A Year in Burgundy Page #2

and were starting again.

Michel's grapes used to go

to the local co-operative,

but 20 years ago, he started

making the wine himself.

The family now owns

about 24 acres(10 hectares).

By any normal

standards of agriculture,

this is still a tiny operation,

but it's profitable because the

added value of these wines-

even the less famous ones-is very large.

What's more,

their 24 acres(10 hectares) are spread out

across several miles.

A dozen disconnected vineyards.

This is their newest-tucked into a warm

and fortunate corner.

It's smaller than many people's

back yards.

What goes on here is more like

gardening than agriculture.

[Sebastien speaking French]

This will be the first year

we harvest these vines.

Theyre 3 years old.

With 3 or 4 bunches on each vine,

well get about 300 bottles from this field.

Thats the most they can produce,

because theyre very young.

Later, when we start to prune them

like the others,

theyll produce more.

When the vines established,

it will go into

full production in about 7 years.

[narrator]

People have been making wine in Burgundy

for almost 2000 years,

but it's never been easy.

When the Roman empire collapsed

the invading Goths

had little taste for the finer things in life.

The fledgeling wine business

might have died completely,

if it wasn't for Christianity.

The Christian Mass requires

that the death of Christ

be memorialized in bread and wine.

In the Dark Ages,

finding wine was no easy matter

in much of Europe.

But in the monasteries

and abbeys of Burgundy,

the communion wine was of a

quality unsurpassed anywhere.

These massive churches-

this is the abbey at Tournus-were built

in the Roman style.

The priests and monks

who presided over them

preserved much of the Roman knowledge

of fine living and wine

for more than 1000 years.

One small collection of buildings has survived,

incredibly,

from the medieval

wine industry in Burgundy.

This is Clos de Vougeot,

headquarters of wine-making for

the Cistercian monks.

This was wine production

on a heroic scale.

The vast wooden wine-presses still survive,

as do the storage vats,

in a series of huge wooden barns.

And they still stand,

right in the middle of the finest area

of Burgundian red-wine production:

the Cte de Nuits.

To this day,

there are dozens of ancient cellars in Burgundy,

built by Cistercian monks.

This one is owned by the

Domaine Morey-Coffinet,

further south,

in Chassagne Montrachet.

Thibault Morey, just 30,

is now the principal

wine-maker,

and his father Michel

runs the operation.

Martine visits them

two or three times a year

to select wines

for her list.

Martine has known this family

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