Wine aficionado and writer Clive Coates
a soul of sophistication: BURGUNDY ACCORDING TO CLIVE COATES Interview by Gary Hewitt, Sommelier (ISG, CMS), CWE
Clive Coates leveraged his early career as a wine merchant into one of a leading wine authority starting with his first published article in 1966 and subsequent erudite and widely read self-published wine review called Vine. Initially drawn to Bordeaux, his focus shifted to Burgundy in the early 1980s, as the region shifted to the practice of on-the-spot estate-bottling. He has followed Burgundy’s evolution with great interest, skill, and delight. Here he shares his animated insights with Gary Hewitt on Burgundy’s offerings to the contemporary wine consumer. Gary Hewitt: Mr Coates, you have had a very prolific winewriting career. You have devoted a great deal of time and energy to Burgundy and in semi-retirement, you produced a remarkable book called The Wines of Burgundy. I’d like to ask you: What first brought you to Burgundy those many years ago? Clive Coates: The history behind the domaines has always interested me. In the 20 years I was a wine merchant, I used to go to Bordeaux a lot, and, having more energy in those days, in the evenings I would address myself to one of the châteaux and ask them if they would put on a vertical tasting for me. I would ask questions about the domaine and then write a “château profile.” I had the field to myself, and the proprietors were only too willing to set up a tasting of fifteen to twenty vintages of their wines. Around 1975, I started writing regular châteaux profiles for Decanter magazine. By 1982 I had done about sixty, and I published my first book, which was called Claret. 34 www.banvilleandjones.com
Burgundy has always been bought in a different sort of way. Anyone can buy any Bordeaux châteaux they like—all they need is a cheque book. But in Burgundy, the domaines are somewhat smaller; they can only sell to one or two people in each country. Being a buyer for a large organization, I dealt mainly with the merchants. In those days, there were much fewer domaines pushing their own wine. In 1984, I stopped being a wine merchant and launched Vine. In the years since, just about everybody who has got a decent piece of land in Premier Cru or Grand Cru vineyards now bottles and markets themselves, which didn’t happen in the 1960s or the 1970s. Each time I returned to Burgundy, I witnessed more and more domaines making, or bottling, their own wine. Every time I went to Burgundy, I would take in one of the villages and go and see absolutely everybody. After about ten