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Spectator Wine Club
Auberon Waugh
For Christmas drinking, I have chosen a bottle of mature and, in my opinion, magnificent old Burgundy which tastes ex- actly as the best Burgundy used to taste before the present craze for domaine- bottling spoiled the market with a rash of hard, thin wines, indifferently made and hideously overpriced. The year 1969 pro- duced, by general consent, the best Burgun- dy which is now drinking — we must wait a few years to see if the 1976 measures up to it — but there is little enough around, and what little there is seems horribly expensive. La Ronciere is a premier cru area of Nuits St Georges, too small to be very famous, and not reliable enough to be particularly prized by the cognoscenti. In 1969, it seems to have hit the jackpot. John Avery's father, who tasted it in the early Seventies, recognised this and instructed that none should be sold until the Eighties. In the in- tervening years, the fashion turned against English-bottled wines. This was largely for economic reasons, but it has had the in- teresting result that many wine snobs are
now reluctant to look at anything which has not got a French label, and Avery's are left with a consignment of first-class wine which they must sell at a fraction of the price it would command with a French label.
Wine snobs justify themselves by claim- ing that before we were caught up in the Common Market regulations regarding the labelling of wipe in 1972, it was quite nor- mal for English bottlers to shove on any old labels. This is no doubt true, but it never applied to respectable firms like Avery's (with whom the Spectator Wine Club is associated) or, indeed, to any of the better firms, who were able to buy each appella- tion controlee's over-production more cheaply and describe it correctly. It is also claimed that English firms used to lace their Burgundy with port and other stuff, although I doubt whether this would have been necessary in a really robust year like 1969. But if they did, I can only suggest they knew what they were doing! Pure Nuits St Georges can be a rough, hard, rather austere wine, without any of the rich, velvety qualities which we expect from at expensive old Burgundy. This Bristol , bottled specimen of 1969 reminds us of Pas: glories, when all the best wine of the wort°, - came to Britain, and we could afford to MI1 it. For those who enjoy a really grand 0Ic! Burgundy — at its peak now, althougll., should not think it will start to go down° noticeably in the next two or three years it seemed to me that Avery's asking Price of £9.94 for the Nuit St Georges Roncieres 1969 (by the double case, ordered on ac. count) was a bargain. After hard negonai Lion, the Spectator's Wine Club price of £8.45 the bottle (by the case or half ease' VAT and delivery included except for a small charge on the half-case) strikes me as something near a gift. Compare it, for to stance, with the £12.95 now being asked for 1976 Nuit St Georges, which should 00i be drunk for three or four years. If Specta1.. readers do not agree with me, the Club 011 obviously be short-lived. After Christina', we will move a little down-market, to se,ei what bargains I can find in the £44 bracket, as well as recommending an dinary table wine. But if readers would It' me to go on rooting around at the toP of the market, Avery's cellar is a huge °II; and nothing would give me more Pleasttr; than to try. A Cheval Blanc of 1959 al tinder £24 must be a bargain, although,, would never dream of paying £24 for a bill' tle of wine myself. About £12 is MY (39' ceiling, but I would be delighted to Ile', from readers with more ambitious ideas'
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