Hi Allan,
Your call forinformation has jogged my
memory. There was a big to-do in British wine writing circlesin
1995as a result ofstatements Robert Parker made about a
particularlypoor vintage (1993)of Hermitage wines (Northern
Rhone).For Parker, the only decent wines to emerge that year were made by
Michel Chapoutier, an outspoken advocate of BD (and the man wholent me my
first copy of the Ag lectures!)
Parkersaid, in effect,that the only
reason Chapoutier's wines succeeded in such a poor vintage wasthat he used
BD techniques.This caused quite a fuss in London; some of my former colleagues
held a big blind tasting (Chapoutier's wines alongside other Rhone producers of
that vintage in masked bottles, so nobody could tell which wines they were
tasting) to see if they agreed with Parker's claims. Here's a link to an
exhaustive, somewhat tongue-in-cheek account of that tasting: http://www.winedine.co.uk/page.php?cid=259
The piece contains a couple of enthusiastic comments by Parker about
BD.
The Brits present at that tasting
disagreed comprehensively with Parker's assessment,but there's no reason
for that to trouble him. As far as I know hecontinues to be an
enthusiastic supporter of Chapoutier wines as well as many other
topwinemakers who have adopted BD.
If you're looking for more general wine
writing on BD, my book The Great Organic Wine Guidecontains a
chapter of 5000 words of introduction to BD from a grape grower's perspective.
I'd be happy to email that chapter to you as a Word attachment if that would be
useful.
Regards,
Hilary
