It’s a brand-new app dedicated to Burgundy aficionados, and all wine enthusiasts wanting to understand the deep complexities of Burgundy, or to build a discriminating cellar, or simply to determine their location during a trip through the vineyards of the Côte-d’Or.
The Authors
CLIMAVINEA is the collective work of Pierre Cohen-Tanugi, a passionate oenophile, and Sylvain Pitiot, a seasoned wine professional who managed one of the most famous grand crus of the Côte de Nuits for the past twenty years and is internationally respected for his maps of the Burgundian climats.
The climats are precisely delineated parcels of land, enjoying specific geological and climatic conditions, which form Burgundy’s extremely intricate mosaic of classified crus. Their names, from Montrachet to Chambertin and from Amoureuses to Musigny, are the stuff of dreams to wine lovers worldwide. Burgundy’s climats were included on the World Heritage List on July 4, 2015.
What can I use CLIMAVINEA for?
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The app allows you to explore the details and characteristics of Burgundy’s more than 1400 climats and lieux-dits:
It provides a fully interactive version of Sylvain Pitiot’s state-of-the-art vineyard maps that appeared in the book The Climats and Lieux-dits of the Great Vineyards of Burgundy (2nd French edition and 1st English language edition, September 2014).
Understanding the segmentation of the land matters, since Burgundy wines are identified by the precise place where the grapes were grown. A Bordeaux wine generally carries the name of its château (Lafite, Cheval Blanc, La Conseillante…); New World wines are often defined by grape varieties (Zinfandel, Cabernet-Sauvignon, Merlot…); but the great wines of Burgundy are named for their place of origin.
The history of the names of the climats – which reflects the history of Burgundy itself since the Middle Ages – is also included in CLIMAVINEA.
Furthermore, if you happen to tour the vineyard, the app will locate your position if you so wish (provided you have internet connection) and help you understand what’s in front of you.
- The App will guide you on your wine purchases:
The extreme geographic segmentation of the vineyards is magnified by the subdivision of almost every parcel among several vignerons. Although most of them farm several parcels, the total number of producers exceeds 2000.
To avoid disappointment, you must therefore learn how to navigate the overly complex offerings of Burgundy wines.
Knowing the location and hierarchy of climats is necessary, but you ought to know also who makes the wine. It takes a great vigneron to bring out the full potential of a great terroir, just as a Stradivarius only reveals its full quality when played by a great violinist.
ClimaVinea presents profiles of 132 of Burgundy’s most remarkable estates and négociants and their wines. All of them produce wines that you can buy (except where they have become unobtainable) or order in a restaurant with the best chance of being pleased with your choice.
They were selected by merging the opinions of serious, internationally renowned professional critics who are independent of one another. These combined judgments distinguish the producers featured in our app for their quality, year in and year out.
We have no commercial or financial link whatsoever with these producers and no wine is sold through CLIMAVINEA. Our aim is to provide you with a neutral, detailed and precise overview of the contemporary elite of Burgundy’s vignerons.
A key benefit of CLIMAVINEA is therefore to help you make sensible choices when it comes to building a valuable Burgundy cellar over time, or simply to picking a decent bottle of wine at your local shop for a family dinner.
Practical information such as vintage notes, flavor profiles of wines from the each village, etc., is also available for your perusal.
- The App will enrich your experience of drinking great Burgundies:
Many other elements crucial to understanding the wines of Burgundy are presented in CLIMAVINEA for those willing to deepen their knowledge of this fascinating topic.
Burgundy wine is not a mere alcoholic beverage. Understanding the history, culture, and viticulture of Burgundy’s great wines enhances the pleasure of tasting them. As Andrew Jefford put it in his foreword to Sylvain Pitiot’s latest book: “Burgundy tastes better with that knowledge”.
- Last but not least, the app is a powerful tool intended for the wine trade:
A wealth of technical data, such as the specifications applicable to each appellation, or the surface area of each climat and its correspondence to one or more lieux-dits, etc., is provided for professional users, well-informed collectors, and oenology students.
Sommeliers, wine merchants, wine critics, auctioneers, and other wine professionals may use CLIMAVINEA as a quick reference to verify facts, the location of crus, the spelling of a name, and more, thanks to the tools provided for exploring this vast interactive resource.
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In summary, whether you are an expert, an amateur or a student, CLIMAVINEA has been designed to put in your pocket a vast and useful sum of knowledge and pleasure and beauty.
The App is fully bilingual (English and French).
It features a built-in function that will let you share information with your friends via Facebook and Twitter, or by mail.
It is currently available for iPhone. It will be released for iPad come fall, as a free upgrade to users of the iPhone app. The Androïd version will likely follow in 2016.
CLIMAVINEA carries a price tag of $25, which we hope you’ll find worth every penny.
Picking a single bottle of village-level Gevrey-Chambertin or Meursault from the right producer, instead of a mediocre bottling, will repay your investment instantly.
This guest post was written by ViaVinea exclusively for Social Vignerons. Find more information about the ClimaVinea app and the developing company on viavinea.com
Find the app at ClimaVinea on iTunes or find it through on the App Store button below:
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