By Evan Borman
Boulder Weekly
The 15th annual Boulder Burgundy Festival will be held from Oct. 24 to Oct. 25 at the Flagstaff House and the Academy at Mapleton Hill.This popular non-profit event brings people together to taste extraordinary wines from the Burgundy hillsides of east-central France.
The festival was founded by Master Sommelier Brett Zimmerman in 2011 to make Burgundy wines accessible and to raise funds for local charity organizations.
“Trying to demystify some of the accessibility in the pricing was kind of the initial idea of why we wanted to do this festival,” Zimmerman said. “Strengthening that education and building Burgundy as a whole in Colorado has always been important.”
Burgundy is the historic birthplace of pinot noir and chardonnay. Medieval Benedictine and Cistercian monks spent centuries studying how varieties in slope exposure, climate conditions and geological variations produce a wine’s exact taste.
Though Burgundy produces a small fraction of France’s total output, the region produces some of the rarest and sought-after bottles on Earth.
“We wanted to help establish Colorado as an important mark for bringing these wines here. We also wanted to educate people for the purpose of understanding the difference between a $24 bottle of Petit Chablis or a $5,000 bottle of Ramanèe-Saint-Vivant and everything in between,” Zimmerman said.
The Burgundy Above Boulder event takes place on Saturday, Oct 24 at the Flagstaff House. It’s a Paulèe inspired lunch with a special collection of old and rare Burgundy wines from French winemakers Sabine Mollard of Domaine Marc Morey and Nicolas Rossignol of Domaine Nicolas Rossignol.
“One bottle of either of these producers, premier crew lines that we’re going to be featuring in the seminar or the tastings would be between $150 and $200 on our retail shelf,” Zimmerman said. “To give somebody the opportunity to taste, 10 to 15 wines at $175 plus, listening to the producer tell you all the details about every tiny little detail that goes into their production, the difference in the terroir, the specific differences in what they do in the cellar and vineyards is really, really cool.
“You can kind of hone in on this micro spotlight of education with producers that don’t come to the United States very often.”
Mollard and Rossignol offer an educational seminar and tasting on Sunday, Oct 25 at the Academy at Mapleton Hill. The seminar contrasts chardonnay and pinot noir to explore the differences between two villages' grape varieties and vintages.
The final event of the festival is the Burgundy in Full grand tasting which features more than 60 Burgundy wines and live music presented by Stone Cottage Studios. The tasting is designed to encourage diverse exploration and to discover the distinctions found in each wine and region.
“It’s about the ritual of enjoying food and wine together. It doesn’t have to be stuffy or snooty. That has absolutely never been what we’ve been about. A lot of people say, ‘why would I ever buy a $1,000 bottle of wine?’” Zimmerman said. “I can throw you the keys to a Ferrari and say, here, go take this thing for a spin. You probably aren’t going to say, ‘I’m going to go buy one’ but you could probably come back and say, ‘that’s the most ridiculous and beautiful car I’ve ever driven.’”
Zimmerman is one of 299 Master Sommelier’s worldwide and is the owner of Boulder Wine Merchant. He values the communal history of wine and wants to foster support for small businesses that give back to the community, rather than fill the pockets of indifferent corporations.
“We continue to fight the fight of being the ambassadors for these small families that are situated all around the world. Boulder Wine Merchant is all about good people and small families. We’re totally the minority when it comes to volume when you look at these big stores,” Zimmerman said.
In the beginning, the nonprofit focused on growing gardens for the Boulder Valley School District to educate children on organic farming. The funds raised from this year's event will be donated to local charities Sophie’s Neighborhood and There With Care.
Sophie’s Neighborhood is a local non-profit dedicated to funding medical research and treatment for multicentric carpotarsal osteolysis, an ultra-rare bone disease. The organization was started by Blackbelly and Santo local restaurant owners and the Rosenberg family, following their daughter Sophie’s diagnosis.
There With Care is a volunteer organization that provides services to families with a child in a medical crisis in Denver and Boulder.
“We are trying to passionately and with hospitality take care of people and give them the right experiences as it relates to wine, beer and spirits,” Zimmerman said.
