Raymond Blake reviews Climbing the Vines in Burgundy: How an American Came to Own a Legendary Vineyard in France by Alex Gambal.
Gambal looks like he’s suffering from a week’s jet lag. A sense of relief rather than outright happiness escapes the fog of weariness—victory has been snatched from the jaws of defeat. Harvest for him consisted of an epic, all-hands-to-the-pumps race against time as he battled to get as many grapes as possible into the winery before the rain. It has been a tough couple of days, but the effort has been worth it.”
I wrote those words about the 2010 harvest in Burgundy shortly after a visit to Alex Gambal’s winery, located on Beaune’s ring road, on Saturday, September 25 that year. By that time—having arrived as a complete greenhorn in the Côte d’Or in 1993, with the intention of making wine—he was a well-established name in the Burgundy firmament, with a reputation for crafting pure-fruited wines in an elegant flavor register.
Gambal’s salutary tale
Today, some 30 years later, the adventure is over. Maison Alex Gambal is now owned by Boisset, though it is still semi-autonomous, as with the numerous other names acquired by Boisset over the decades. Gambal has returned to his native United States, and much to this reviewer’s delight, he has committed his story to paper, for this is a salutary tale, a warts-and-all narrative that could easily serve as a textbook in wine schools around the globe, where it should be compulsory
This Article was originally published on World of Fine Wine
