Double-barreled

Coucou y’all.

In the northern hemisphere, we are well into spring, losing an hour of beauty rest but also clawing our way out of seasonal depression. I can see the light and it is glorious.

Over the weekend, I went to check up on my vines following the hail that we had earlier, and so far things are looking good. The buds have mostly burst, and if the little vines manage to survive the anticipated frosty weather this week, then hopefully the pace of things will increase as the growing season kicks off in earnest.

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There’s a lot to catch up on. A few weeks ago I went to a local wine fest in Grevenmacher (Luxembourg) to check out what people are making locally in what I like to call a “benchmarking exercise”. When you enter, they give you a little baguette. How civilized!

When visiting the stand of one of the more reputed wineries, Alice Hartmann, I discovered they have a project with some friends in Napa who make a typical Napa blend (Cab Sauv/Merlot/Cab Franc), slap a label on it, and import it to Luxembourg.

I have no idea what the price is yet, but I found it amusing and decided I should get a bottle to take all the way back to California when I go for my next visit. I’m working on it.

In another “benchmarking exercise”, I visited Henri Ruppert for a little tour and tasting and lunch. The winery is in Schengen of Schengen Area fame. You can thank the Schengen Agreement (1985) and Schengen Convention (1990) for the borderless travel you enjoy when you visit the EU.

I’ve also been working on a write-up of the latest installment of the Flight Club: Burgundy Villages, but the fancy schmancy chart I envisioned has taken longer than anticipated.

So, in the meantime I thought a nice little nugget to tide things over would be to tell the story of why so many Burgundy wines have hyphenated names. See, Burgundy has been hyphenating names long before feminism and the 90s made it cool.

Today, I’ll discuss the historical context, which side of the hyphen means what, and some exceptions. Because Burgundy.

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The man behind the hyphen

If you are familiar with Burgundy (and even if you’re not), you’ve probably seen hyphenated names on their wine labels. What is that all about?

Contrary to what you and I might think, it has nothing to do with big wine families intermarrying or communes merging and everything to do with marketing and France’s last king, King Louis-Philippe, who reigned from 1830 - 1848.

Today’s story was meant to be a very practical, instructional one, but cursory research on L-P revealed he lived a pretty incredible, if volatile, life, which I think deserves at least a quick overview.

So, we’re just going to do a little detour to hit some milestones in his life story because honestly, it’s just too good to leave his legacy constrained to wine labels.

L-P was born in 1773 during the reign of Louis XV. Growing up as a prince, he experienced court life at Versailles at its most decadent under Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Not too bad.

Then—plot twist—he joined the military during the French Revolution and became the youngest general in France. His dad, the Duke of Orléans, was the son of a regicide, who both supported and voted for the death of King Louis XVI. Turns out that was not a great look, so L-P ended up in exile, outcast and penniless.

In exile, he did what anyone would do: he became a professor of mathematics in Switzerland. He taught at Reichenau under an assumed name, Chabaud de la Tour. Your guess is as good as mine.

Professor de la Tour was not only interested in math, however. He also took an interest in the cooking staff, and managed to get the school cook pregnant.

He eventually had to move along, not so much because of scandal (as one might assume) but rather because it was creating too much heat in the school kitchen!

So L-P moved on to cooler climes—the North Pole, to be exact—becoming the first European (or at least Frenchman) to reach the North Pole in 1795.

It gets even better.

L-P then spent three+ years in the United States from 1796 - 1800, where at some point he treated the chief of the Seneca tribe, who was ill, with a bleeding.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Finally, coming full-circle, he went back to Europe and married Princess Marie Amelia of Bourbon and the Two Sicilies.

Not only was she from one of the most conservative royal families, but also the marriage was slightly awkward because Marie Amelia’s mother's younger sister was Queen Marie Antoinette, and Louis-Philippe's father was considered to have a role in Marie Antoinette's execution. But, all’s well that ends well: the family managed to get over it. Standard royal stuff, innit.

After the fall of Napoleon, L-P regained his status and fortune before the Revolution of 1830 put him on the throne, where he stayed until yet another revolution saw him abdicate in 1848, and eventually leave France for England where he died in exile in 1851.

Honestly, becoming the king of France is the least interesting thing about L-P’s life.

Second to that is perhaps the one very important thing he did on the way out the door in 1847. (OK, maybe not important but it was a thing.) I bet you’ll never guess!

Hyphens!

To understand how and why name-hyphening became a thing, we have to rewind even further back.

Way before King L-P, Burgundy wine thrived under the four Dukes of Burgundy who ruled from 1363 - 1477. By the time the 17th century rolled around, Burgundian wines were 10x more expensive than other wines and as such, they were the preserve of the boujee.

At the same time, the French royalty and nobility started building châteaux along the Loire and summering there, drinking Loire wines. This made Loire wines more popular and eroded Burgundy’s standing in the market. Bad news.

To make matters worse, the French Revolution (1789 - 1799) saw the break-up of many of the monopoles (which the Napoleonic Code of Inheritance further divided), then different mildews and Phylloxera arrived in the mid-1800s, decimating the vineyards.

It was a pretty, pretty bad time, particularly for wine growers who were not lucky enough to farm parcels among the best vineyards, which were (and still are) big name brands in their own right (see my post here about the appellation hierarchy).

So, in 1847 the winemakers of the village of Gevrey petitioned King Louis-Philippe to allow them to append the name of its most famous vineyard—a grand cru called Chambertin—to the village name. That way, they could ride the coattails of the grand cru and try to sell enough of their not-grand-cru wine to survive what was arguably the worst period in winemaking history.

Consider the logic in another context: Florentine leathermakers petition to append “Gucci” to “Florence” so every small leathermaker in town can label their products as coming from “Florence-Gucci”.

I like to imagine maybe L-P just liked the idea of the world having more hyphenated names like his own.

Anyway, L-P agreed and so “Gevrey” became “Gevrey-Chambertin”. The rest, as they say, is history.

Some exceptions

When Gevrey-Chambertin met with success, other villages followed suit. You may recognize some of them:

• Morey-Saint-Denis

• Chambolle-Musigny

• Flagey-Echézaux

• Vosne-Romanée

• Aloxe-Corton

• Puligny-Montrachet

• Chassagne-Montrachet

However, among the villages that copied Gevrey, it’s important to note that not all of them have a grand cru. Rather, some villages’ best, highest-ranking vineyard is a premier cru. Some examples:

• Nuits-Saint-Georges

• Pernand-Vergelesses

• Auxey-Duresses

• Puilly-Fuissé

But wait, there’s more! It wouldn’t be wine without more exceptions. Some villages’ names were already hyphenated, so the second half of their names is not referring to a vineyard at all—don’t be fooled!:

• Marsannay-la-Côte

• Chorey-lès-Beaune (“lès” meaning “near” or “next to”, so “Chorey near/next to Beaune”)

• Savigny-lès-Beaune

• Ladoix-Serrigny

And that’s still not all! Not every village decided to hyphenate. At least this exception makes our lives easier, though. Some notable examples:

• Volnay

• Meursault

• Pommard

• Vougeot

• Santenay

OK, that’s all.

Voilà! Now you know where Burgundy’s double-barreled names come from, the guy who made it happen, how to decipher the hyphen, and some notable exceptions to the “rule”.

Florence-Gucci.