A Year in Burgundy

Where does really great wine come from?

From the heart and the mind of those

who create it.

The finest winemakers are artists

and what they do is unique.

This is a gala wine-tasting in San Francisco.

Some of the best winemakers in the world are here.

Martine Saunier organizes this annual event.

She has spent most of her life

in the world of wine

in France, in the United States,

and around the world.

Martine only imports wine from

people she knows personally.

In some cases,

she's known these family winemakers

for five generations.

Star of the show are the Burgundies.

Tasting them are sommeliers, chefs,

owners of the best restaurants and wine stores

from across the western United States.

They're deciding what to buy this year,

and it's tough.

Some Burgundies are so rare,

they sell for over a thousand dollars,

and that's the wholesale price.

But why is one bottle of wine

so much more special than another?

It depends on the uniqueness of the taste

a perfect balance of nature-the terroir-

and human artistry.

To understand why Burgundy

may be the most special wine region on Earth,

you must visit and meet the people.

Travel with us, and with Martine Saunier,

to spend a year in Burgundy.

Burgundy lies at the heart of France.

Human beings have lived here

for more than 20,000 years.

To the west there are hills,

and to the east,

the rich alluvial plain of the river Sane.

And it was up this river

that the Roman came 2000 years ago,

looking for new lands to conquer,

and new things to discover.

What they found here was a great surprise.

Vines of an unparalleled quality,

and so far north!

To be sure, they weren't organized

into tidy rows in vineyards,

as they are today.

But the original varietals of

two of the world's most famous grapes

are native to this are.

The white Chardonnay and the red Pinot Noir.

To this day, virtually all Burgundy wine

is made from Chardonnay or Pinot Noir.

These two grapes are the real heroes of our story.

The Saunier family have lived in

Southern Burgundy for generations.

They've owned this house since the 19th century-

though the house itself dates back to the 1650s

Martine first came here as a young girl.

Every summer, she would travel out from Paris

to visit her aunt

and spend three glorious months in wine country.

This house holds many memories.

In the cellar is an ancient wine press,

still complete in every detail.

It was here, as a girl,

that Martine discovered her passion.

I was a cellar-rat.

They called me a cellar-rat because...

I used to follow the winemaker everywhere.

His name was Camille and he had a horse,

La Margaux,

and we went to the vineyard

and I loved every aspect of it.

Today, whenever she returns to Burgundy,

Martine shares this house with her brother Jacques,

an old black dog, and the family Deux Chevaux.

Driving these things is quite an art.

An art that's easily forgotten

after a few months in California.

Martine's wine distribution business

is based near San Francisco,

but at least three times a year,

she returns to France to spend time with her winemakers.

That means personal visits at all stages of the winemaking year.

She often starts near her own home,

in the Mcon region.

This is the southernmost frontier of Burgundy

-classic Chardonnay country.

Her first appointment is with Dominique Cornin.

Dominique was born just 2 miles (3 km) from here,

in a house in Chaintr.

His father was the first to clear these fields.

[speaking French]

I never went to university or studied wine at all.

My mother didnt want me to be a winemaker.

I followed three generations of winemakers,

but my mother didnt like it as a trade.

So she did everything she could to discourage me

and I studied engineering.

But I still managed to learn about winemaking...

Every vacation, whenever I had 5 minutes,

I was in the vines with my father,

watching what he did.

[narrator]

Dominique employs a couple of people year-round.

Almost everything is done by hand.

They make Pouilly-Fuiss

and other village appellations.

For small producers,

one bad year can wipe them out-

and 2011 had started very strangely in Burgundy.

The New Year was cold,

but then, at the end of February,

a heat-wave hit the region.

For six weeks, daytime temperatures reached

85 degrees fahrenheit(29C).

By April 12th

the vines were three weeks more advanced than normal.

[speaking French]

In case you get frost,

theres a second bud

that can save the crop, right?

[narrator]

The fear is frost.

If the buds develop too many leaves to early,

one severe frost can kill the whole lot.

At this stage in the year,

there's not much to be done,

except watch the sky and pray.

The unseasonable hot weather

has brought on the vines

too far, too fast.

And the almost

non-existent rainfall

threatens a serious drought

later, in the summer.

From Mcon,

Burgundy stretches north along the river Sane,

past ancient cities,

to Beaune and Nuits St-Georges,

and the Cte de Nuits,

and all the way up to Dijon.

It's 80 miles (130 km) long,

but only few miles wide.

In April 2011,

this whole region was suffering

from heat and drought.

At the village of Chorey, near Beaune,

new vines are being planted

in the dry dirt.

During the winter, Michel Gay

and his son Sebastien

had grubbed up old vines

that were past their best,

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.

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