This area is dedicated to wine professionals including sommeliers, restaurateurs, wine store owners importers and trainers. Welcome to your very own BIVB website where you can find all the tips and tools you need. You will find documentation, photography, training tools and all kinds of other useful information here to facilitate your search. You can also browse our events and training calendar and you are welcome to attend any that appeal. If you require any further information then don’t hesitate to contact us!
The harvests continue in the Bourgogne winegrowing region!
After some very hot and sunny weather in June and July, with temperatures up by 2.8°C on average compared to seasonal norms, August was more “normal”, up by just 0.7°C. The only downside was a lack of rainfall that has been going on since the beginning of the year, along with frost damage in the Mâconnais, with widespread millerandage and shatter that will have an impact on yields.
However, the few showers we had over the summer triggered véraison in mid-August and the grapes continued to ripen at a steady pace. The first harvests of grapes for making Crémant de Bourgogne began on 31 August in the southern part of the Bourgogne winegrowing region.
Picking for still wines began during the first week of September, from the Mâconnais to the Côte de Beaune. The Côte de Nuits and the Grand Auxerrois began a little later, between 13-15 September, while picking has only just begun on the Hautes Côtes. Indeed, the date each plot ripens varies, depending on whether the plot was hit by rainstorms or not.
Although the harvest looks like it may be less generous than normal in terms of yields – in particular in the Mâconnais, which was hit by springtime frost and by shatter, and the north of the region, with very little rain in Chablis since the end of June – the quality of the grapes suggests a very fine vintage. The perpetual challenge is to pick the grapes at the point when ripeness, sugar, and acidity are ideally balanced. Years that end in a nine are historically very good vintages in the Bourgogne winegrowing region, so confidence is high.
Crémant de Bourgogne
Crémant de Bourgogne wines are continually improving in terms of quality. The promise of a great Bourgogne wine with an added sparkle!
• A recent history
Sparkling Bourgogne wine made its first literary appearance in 1830, via the plume of Alfred de Musset, who celebrated it in his “Secrètes pensées de Raphaël”, and from the early 19th century was being produced in Chablis, Nuits-Saint-Georges, Rully, and Tonnerre.
The Crémant de Bourgogne AOC was created in 1975, in recognition of rigorous production conditions, traditional expertise, and high-quality vinification. The area of production covers the entire Bourgogne winegrowing region.
• Did you know?
This wine can be produced in white (blanc de blancs or blanc de noirs) and rosé. The best bottles are produced as vintage wines and are classified as Eminent or Grand Eminent, new classifications for the AOC which were introduced two years ago and have the most stringent production requirements. They are only now arriving on the market because they have to be aged on laths for a minimum of 24 months for Crémant de Bourgogne Eminent and 36 months for Crémant de Bourgogne Grand Eminent.
It’s all a matter of taste – lovers of lightly sparkling wines tend to prefer their Crémant de Bourgogne brut or extra-brut. But those who like a sweeter tipple may be charmed by the very few demi-sec options available.
• All the characteristics of a Bourgogne wine
For Grégory Georger, owner of Parigot & Richard, the words that make up this appellation are significant:
“The word ‘Crémant’, which guarantees the production process, and the word ‘Bourgogne’, which is also very important because lovers of Bourgogne wines know that they will find all the characteristics of a Bourgogne wine, namely sophistication, elegance, and authenticity.”
As the harvests continue in the Bourgogne winegrowing region, “The People and the Wines”, the second chapter in our series of films dedicated to the work of the winemaker, focusing on harvesting and vinification, will transport you into the universe of the Bourgogne winegrowing region’s wine houses and estates.
Once the grapes have been picked, vinification begins and step-by-step, the must is turned into wine. This is a very technical process that can be difficult to explain, even for the most educationally-minded! The process may have been unchanged over centuries, but each producer uses different techniques, depending on the wine he wants to produce, family traditions, the specifics of each plot, and the characteristics of the vintage.
The film will give you the keys to understanding how Bourgogne wines are made and how to explain this to your clients. This is a very practical tool for getting to grips with the wines you are tasting and all their subtleties.
Shot between September 2018 and May 2019 with a selection of Bourgogne producers, this 20-minute film, coproduced with Bourgogne Live, will lead you into the cellars of the Bourgogne winegrowing region where you can learn all the secrets of these processes that connect tradition with modernity.
Each episode of the interactive show, “Rendezvous with Bourgogne Wines”, brings together hundreds of industry professionals, journalists, influencers, and wine lovers from around the world.
The next edition, to be screened on 13 November, will be dedicated to the Beaune AOC. This Village appellation, in both red and white, is much less well-known than the city from which it takes its name. And yet, like the other lesser-known Bourgogne AOCs, it offers a very good quality-price-pleasure ratio and deserves a closer look. And what better moment to do that than on the eve of the celebrated Hospices de Beaune Wine Auction?
The show lasts for one hour. The first 20 minutes are dedicated to reports and interviews with winegrowers. The second part features a guided tasting of several wines that participants at the corresponding events organized around the world can sample simultaneously with Jean-Pierre Renard, expert trainer at the École des Vins de Bourgogne. At the end of the show, Jean-Pierre will answer questions asked by participants via Twitter with the #BIVBRDV hashtag.
The show is broadcast via satellite to 10 countries, in English at 9am, 11am, 6pm, and 10pm, and in French at 4pm. All times are local to France.
If you’d like to take part in the show, contact your local Official Bourgogne Wines Ambassador to find out more, but hurry, as space is limited.
Since its first edition in 1949, the Fête des Vins de Chablis has evolved a great deal, but its success has always been based on a single notion – that of conviviality!
On 26 and 27 October, the town center of Chablis will once again be hosting a wide range of events involving the wines of Chablis and the Grand Auxerrois. This festival is organized by the Chablis Tourist Office in partnership with the Bourgogne Wine Board (BIVB).
The program for the weekend:
• Saturday 26 October (12:30pm to 6pm): Wine tastings from around 40 estates and wine houses from Chablis and the Grand Auxerrois regions, an exhibition of winegrowing equipment, gastronomic food stalls, street entertainment, and the Confrérie banquet.
• Sunday 27 October (11am to 6pm): A walking tour of the Chablis vineyards, tasting stalls, the Piliers Chablisiens parade in the presence of the patrons of the 2019 vintage whose names will soon be announced, inaugurations, and street entertainment.
Further details and the full program will be announced soon, so put the dates in your diary right now!
The Bourgogne Wine Board (BIVB)’s Cave de Prestige is a very rigorous selection. The wines will represent the Bourgogne winegrowing region throughout the year at promotional industry and training events, in France and around the world. This year, the BIVB’s president hailed the ever-higher quality of the selection.
The 2019 edition was one of the most rigorous for the past 30 years, with just 12% of submissions selected, resulting in 190 winning wines. Almost all the 84 appellations of the Bourgogne winegrowing region are represented, from Régionale AOCs to Grand Crus.
This year, some 528 samples from vintages between 2015 and 2018 were presented for tasting, up 34% on 2018. Some 66% of the wines on offer came from the very fine 2017 vintage, which was more generous than 2016 for most of the appellations in the Bourgogne winegrowing region. 2018 will also be very promising.
For a list of the events organized by the BIVB where you will be able to discover these wines throughout the year, see the calendar below.
The 104th Tastevinage: A third of wines submitted made the grade
172 wines from 526 submissions from across the Bourgogne winegrowing region were selected at this springtime edition.
The Grand Cellier of the Château du Clos de Vougeot provided the backdrop for this major blind tasting.
The list of wines submitted stretches from Chablis to the Mâconnais, from Régionale appellations to Grand Crus, and including both still wines and Crémant de Bourgogne.
The selection for this label is rigorous, and the percentage of winning wines bears witness to the exacting nature of the competition. Of the wines tasted, only 172 were awarded the Tastevinage label: 90 red wines and 82 whites, along with 29 Crémant de Bourgogne, or 32.7% of all submissions.
With this new program, participants will be able to widen out their understanding of Bourgogne wines. Over the space of three days, wines from across the Bourgogne winegrowing region and from all levels of appellation will be tasted.
The content for the training has been created and developed in partnership between the Bourgogne Wine Board (BIVB), the German Wine School, and Ina Finn, Bourgogne Wines Official Ambassador.
This unique training, in German, will take place in Hamburg from 21-23 October, from 9am to 4:30pm.
As a sponsor and jury member at the final of the “Best French Wine Sommelier in Asia Competition” which runs from 10-12 December, Bourgogne wines are actively supporting the work of sommeliers in Asia.
As part of this event, on 12 December in Shanghai, the Bourgogne Wine Board (BIVB) will be hosting a masterclass for competing sommeliers. It will be hosted by Yang Lu, MS and official Bourgogne Wines Ambassador.
New: An essential book for understanding Chablis
“Chablis, the Crystalline Expression of a Terroir” is a new book exploring this celebrated cool-climate region.
A new book dedicated to the Chablis region and published by the Bourgogne Wine Board (BIVB) will hit the shelves at the end of September. Written by Sandrine Audegond, this 125-page book is packed with illustrations and available from the BIVB for just €14.50 including taxes.
“Chablis, the Crystalline Expression of a Terroir” follows on from the book written by Jean-Paul Droin on the origins of the names of the different Chablis Climats. This new book is more general, providing key information about terroir and production methods and a deeper exploration of the history of the Chablis appellations, along with the famous minerality of Chablis wines, so often discussed during tastings.
This is an essential work for widening out your knowledge of the wines of Chablis.
Bourgogne vs. Burgundy: to re-affirm their identity, the region and the producers are reverting back to the original French iteration of the name, Bourgogne.
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