How to Find the Best Wines From Burgundy
There's no denying that Burgundy is full of cult-status producers and buzz-generating bottles, but there's still lots to discover in one of the world's most celebrated wine regions.
Whether an easy drinking Pouilly-Fuissé at your neighborhood bistro, or the priceless seductions of Grand Cru Romanée-Conti, Burgundy represents wines that span the full spectrum from everyday luxury to the holy grail.
Undoubtedly, Burgundy, or Bourgogne, as it's known outside the English-speaking world, is among the most celebrated of wine regions. A two-hour drive southeast from Paris, Burgundy is a historic link between the Paris Basin and the Rhône Valley with subregions scattered throughout the center of eastern France.
Isolated to the far west, Chablis and the Grand Auxerrois mark the region's northernmost corner. Southwest from Chablis, the heartland of Burgundy extends north to south from Dijon in a corridor formed by the Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune (together, the Côte d'Or), the Côte Chalonnaise and the Mâconnais.
Administratively, Beaujolais is considered part of Burgundy, but its unique history, terroir and winemaking style render it a wine region of its own.
Burgundy is renowned as the birthplace of both Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, but more significantly, it endures as a benchmark for production of these varieties worldwide. These two grapes predominate Burgundy's production, but the region is also home to a smattering of Aligoté, Gamay and other grapes too.
At its core, "Burgundy is about the diversity of terroir and people," explains Frédéric Drouhin, president of the executive board of Maison Joseph Drouhin. Burgundy, more than any wine region in the world, epitomizes the notion that specificities of individual vineyards – their soils, climate, elevation or topography – can be communicated through wine. So much that origin is at the very heart of how its wines are classified.
Regional wines produced anywhere throughout Burgundy form the baseline of Burgundy's hierarchy of wines. Most are bottled generically as Bourgogne AOC, but they can also represent certain subregions like Bourgogne Côte d'Or or specific wine styles like Crémant de Bourgogne. A step above regional wines are village, or communal wines that carry the name of specific villages, like Chablis, Beaune or Pouilly-Fuissé. Well-made village wines offer recognizable characteristics of their terroir and can improve with age, a decade or even longer.
Specific vineyard plots, known in Burgundy as climat, delineated over centuries of winegrowing for their production of superior wines are often elevated as Premier Cru, meaning first growth, or Grand Cru, meaning great growth. The village of Chassagne-Montrachet, for example, has 55 climat classified as Premier Cru vineyards. At the top of the hierarchy are pedigreed names like Le Montrachet, Chambertin or Richebourg – Grand Cru vineyards which make up just 1% of the total production of Burgundy.
Chablis and the Grand Auxerrois
Situated closer to Aube in southern Champagne than to much of the Côte d'Or, Chablis and the Grand Auxerrois represent Burgundy's northernmost and coolest subregion.
Chablis produces wines exclusively from Chardonnay. From the fresh-fruited, easy drinking village wines of Petit Chablis to its venerated Premier Cru or Grand Cru expressions, the salt-struck, often bracingly electric wines of Chablis are a benchmark for white winemaking worldwide.
"Thanks to its cool climate and unique soils…Chablis produces wines that express minerality, purity, freshness and elegance," says Anne Moreau, co-owner of Domaine Louis Moreau in Chablis. The region's famed Kimmeridgian soils, explains Moreau, are composed of layers of limestone-rich clay and calcareous soil studded with the fossilized exoskeletons of ancient marine life. The distinctly chalky, oyster-shell minerality associated with Chablis is often attributed to the high limestone content of the region's soils.
In recent years, heightened demand for Burgundy has shined a new spotlight on lesser known appellations of the Grand Auxerrois that surround Chablis. Beneficiaries of warming climates, village appellations like Irancy are lauded for their bright, perfumed Pinot Noir, and Saint Bris for fresh, fruity Sauvignon Blanc and, to a lesser extent, Sauvignon Gris.
The Côte d'Or
The limestone escarpment of the Côte d'Or stretches like a spine alongside the Saône River. Home to many of the world's most storied vineyards, the Côte d'Or is undoubtedly the beating heart of Burgundy.
Comprised of the Côte de Nuits to the north and the Côte de Beaune to the South, the two sides of Côte d'Or are similar in size, each spanning roughly 15 miles in length. The Côte de Nuits is best known for Pinot Noir, while the Côte de Beaune produces excellent expressions of both Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.
Together, the two regions offer a wide array of wines that range from the value-priced regional Bourgogne to the most pedigreed Premier Cru and Grand Cru wines in Burgundy – wines of "exquisite complexity and amazing aging capacity," explains Drouhin.
Côte de Nuits
"Indeed, there is beautiful Pinot Noir all over the world," says Edouard Labet, co-owner of Château de la Tour in the village of Vougeot. "But the Pinot Noir we produce in the Côte de Nuits expresses the DNA of what Burgundy is – precision and finesse," he adds.
Home to 24 of Burgundy's 33 Grand Cru vineyards including hallowed names like Romanée-Conti, La Tâche, Musigny and more, the Côte de Nuits is consecrated ground for devotees of Burgundy. Pinot Noir accounts for roughly 95% of the wines produced in the region. With the exception of Corton (which produces both white and red wine in the Côte de Beaune), all of Burgundy's red Grand Cru appellations are situated in the Côte de Nuits.
According to Labet, whose family is the largest landholder within the walls of the famed Grand Cru Clos de Vougeot, the concentration of Grand Cru appellations is so high in the Côte de Nuits that "from the vineyards of the Clos Vougeot, you can see Musigny and Echezeux in a single view".
Within a span of just a few hundred meters, he describes, "you have three different Grand Cru appellations producing three very different wines. You may recognize the terroir but there's no one recipe because each [winegrower] brings their own touch, their own personality into the winemaking."
Cote de Beaune
Whereas "the Côte de Nuits is mostly focused on red wines… the Côte de Beaune has the privilege to produce both white and red wines", explains Drouhin.
Red wines from the hill of Corton, as well as Volnay, Pommard and Beaune are most well known, but lesser-known appellations like the Ladoix, Savigny-lès-Beaune and Santenay also produce red wines of excellent quality and value.
From the village of Meursault and southward through Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet the Côte de Beaune is the epicenter of Burgundy's most esteemed white wines. All of Burgundy's white Grand Crus are situated in the southern half of the Côte de Beaune (with the exception of Musigny which produces a miniscule amount of exceptional white wine in the Côte de Nuits). Grand Cru Montrachet, arguably the finest white wine produced in the world, straddles the two villages of Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet; It is surrounded by four neighboring Grand Cru that share the Montrachet name – Chevalier-Montrachet, Bâtard-Montrachet, Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet and Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet.
Côte Chalonnaise
South of the escarpment of the Côte d'Or is the Côte Chalonnaise. While the Côte Chalonnaise shares the same bedrock of limestone sweeping the Côte d'Or, the landscape here is better described as a scattering of "gentle, hilly slopes facing south and east", explains Amaury Devillard, co-owner of Château de Chamirey in Mercurey and Domaine de la Ferté in Givry.
Historically underappreciated, the Côte Chalonnaise is often described as a go-to region for inexpensive, fruity wines best enjoyed young. Amidst skyrocketing demands for affordable Burgundy, however, the Côte Chalonnaise is increasingly recognized as a treasure trove of wines upholding "the essence of the purest Burgundy…Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Aligoté" at a "tremendous price-quality ratio," says Devillard.
Both Bouzeron and Montagny produce only white wine. Montagny produces only Chardonnay and Bouzeron is the only village appellation in all of Burgundy to produce exclusively Aligoté. While there are no Grand Cru appellations in the Côte Chalonnaise, Mercurey, Givry, and Montagny each boast Premier Cru sites.
The Mâconnais
At the southern gate of Bourgogne the sunny, softly undulating terrain of the Mâconnais is best known for affordable, charming wines. With over 90% of the vines planted with Chardonnay, the Mâconnais is firmly white-wine territory, but small quantities of red wine, mostly Gamay, is produced here as well.
Wines of the Mâconnais offer a "natural opulence" owing to their southerly latitude and warmer climate "combined with a soft minerality from the Jurassic-era yellow limestone soils we have," says Antoine Vincent, general manager and winemaker at Château de Fuissé in Pouilly Fuissé.
Regional appellations like Mâcon or Mâcon Villages offer fresh-fruited wines at an excellent value. However, the five village appellations of the Mâconnais, most notably Pouilly-Fuissé, but also Pouilly-Loché, Pouilly-Vinzelles, Saint-Véran and Viré-Clessé can yield richly concentrated, nuanced wines that rival considerably pricier wines from the Côte de Beaune.
Like the Côte Chalonnaise, there are no Grand Cru vineyards in the Mâconnais. In 2020, however, Pouilly-Fuissé was awarded 22 Premier Cru designations following a hard-won campaign with the French National Institute of Origin and Quality (INAO).
3 baffling things to know about Burgundy
Burgundy is one of the greatest wine regions of the world, the homeland of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, the origin point for the idea of terroir, and these days, the home of some of the world’s most expensive wines. But it can be confusing, too. Here are three key things to know. — Ray Isle
What is a “village wine”?
Think of Burgundy as an onion (sorry, Burgundians). The biggest geographic designation are wines simply labeled Bourgogne Rouge or Bourgogne Blanc — by definition, reds and whites simply from vineyards anywhere within Burgundy. Inside that are sub-regional designations: the Hautes Côtes de Beaune, for instance (literally, the “high slopes of Beaune,” an appellation that contains vineyards in the hills west of the town of Beaune). Village wines comprise an even smaller layer — when you see a Burgundy labeled simply “Pommard” or “Fixin,” the vineyards it’s from are from the area around that specific town (or village). Then there are premier crus and grand crus, the smallest, most innermost layers that are the top vineyards within each village. So, a Fixin Les Hervelets Premier Cru comes from the vineyard named Les Hervelets, which lies within the broader Fixin appellation, and which was deemed of premier cru quality back in 1936, when the French national appellation d’ origine system was put in place (there are exceptions, but that’s generally the case).
What is a négociant versus a domaine?
A négociant, traditionally purchased finished wine or sometimes grapes to be made into wine from a small estate, aged it in barrels themselves, and then sold it under the négociant’s name (Louis Jadot is a well known example). Domaine producers own their own vineyards, make their own wines, and sell them under their own name. Today the boundaries are more blurry — some négociants, like Jadot or Drouhin, also make extremely good domaine wines from vineyards they own; and there’s been a wave of small (or very, very small) micro-négociants, who typically buy only grapes, not wine, and make their wines to exacting standards (Chanterêves started this way). Because vineyard land in Burgundy has become spectacularly expensive, many ambitious young vintners have taken to this latter route.
What is Aligoté?
Aligoté, a white grape, is one of Burgundy’s great comeback stories. “Twenty years ago, if someone came to your cellar and you said, ‘Want to try the Aligoté?’ they’d go ‘AGGHHHHHH!’ and look at you in horror,” Pablo Chevrot at Domaine Chevrot recalls. But Aligoté, grown and vinified with care, makes complex white wines, full of character, zingy with acidity, that express where they are from. Unfortunately — as was largely the case 20 years ago — if you farm it poorly, push for maximum yields, and do desultory winemaking, it produces a thin, harsh, sharp, uninteresting white that, well, makes you go AGGHHHHHHH. Today, thankfully, that’s no longer always true.
11 Burgundies to try next
It’s the nature of Burgundy that producers tend to make small amounts of wine from many different vineyards and terroirs. As a result, finding a single, specific wine from any of the domaines here can be a bit challenging. My suggestion is simply to buy any bottle you see from any of them; they are all working at the top of their games, whether in a humble appellation like the Hautes Côtes de Beaune or somewhere more vaunted like Puligny-Montrachet. I’ve also included some excellent domaines and micro-négociants below that hold to the same philosophy and approach as those I’ve written about. — Ray Isle
Domaine Berthaut-Gerbet
Amélie Berthaut makes some of Fixin’s finest wines, as well as exemplary bottlings from the Hautes Côtes de Beaune and Hautes Côtes de Nuits. (From vineyard land on her mother’s side, the Gerbet family, she also makes impressive, albeit pricier, wines from classic terroirs in Gevrey-Chambertin and Vosne-Romanée.)
Domaine de Cassiopée
From their base in Sampigny-lès-Maranges, husband-and-wife winemakers Hugo Mathurin and Talloulah Dubourg make small amounts of expressive reds and whites — look particularly for their Aligoté En Gerlieus and Aligoté Mitancherie (named for the vineyards they come from), and their fine Maranges Les Plantes red, from 110-year-old vines.
Domaine du Cellier aux Moines
Owner Philippe Pascal and winemaker Guillaume Marko make one of the best Givry reds to be found, the Clos du Cellier aux Moines Givry Premier Cru — it’s luscious and complex, both delicious on release and also very ageable. The exotically fragrant Montagny Les Combes Premier Cru white is also a stunner.
Chanterêves
Tomoko Kuriyama and Guillaume Bott started Chanterêves as a boutique négociant, working with small parcels of vineyard up and down Burgundy; as a result, their sublimely expressive wines are more widely available than many here. Their Bourgogne Aligoté Les Chagniots is a steal (as white Burgundies go); other highlights include their Auxey-Duresses Les Hautés white, Savigny-lès-Beaune Dessus de Montchenevoy (both the red and the white), and Chorey-lès-Beaune Champs Longs.
Domaine Chevrot
All of the Chevrot brothers’ Maranges wines are worth hunting for, as are the wines from their vineyards in Santenay. Pablo Chevrot says about their Maranges Sur le Chêne red: “If you want to get to know Burgundy, this is a great introduction,” and he’s right. They also make a lovely rosé, the Bourgogne Rosé Sakura.
Domaine Dandelion
Unfortunately, at the moment Domaine Dandelion’s wines are imported only to a couple of states in the U.S.; with luck, that will change soon. If you see them, though, grab them, particularly the Hautes-Côtes Nature and the Corail; they also make an excellent vintage-dated cider (or cidre, if you prefer the French).
Domaine Lorenzon
Bruno Lorenzon, a former rugby player and barrel broker, makes some of the best wines in Mercurey from his family’s certified-organic vines there. Look for his Mercurey Premier Cru Champs Martin white and his Mercurey Le Chapitre red for a start, but everything he bottles is well worth trying.
Claire Naudin
Claire Naudin took over her family’s property, Domaine Naudin-Ferrand, in 1994 and quickly rejected all use of chemicals in the vineyard and any industrial yeasts in the winery, heading in a noninterventionist direction long before it was fashionable. Her apple-scented Le Clou 34 Aligoté is excellent, as is her savory Côtes de Nuits-Villages Viola Odorata Vieilles Vignes(most of her cuvées are named after flowers or plants). But then, all of her wines are excellent.
Agnès Paquet
From her cellar in the tiny town of Meloisey, Agnès Paquet makes a wide range of precise, compelling wines. For whites, two to hunt for are her Bourgogne Aligoté Le Clou et la Plume and her complex Auxey-Duresses Les Hoz white; and her Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Beaune red is a testimony to how good the Hautes Côtes can be.
Domaine Sylvain Pataille
The irrepressible Sylvain Pataille is widely regarded as the one who jump-started people’s interest in Aligoté again, and at present he makes six different cuvées from this succulent, underrated grape. A personal favorite is the Aligoté Clos du Roy, from vines planted in the 1930s, but all are superb. His Marsannay reds and whites aren’t to be missed either, for instance his elegant Marsannay Le Chapitre red.
Domaine Camille Thiriet
A young vigneron who’s quickly becoming a star, Camille Thiriet makes supple, distinctive wines in the Côte de Nuits village of Corgoloin with her partner, Matt Chittick. All of her wines are impressive; two to look for are the floral Aligoté Du Jardin and the raspberry-scented Côte de Nuits-Villages Aux Montagnes, from vines that are more than 50 years old
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