We have been told that this wine has a “hint of strawberries” or that one suggests “dry cassis”, but I have always been bemused by the fact that some alcoholic fruit juice in a mass produced bottle can sell from anywhere between one Euro and three thousand Euros each.

Why?

I have been hand picking grapes for a friend in Pommard for about ten years now, and one of the treats, and one of the reasons that I go back each year to experience the pain, is the wines that the family serve to us during the lunch break.

This lunch break, in accordance with French Tradition, is a two hour celebration of life and living that occurs between 1200 and 1400 every day. It is when France is vulnerable to attack because the National Defence is resting. Any military aircraft you see over France during lunchtime will almost certainly be a foreign machine.

Last year the lunchtime wines were no exception.

At lunchtime our elderly host, the grandfather of the family, produced a forty two year old wine that had been laid down specially to celebrate the birth of his son. This must have been a very special occasion because in the wine regions, particularly in Burgundy, family continuity is vital to retain the vineyards in the family name over the generations.

When I sipped this wine at the end of a meal of Beef done in the Burgundy style, it was one of the most memorable experiences of my life, and I have had many many experiences.

As the wine slipped down I could feel the vibrations from a past era, and it must have been a happy time, because the resonance was still there. In a flash I realised that there is so much more to wine that just the taste.

I have been studying the curative effects of electromagnetism on people and I have come to realise how important frequencies and “memories” are, in fluids and foods that we consume. The way that this wine flowed down into my body was like a reconnection of that happy time when the family knew that their future was secure with the birth of a son.

But even more fascinating was that we also experienced a thirty nine year old wine, from the same vineyard and the same cellar, and it was dreadful. Spitable dreadful.

Why was there such a difference?

Later I realised that about the time the son was three years old, the family must have found out that their son was slightly handicapped and that there might be a risk in their future as to the security and longevity of the family name in the generations old wine business. Was this the reason that the second slightly younger wine was so different?

It is an intriguing question, but if it is true, then my conclusion is that if you are seeking a wine for your own enjoyment and consumption, then you need to find a wine producer that not only has the grapes from a places where the vibrations are right, but also where the family is happy, in order to impart to the wine that special range of vibrations that will continue to resonate in the bottle and reproduce that same ambiance when it is finally opened and enjoyed.

Now my search for good wine includes studying not only the techniques and dedication of the producer, but also the happiness quotient of the family unit.

Some producers will throw everything into the vats in the hope that a passable supermarket wine will be the result. They even harvest the grapes with machines so that the rotten and green grapes are mixed with spiders and ladybird blood. But the dedicated growers have experienced teams of pickers who select every bunch by hand and remove each and every malformed grape.

That is where quality comes from.

If you need any help in the Burgundy region I will be happy to “point the way” to some that I think have the right feel to produce exceptional wine.

What a joyful quest!