often than I will turn to this one.

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Ten years after the publication of the highly acclaimed, award-winning Côte D'Or: A Celebration of the Great Wines of Burgundy, the "Bible of Burgundy," Clive Coates now offers this thoroughly revised and updated sequel. This long-awaited work details all the major vintages from 2006 back to 1959 and includes thousands of recent tasting notes of the top wines. All-new chapters on Chablis and Côte Chalonnaise replace the previous volume's domaine profiles. Coates, a Master of Wine who has spent much of the last thirty years in Burgundy, considers it to be the most exciting, complex, and intractable wine region in the world, and the one most likely to yield fine wines of elegance and finesse. This book is an indispensable guide for amateur and professional alike by one of the world's leading wine experts, writing with his habitual expertise, lucidity, and unequaled firsthand knowledge.

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