Burgundy
The difference in flavour between French red burgundy and French
claret is in most cases definite and distinctive the difference between
Australian burgundy and Australian claret is indefinite and variable.
French claret is made from grapes rich in tannin which gives it slow
maturity, great powers of keeping and travelling, and a dry finish;
French burgundy is made from grapes giving less tannin and an earlier
maturity to the wine, more glycerine and with it the appearance of
greater body (you can sometimes see glycerine running down the surface
of the glass and hope that it all came out of the grape) but less power
either of keeping or travelling . . . Yet in Australia the belief arose,
from that obscurity which marks the source of all the beliefs of
mankind, that burgundy is a heavier wine than claret but not otherwise
greatly different. That belief is still held with the grip of religious
conviction by many of our winemakers and it is fact that in some
vineyards the free-run wine of a single fermentation is sold as claret
and the presswine, with its greater body of extractive matter, as .
burgundy. French claret is grown on gravelly soil from chiefly the
cabernet sauvignon grape, such is the source of the difference between
the two types. In Australia, burgundy has now become a sort of
generic name, happily regardless of both soil and grape, for any big,
full-bodied dry red wine. It need be none the worse for that: some
burgundies grown not far from Adelaide are among the best clarets in
Australia. More than one prominent Australian winemaker has abandoned
the use of the words burgundy and claret, and is labelling his wine
"Full-bodied Dry Red", "Light Dry Red", or with the name of the
informing grape variety.
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