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MONOPOLE - Burgundy's Unshared Treasures
Bill Nanson |
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It's really all Napoleon's fault: the laws of inheritance where assets are equally divided amongst children has led – particularly in Burgundy it would seem – to the constant subdivision of vineyard ownership. This tangled web of ownership ensures a flow of wines that provide the joy of discovery, but equally a disappointing lack of consistent quality; it is both the strength and the 'Achilles Heel' of the region. It is precisely because of these inheritance laws that Monopoles are relatively rare.
A monopole is a vineyard with a single ownership, whether by familial consent, good fortune or the patient accumulation of vineyard as land comes up for sale. They represent just a single and in historical terms fleeting expression of what a wine produced on these particular pieces of land can achieve.
MONOPOLE is neither a critique of wine producing techniques, nor a reference book for quickly out of date wine-tasting notes. MONOPOLE is a glimpse of the history behind 150 vineyards, the families (as opposed to corporations) that own them and an idea of the current expression of the wines that are produced.
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