Bernard Bouvier's Fixin, 2006

I didn't know this brand, but I bought it because I dig a good Bourgogne and also because it said "vieilles vignes" on the bottle. I've never seen a label that marketed the maturity of its vines - which makes a substantial difference in the maturity of the wine itself.

This is a delightfully rich and complex dinner wine - there's depth, but a warm little kiss of tart too, for personality. Whatever age those vines are, you can taste them, and they make good on the promise.

I Guess It Shouldn't Be Surprising.

I feel pressure to update this site now because I found out that people who know me read it. And actually use it for saying stuff. About wine.

Rogue French Winemakers Push Fake Pinot Noir to US Buyer

The court ruled [12 French winemakers and traders] had deliberately and repeatedly mislabelled the wine as one of the more expensive varieties of grape in order to get a better price from E and J Gallo [whose] [...] Red Bicyclette Pinot Noir single grape wine is hugely popular in the United States.

French Customs officers spotted the swindle and called in investigators.

They found the amount of Pinot Noir being sold to Gallo was far more than the region produced.

Well, that's disappointing. It also reminds me of something I read in Wine and War: French winemakers, hassled during WWII to keep the Germans elbow-deep in the fruits of their labour, reveled in collaborative efforts to bottle bad product behind beautiful labels.

In that context, I thought it funny. In this one, well, it just makes the whole thing stink slightly worse.