The Duchess de Bourgogne: Inside the Bottle and Outside the Bottle – Chris “C.J.”
Jones
Let’s say
you’re sitting down, either in Vichte, West Flanders, Belgium, or in Smithfield, Virginia, and you’re thinking “I
sure wish I had a distinctive Flemish red ale.” Well, you’re in luck,
because in both places you can grab a bottle of Duchesse de Bourgogne, brewed
by the Verhaeghe Brewery in Vichte. The
Duchesse (pronounced DOO SHAY) not only has a royal name, but it was asked for by royals by name this past May. It was one of the few beers selected to be served at the wedding of the Crown Prince of Denmark, Frederik,
when he and Princess Mary tied the knot on May 14, 2004. Obviously the
Prince knows a great beer when he sips one. Thanks to Bon Vivant, you can sip one without having to spring for either a wedding present for Fred and Mary or a trip
to Belgium.
For you to appreciate
what’s inside the bottle, you have to pour the bottle’s contents into
the appropriate glass. A Duchesse de Bourgogne glass would (naturally) be the
best one to use, but if you don’t have one, use a large red wine goblet, because it will accentuate the ale’s
aromas. Dark red, slightly sweet, but with a sour, balsamic bite and bouquet,
you’ll find it to be one of the more interesting beers you’ll ever drink.
How does it get
that distinctive flavor?
Well, it could
be the water. When my family and I visited the brewery in May, 2004, Karl Verhaeghe,
the thirty-ish owner of the brewery, told us that the water comes from a Northern French aquifer 162 meters deep, with a chemical
constituency perhaps not found in other areas of Belgium.
It could be the malt and
the hops. No pale malt is used according to Karl, just roasted malts. And the hops? Karl says hops aren’t that important.
It could be the
wood. After the Duchesse is brewed, the beer matures in oak barrels, where it
picks up the distinctive sour flavors that make it what it is. Not just any barrels,
either; the Duchesse is aged in French oaken liquor casks, a half dozen of which are 80 years old. Actually, a better phrasing would be “the beers” mature in oak barrels, since the Duchesse
is actually a blend of multiple different vintages of the same beer.
It could be the blending. For many Belgian breweries, the blender, guided by his or her palate, is probably
more important to the success of the brewery than the brewer. The brewer brews,
but the blender tastes, ponders, remixes, tastes again, and finally comes up a blend of young and old ale to make the perfect
palate pleasing pour. The Verhaeghe brewery blends a six month version, a twelve
month version, and a third older, more mature, version (either 15 or 18 months old; the ink on my notepad ran; wet with beer?). The longer the beer resides in the cask, the more flavor it obtains from the barrel
and the darker it gets, so the blender decides the quantity of each vintage to be mixed, mingled and magically transformed
into the Duchesse.
It could be all
of these things.
Then again, it could be divine
intervention. Throughout the brewery’s buildings, at each critical point
in the brewing process, a statue of a Saint is placed up above the fray on the building’s walls to overlook the process. Depending upon which neck of the woods you are from, your beer Saints include St.
Arnold of Metz, St. Gambrinus, and St. George.
There’s a statue of Jesus in the Verhaeghe brewery’s office. Karl
told us “If we can’t get it … perhaps Jesus can help.” With
that kind of help, your beer is always going to turn out right.
*****
Now that you’ve experienced
what’s inside the bottle, you ought to be asking “Who is the lady on the outside
of the bottle, on the label? Who was the Duchesse de Bourgogne?”
She was Mary of Burgundy, daughter of the Duke of Burgundy. Born in Brugge
(Bruges), Belgium,
she became the Duchess of Burgundy, and championed the people of Flanders, particularly Brugge. She married Maximilian of Austria at 19, and was the ruler and “belle of the
ball” in Bruge until she died at 25 years of age in either 1482 or 1492 (you use a different book, you get a different
date). She fell off her horse while hunting with a falcon and landing on the
very firma terra firma. If only she
had picked up tennis instead of falconing, she might have been around a lot longer.
She can now be found in Our Lady’s Church, a church in Brugge dating from the 12 century. Mary, and her father Charles the Bold, are both interred underneath a couple of truly impressive crypts
within the church. The church’s other claim to fame is it contains a statue
of Madonna with Child by Michelangelo,
one of the few Michelangelo works that left Italy during his
lifetime.
*****
More Duchesse lore –
how old is that Duchesse in the window? There’s a “best if enjoyed
by” date on your Duchesse bottle; the bottling date was eighteen months prior to that date.
One more piece
of Duchesse lore – there have been two different Duchesse labels. The first
was a 15th Century painting of Mary, facing to the right, sans falcon;
it was replaced a few years ago by the present label, a painting of Mary, with falcon, facing to her left, dating from around
1485.
