January 18th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• Jan van Riebeeck, the founder of Cape Town and produced the first known wine in South Africa died in 1677.

• Messrs. Bouchard, père et fils report to Bonfort’s Wine and Spirit Circular in 1890 about the quality of the new Burgundy which is said to be their best in years.

• Hermann Müller, a Swiss botanist and oenologist created the Müller-Thurgau varietal in 1882 died in 1927.

• Oregon's McMinnville AVA was designated in 2005.

January 17th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• Saint Roseline de Villeneuve died in 1329.  Her shrine is now a winery in Provence.

• Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy was born in 1342.  He outlawed the cultivation of the Gamay grape in favor of pinot noir. to improve the quality of Burgundy wines.

• Lola Montez, royal courtesan of Ludwig I of Bavaria, who's antics incited the people to rebellion by breaking a champagne glass over the head of a police officer died in 1861. Despite her claims of being a Spanish dancer, she was in fact an Irish peasant.

• It is the feast day of Saint Sulpice The Pious.  He was buried at a basilica in Navis near a number of vineyards.

December 18th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• The King of Scotland, Robert the Bruce provided two casks of wine to Sir Patrick de Dunbar, Earl of March in 1310.

• Christina, Queen of Sweden was born in 1626. The celebration of her coronation included fountains filled with wine for three days in the market place.

• New Jersey ratified the U.S. Constitution in 1787.  It is home to the Central Delaware Valley, Outer Coastal Plains and Warren Hills viticultural areas.

• E.W. Hilgard of Mission San Jose found his Cinsault turbid, with a markedly aromatic bouquet, medium body, low astringency, and medium acid: slightly suspicious in quality.  He then racked and pasteurized the wine for safety.

• Diane Disney Miller, daughter of Walt and founder of Silverado Vineyards was born in 1933.

• It is the feast day of Saint Sebastian who’s skull is used as a wine cup on his feast day. The skull cap relic is located in Germany.

• James Beard award winning author of "What to Drink With What You Eat", Andrew Dornenburg was born in 1958.

• The movie, May  Wine debuted in 1991.

• Zhen Wang Huang, aka Rudy Kurniawan was convicted in 2013.  He is a wine collector who was convicted of wine fraud by buying Burgundy wine from negociants and relabelling them are more valuable wines, such as those the Domaine Romanée-Conti.

May 3rd - This Date in Wine History

Reliquary of the True Cross at the Louvre by Marie Tran Nguyen

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• Margaret of York was born in 1446.  She was the 3rd wife of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy.  Her wedding was celebrated with wine spurting from sculpted archers.  Nothing says welcome like a fountain of wine!
• The Dolcetto di Diano d'Alba DOC was created in 1974.
• Spain's El Hierro DO was created in 1995.
• The French have a saying, « Georget, Marquet, Vitalet et Croiset, s'ils sont beaux, font du bon vin. » or, “Good weather on the feasts of St. George, St. Mark, St. Vital and St. Croix makes beautiful wine.”

November 20th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• A truce between John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy and Louis of Valois, Duke of Orleans was agreed to in 1407.  It lasted 3 whole days before Burgundy assassinated Orleans.
• Robert Baddeley died in 1794, bequeathing £3 per annum to provide wine and cake in the green-room of Drury Lane theatre on Twelfth Night. The ceremony of the Baddeley cake has remained a regular institution.

August 13th - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• Louis François, Prince of Conti was born in 1717.  He purchased the Burgundy vineyard, La Romanée in 1760.  It has been known as Romanée-Conti ever since.
• Eduard Buchner died in 1917.  He was a German chemistwho won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on fermentation. He showed that an extract that was free of living yeast cells could still lead to fermentation.
• The Fara DOC was created in 1969.  These wines are produced around the commune of Fara and are made of Nebbiolo, Vespolina and Uva Rara.
• The Arcole DOC designation was established in 2000.

May 3rd - This Date in Wine History

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• Margaret of York was born in 1446.  She was the 3rd wife of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy.  Her wedding was celebrated with wine spurting from sculpted archers.  Nothing says welcome like a fountain of wine!
• The Dolcetto di Diano d'Alba DOC was created in 1974.
• Spain's El Hierro DO was created in 1995.

April 29th - This Date in Wine History

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Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature "This Date In Wine History," we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

• Blanche of Burgundy, Countess of la Marche and briefly the uncrowned queen of France and Navarre died in 1326.  She and her sisters were accused of scandalous behavior such as drinking wine with knights and eventually of adultery.  For this crime she was imprisoned in the donjon of Chateau Gaillaird for 8 years until she granted her husband an annulment.
• John Adlum who is often considered the father or American viticulture and promoter and possible developer of the Catawba grape was born in 1759.
• William Pitt proposed taxing wine in a letter to the Duke of Rutland in 1786

January 26th - This Date in Wine History

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The Virgin Mary hands St. Alberich (not Robert) of Cîteaux the Cistercian habit by Joseph Wagenmeister

Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature This Date In Wine History, we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

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• Paul Newman, founder of Newman's Own which included a Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon was born in 1925.
• It is the feast day of St. Alberic of Cîteaux who founded the Cistercian Order of Monks.  Cistercians are known to support their abbeys through making products for sale.  St. Alberic arranged a donation of a vineyard to support his abbey.  That vineyard is known today as Meursault.

November 20th - This Date in Wine History

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Robert Baddeley by Johann Baddeley

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Wine has a long established history of being our drink of choice for celebrating, entertaining, and savoring life; but it didn't start out that way. From the invention of the barrel to the designation of the separate viticultural areas, wine has a long and sorted history.  In our daily feature This Date In Wine History, we share an event of critical importance in wine history.

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• A truce between John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy and Louis of Valois, Duke of Orleans was agreed to in 1407.  It lasted 3 whole days before Burgundy assassinated Orleans.
• Robert Baddeley died in 1794, bequeathing £3 per annum to provide wine and cake in the green-room of Drury Lane theatre on Twelfth Night. The ceremony of the Baddeley cake has remained a regular institution

Movie Night

Having a Friday night in? We recommend a movie, a bottle of wine, and some popcorn. What type of movie? One about wine of course! There are many movies about wine out there to choose from and on Fridays we will share one with you that we have seen and enjoyed. You get the popcorn and let Qorkz send you the wine! 

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A Year In Burgundy

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Available To Stream On Netflix

What lies within the rhythm of a year?

The vines bud and grow leaves and tendrils, and are trained, cared for. They make grapes, and a small, diligent army of hands comes to carry them away. The stripped vines die back, dry and brown, and turn to brush. The brush is burned, going into the wind as a curl of smoke and into the ground as ash. This is a year in Burgundy.

Experience the year with French wine importer Martine Saunier as your guide. The film is in four season-sections, and plays out against that backdrop: spring showers, drought, heat wave, hail and storms, harvest moons and the damp cold of winter. Each vintage is a time capsule, a bottled piece of history of a very specific year, with its particular weather pattern, its crises and its triumphs. It all goes in, whether you want it to or not, and 2011 was full of drama. 

In the film, we get to know our half-dozen wine-makers: they are artists, whose personalities shape the flavor and style of the wines they lovingly craft. There is joy, fear, anxiety, triumph, and laughter in their experiences. With the Morey-Coffinets, we meet three generations of wine-makers, and little two-year-old Celeste, the first of the fourth generation.

In Lalou Bize-Leroy, we meet the uncrowned Queen of Burgundy – now in her eighties, still involved in every detail of her winemaking, creator of some of the best-renowned and most famous wines on earth.

We get a sense of the deep history involved. Though they use many of the latest equipment and techniques, the secrets of winemaking in Burgundy and the discovery of the best terroirs (and how to exploit them) have been developed since Roman times. Indeed, the Cistercian monks kept the art alive during the Dark Ages (500-1000) and developed a whole industry in the Middle Ages: their central wine-making HQ, Clos de Vougeot, still exists, and is the location for one of the central scenes of the film: a great mid-summer banquet. 

Burgundy is exquisitely beautiful. Even if it had no vines, it would be a favorite destination. Its ancient villages, its gentle hillsides, valleys and streams give the impression of a fairy-tale land. Yet it's here that we find what is arguably the most valuable agricultural land on earth: tiny vineyards no bigger than many people's backyards produce wine that sells for thousands of dollars a bottle...

This is a year that went into the bottle and onto film. This is our capsule. The grapes grow. The grapes die away. What is left always in the frame is a way of life. - A Year In Burgundy Official Website. 

Film Critic

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Right away you get a sense of how incredibly important wine is in Burgundy. While you get to meet many winemakers and important members of the Burgundy wine community, the wine remains the star. Watching this film you get to experience all the essential elements of winemaking as they take us on a journey from vine to bottle. You also get an understanding of how fiercely protective the different winemakers and vineyard managers are over their craft and their style of growing the vines. To trim or not to trim? Pick before or after the rain? Hand sort or machine sort? Make a mistake in any one of these decisions and the vintage might not meet the lofty standards of Burgundian wine. 

Why We Love It

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Part travel film and documentary, A Year In Burgundy lets you visit the French countryside without ever leaving the comfort of your living room while giving you a behind the scenes tour of one of the world's best wine producing regions. We love the science behind winemaking and how it's used to combat all the challenges that nature brings to each vintage. We can greedily overindulge in this film on the battle against Botrytis, the rush to beat the rain at harvest, and what kind of effect (both good and bad) that stems, leaves, and other green tannins can have on a wine. Oh, and did I mention all the romance and picturesque setting of the French countryside? We love this film, and we're certain you'll love it too. 

Wine Pairings

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You think Burgundy and you think Pinot Noir. This Sabina Pinot Noir is crafted in the traditional Burgundian style making it the perfect partner to this film. 

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What else does Burgundy do really well? Chardonnay. Think cold, minerals, stone fruit, with good acid. This Stella Chardonnay brings you all of those elements with a touch of honeysuckle to balance that acidity. 

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Movie Trailer