Premier cru project

It will come as no surprise if I tell you that I'm frequently stopped in the street by those avidly following the AdV blog (N=2) and there's always one question on their lips: how many premier crus have you had so far?

G and I embarked on the Premier Cru Project (or PCP as I like to call it, although apparently this is also the name of a dodgy drug, but I'm an innocent-minded soul and didn't know that when I started calling it that and I don't see why I should change now) a couple of years ago. Our mission: to drink a wine from every premier cru vineyard in Burgundy.

The first step was to establish a definitive list of these vineyards. This in itself posed some problems. There is a list on Wikipedia (or there used to be, I've looked for it just now and hilariously the "premier cru" link takes you to the entry about Bordeaux - argh!), and I also used my trusty Yellow Book aka The Wines of Burgundy by Sylvain Pitiot and Jeans-Charles Servant, which has some very useful maps. However the cross-referencing isn't as good as it could be, and we discovered that a number of vineyards are on the list but not on the map or vice versa, a real problem when you're colouring in the maps in different shades to reflect the different scores. (Him, not me, I hastily point out.)

Let's just say there are in the region of 600 premier cru vineyards. So far we've covered 129 and it's only going to get harder from now on, as some probably don't exist as individual wines and end up in blends, we've had all the ones easily obtainable in the UK apart from those that are sold at ridiculous prices, and we want mature examples because arguably most premier crus are at their peak between 5 and 10 years. In our haste we have drunk things too young, and occasionally we've had something that has been over the hill.

A quick look back on some highlights. These wines all got a score of 10, which is defined as the heavenly choirs singing.

Reds:

1999 Beaune Greves from Yves Darviot. Probably the best wine ever in terms of value for money. It's light and ethereal and has a lovely perfume. The perfect expression of a cote de beaune red.

1999 Vosne Romanee Clos de Reas from Michel Gros. Costs three times as much as the Beaune, but a different beast altogether. Rich, powerful, and utterly delicious. My desert island red.

Whites:

2004 Meursault Charmes from Verget. A lovely golden colour. Rich, fat, buttery, nutty Meursault. ACC sold it to us at a very favourable price. I wish I could get some more.

1982 Puligny, Hameau de Blagny from Bzikot. This was a rarity sourced from Mon Millesime in Beaune, and had developed into something very special - very well-balanced, seamless, and, er, "haunting".

Scores on the doors:

10 = heavenly choirs, sell your granny to get some more: 19

9 = lovely stuff, buy all you can afford: 41

8 = pretty good, would consider buying again if price is right: 42

7 = adequate but wouldn't buy again: 21

6 = disappointing: 4

5 = shit: 1. NB this was a Montagny, the only village in Burgundy which can call any of its wines premier cru if they are above a certain level of alcohol (11.5% off the top of my head). In other words, the classification is meaningless for Montagny and I firmly believe it should not be included in the project, particularly if it means we have to put ourselves through such miserable experiences.

0 = faulty: 1 (actually it's higher than that but I've removed other offending articles from the spreadsheet which was probably a mistake). These things happen, it's a risk you take with this stuff that sometimes it will be corked or oxidised.

Hope that adds up to 129, or my reputation as London's finest bean-counter will be blown!

Interesting that this looks remarkably like a normal distribution, with a mean of about 8.3. Of course there are a lot of variables that we have not controlled for - primarily vintage and producer - but even so we have learned an awful lot about Burgundy from doing this. As someone who does not suffer from Asperger's, for me it's worth the tedious donkey work involved in making proper notes and putting them on a spreadsheet, because then I can look back on what I've had and make discoveries and connections. Nerdy but fun.