A COMPLEX wine is a good thing. A complex wine label is death to sales — at least, some of the time.

Take German wines, for example. Too often, consumers are confronted with the choking union of German words and Gothic script. Add to that arcane wine rules that offer too much information on a label but convey little of what’s in a bottle, and the net effect is to deaden demand for some of the world’s greatest wines.

But the Burgundy label? Now, that’s a thing of intricate beauty. With a profusion of details concerning producers, geography, vineyard and vineyard rating, the Burgundy label, too, can appear complicated and intimidating. Unlike the German label, though, the Burgundy label conveys precise information and is well worth the effort to understand. Burgundy lovers can only wish that the label would have the same dampening effect on sales as the German one. Alas, good Burgundy is always in demand. There’s never enough to go around.

The issue with a bottle of Burgundy is generally not what style of wine it will be. You know it will be a dry red wine. You just don’t know how good it will be. While the overall level of quality in Burgundy has improved significantly in the last 25 years, it is still hard to know where you will end up on the spectrum, from something thin, sharp and mean to a wine that comes as close to heaven as is possible for a mere liquid.