Yak Shaya's Wine Page

Rather immodestly, amateur wine-nut Yak Shaya describes himself as ‘a Burgundy-wine buff par-excellence'. His page is a celebration of all things Yak, but his infectious enthusiasm — as well as his formidable palate — endear him to the reader prepared to spend a few minutes getting to know the man and his site. English is not his first language and he begs your forgiveness for the mistakes in his writing, but these are no worse than many sites written by Americans or Brits on the web. There is certainly plenty to browse on the site: writings about wine, food and Shaya's adventures, which makes it a highly enjoyable read.



Shaya presents a comprehensive guide to the Burgundy region and its wines that is as authoritative as any text book. His wine tasting notes are of course entirely subjective, but there is no doubt that he is an immensely experienced taster whose judgement and consistency appear reliable.



The site layout has a consistent approach and simply constructed pages. A navigation bar at the top of every page links to all sub-sections. On long pages the bar is repeated at the bottom.


SPECIAL FEATURES


Tasting Note Archive is the collected and ever-expanding repository of Shaya's tasting notes. Predominantly, these are for Burgundy wines, though he has, in his own words, been attempting a foray into other wine regions. Notes are presented by region, and within each region in strict alphabetical order. Don't come here looking for a supermarket bottle to go with the weekend pizza: Shaya has hedonistic tastes and there's only a handful of notes on ‘cheap' (£20) village Burgundies, but super-expensive Grand Cru wines fill screen after screen. Every wine is rated with marks out of 20 (see ‘Yak's rating scale' for a precise definition). There is also a nice and far less exacting concluding rating: ‘Buy More?' which rates every wine as a ‘Yes', ‘No' or ‘Maybe.' These notes offer glimpses into a wine-drinking world to which most of us could only aspire.


Burgundy ‘Primer' Shaya's home turf is Burgundy, and this extensive introduction to the complexities of the region is well done, if a touch dry. It attempts to unravel the intricacies of Burgundy's labelling and system of classification: a tough task in this most confusing of all French wine regions. There are good descriptions of all the major communes and recommendations for producers within each. Typical of Shaya's high-flying style is that 'lesser' Burgundy regions of the Mâconnais and Côte Chalonnaise are completely ignored, as indeed is Chablis.


Wine & Food Adventures Come with Shaya as he takes you on fabulous gastronomic adventures. You can experience the vicarious pleasures of dinner for four at Paris's three-star Taillevent, but thankfully not the pleasure of the bill ($1050). Or re-live Shaya's 50th birthday celebrations: a modest eight-course affair, starting with Dom Perignon, finishing with 1948 Taylors Port and finding time for Yquem, Cheval Blanc and Montrachet amongst others in between.


OTHER FEATURES


A section entitled Introducing Yak, and an explanation of his wine scoring system.