According to the philosopher Isaiah Berlin, great thinkers can be separated into two broad categories: hedgehogs and foxes. While hedgehogs view the world through one single defining idea, foxes embrace the multitude of contradictory experiences that life throws up.

It's no stretch to place the world- famous wine critic Robert Parker, with his all-encompassing theories of wine production, into the hedgehog category; while Master of Wine Jasper Morris, who was in Tokyo last month to hold a tasting of Burgundy wines, could easily be said to personify an extremely knowledgeable fox-type expert.

Morris couldn't have chosen a better field of expertise to suit his intellect than the wines of Burgundy. Burgundy, in the east of France, is notorious for its complexity, with a wide variety of soil types, producers and production methods that make it a formidable area to grapple with.