Many wine lovers associate Burgundy's Vosne-Romanee district with the most famous producer, Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, typically referred to as DRC. But there are some 30 other growers producing wine in this region of France, and my favourites include Henri Jayer, Georges Mugneret-Gibourg (careful, there are four producers sporting the Mugneret name), Leroy, Etienne Grivot, Robert Arnoux, Anne Gros and, finally, M?o-Camuzet, which visited Hong Kong recently. Burgundy has been slower to take off in our markets, but there's a ground swell of enthusiasm for the region at present. So grab your hat and begin buying before you are priced out of the market.
Burgundians focus on minute plots of land like no other wine growers in the world. Many own only a few rows of famed sites, a result of Napoleon's inheritance codes caused family holdings to fracture. These days, most histor- ical families own a patchwork of vineyard sites on Burgundy's C?te d'Or slopes. Although terroir undoubtedly plays a role in wine character, equally important are a winemaker's techniques. There are a few to tinker with, including: chilling the juice a few days before fermentation (known as cold soaking), whole or partial cluster fermentation, inclusion or exclusion of stems, temperature variations and frequency of pigeage (pushing the skins back down into the juice).
Domaine Meo-Camuzet was established at the turn of the last century, when Etienne Camuzet began to accumulate important vineyard holdings, including Burgundy's only chateau, Clos de Vougeot. He later donated the chateau to Burgundy's ceremonial but fun-loving fraternity, the Confrerie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, the Hong Kong branch of which is led by The Swank group's David Hong Kin-hay.
The domaine draws its strength from years of guidance by the late Henri Jayer. Etienne Camuzet's great-great nephew, Jean-Nicolas M?o, recently confided: 'We still make wine with a method that is inspired by Henri Jayer.
'Our wines are very fruity, open fragrant, pleasant, appealing, perhaps a little more tannic than Henri's wines. That's my taste and an evolution with viticulture.'
Evolution indeed. A believer in whole cluster fermentation, but unhappy with the core stem's effect on wine character, the team opted, in 2009, to surgically extract the main stem, while leaving the thinner stems attached to the grapes: a painstaking process.
These wines are available via wine importers, including Watson's Wine Cellar (tel: 2606 8828):