Can the Men With Purple Toes Save Burgundy?

“The vigneron never adulterates his wine, but on the contrary gives it the most perfect and pure care possible. But when once a wine has been in a merchant’s hands, it never comes out unmixed. This being the basis of their trade, no degree of honesty, of personal feeling or of kindred prevents it.”

--Thomas Jefferson, wine collector

Burgundy is the wine country of individualism and uniqueness. Over the years, particular plots of ground--often quite tiny--have won world fame for consistently yielding wines with unique characteristics.

Particular vineyards stand out in other wine regions too, but the issue of precisely where the grapes in a bottle of wine were grown is most critical in Burgundy. A wine lover may be willing to pay plenty for a bottle of genuine Meursault in order to enjoy its famous nutty, creamy character. Puligny-Montrachet commands a premium for its stronger acidity and leaner finish, and Chassagne-Montrachet for a softer, gentler character.

Unfortunately, even as wine prices have risen, such traditional typical qualities have gotten harder and harder to find. One reason is that vineyard land in Burgundy is divided into many small plots, frequently owned by individual farmers, called vignerons, who raise the grapes and make the wine and then sell it to negociants-- large commercial concerns that satisfy consumer demand by blending the wines of various vignerons . A major house may buy 10 barrels from one producer, 12 from another and 20 from still another, bring it all back to a central location and blend it in order to simplify marketing.

This has been going on for a long time, and it has its dangers. Blending can rob a wine of its regional identity. A wine from Meursault might be exceptionally good white wine--but, as the purists say, “It’s not Meursault.” That is, it doesn’t have that certain Meursault character.

And at times, even worse. Wine merchant Kermit Lynch discussed one tactic in his splendid 1988 book “Adventures on the Wine Route” (Noonday Press: $9.95):

“(A grower in Chambolle-Musigny) told me he had sold off his 1977 wines to a negociant because he was not happy with them. The negociant’s tanker truck arrived and into it went the Bonnes Mares (a grand cru ), the Chambolle Les Amoureuses (a premier cru ) and his Chambolle-Villages. All into the same tank. Yet the negociant also picked up the documents that would allow him to market bottles under the separate labels Bonnes Mares, Les Amoureuses and Chambolle-Musigny. The repercussions of this little tale resound endlessly.”

And sometimes the blended wines didn’t even come from Burgundy at all. Mike Lynch of Pacific Wine Co. says he thinks Burgundy today is actually better, on average, than it was years ago, because “back in the old days there was a tendency to add wine from other, warmer regions to fortify the wines--wines from the Rhone or Algeria. But today wines from the better producers are better and more consistent than they were 50 years ago.”

John Hailman of Oxford, Miss. has written an as yet unpublished manuscript on Thomas Jefferson and his wines. Even in his day, says Hailman, Jefferson recognized the lower quality of many wines from negociants and referred to the people who made such wines as “Monsieur Melange”--Mr. Mixer.

The prevalence of this blending system means that the production of Burgundy with true character is in the hands of smaller producers, many of whose wines are so much in demand that their prices are ludicrous. The best Burgundies enter the United States at $80 and $100 a bottle on release and move up from there as the demand grows. Often the price and quality bear no relationship to one another, and between the blended wines of the negociants and these overpriced premium wines, the reputation of Burgundy is beginning to suffer.

But there are also tiny farmhouse vignerons in Burgundy who make only one barrel of this, one barrel of that. What becomes of these odd barrels, when they’re truly great and typical of the region where the grapes grew?

That question gnawed at two men who ply their trade within a few miles of each other, both with the same last name, but who are unrelated and whose buying patterns are different.

Wine merchants Kermit Lynch and Mike Lynch are solving the crisis of confidence in Burgundy by buying wine direct from the men with purple toes, small traditional producers who ordinarily sell their wine to negociants. Both Lynches go out to the villages of Burgundy, where roads are ruts. They taste wine out of barrels, find what they like, cut a deal and have the wine bottled with their own labels.

Mike Lynch, owner of Pacific Wine Co. here, says it all began six years ago. “I walked into one grower in Gevrey-Chambertin and I tasted a wine that was just phenomenal,” he says. “I asked what was going to become of it, and he told me he was selling it to one of the larger negociants along with a lot of other stuff. This one great barrel was going to be dumped into a blending tank!

“I asked, ‘Can I buy it?’ and the guy said yes.” However, the vigneron didn’t want his name used on the wine because it might later poison his relationship with the negociant .

A year later, the 1986 Pacific Wine Co. Gevrey-Chambertin “Les Cazetiers” was selling for $26 a bottle. “It was a steal,” said Mike.

Who made the wine? There are about 20 owners of land in the Cazetiers vineyard; your guess is as good as mine. Mike’s not saying.

Mike Lynch works with wine broker Charles Moncaut of Beaune, who knows growers who sell strictly to major houses.

“Some of the negociant’s wines have lost their regional character, but I was finding some extraordinary wines that were being dumped into someone’s blending tank,” said Mike. “These were wines of perfect ‘typicity’ of appellation. By the time the wines were blended the regional character was gone.”

The other Lynch, Kermit, started out a decade ago when the dollar was strong, buying lower-quality wines for Kermit Lynch Imports in Berkeley. “I launched my own label doing inexpensive French country wines,” he says, “like Vouvray Sec, Cremant de Bourgogne and Bordeaux Blanc.” He still offers lower-priced wines under his own label, such as an excellent 1989 Cotes du Rhone now offered at $6.95.

“One day,” he says, “I walked into a Cotes du Rhone cellar and found an excellent cuvee , and I wanted to import it. But he already had an American importer, so it occurred to me, ‘Why not buy the wine and use my own label?’ I knew I couldn’t use the name of the producer, which can hurt sales.”

He began to use the phrase “Cuvee Selectionnee par Kermit Lynch” on his labels. “I’ve been able to get a number of wonderful wines this way,” he says. Lynch’s loyal clientele has learned to trust these “unbranded” wines.

Mike Lynch said he buys strictly by quality without a great deal of concern for price because his typical purchase is one or two barrels from a producer. (One barrel of wine makes about 25 cases.) “When we walk into a grower in Meursault, the wine has to taste like Meursault. I don’t care how flashy or dramatic the wine is, it has to be Meursault. When you go to a major house, the wines usually taste less like the appellation and more like the house style. I don’t want wines like that.”

Though both men travel to Burgundy regularly (Kermit lives in France six months each year), they have never crossed paths there. Mike buys from vignerons who sell most of their production to major negociants ; Kermit usually buys from small producers who have their own brands and ship to the United States through other importers.

Both say their direct-import programs are small. “It represents less than 1% of what I’m doing,” says Kermit. “I’ll typically buy maybe 20 barrels a year.” Mike Lynch buys about 10 or 12 barrels of classified Burgundies and another 15 barrels of wines from other regions. Both offer some wines of exceptional quality at prices that are reasonable compared with many Burgundies.

Kermit is now selling a wonderful 1989 Meursault Poruzot for $39.95; 1988 Bourgogne Blanc at $12.50, and 1989 Cotes du Rhone at $6.95. Pacific Wine Co. now has under its own label a half dozen wines including a marvelous 1989 Gevrey-Chambertin “Clos St. Jacques” at $50, an excellent 1990 Macon Villages at $8.99, 1989 Cote de Nuits-Villages at $17.99 and 1987 Gevrey-Chambertin at $19.99.

To receive flyers on the direct import programs, write to Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, 1605 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, Calif. 94702-1317, (510) 524-1524; or to Pacific Wine Co., 124 Spear St., San Francisco, Calif. 94105, (415) 896-0407.