Aligoté

Identity

Aligoté is the most-cited grape in this corpus among those it had not published: twelve published appellations name it. Eleven treat it as an accessory — Beaujolais, its ten crus, Beaujolais-Villages — and only one, Vin de Savoie, makes it a principal variety.

That is a faithful portrait of its real position: permitted almost everywhere, led with almost nowhere. And it is the more striking because in Burgundy it has a whole appellation to its name.

What this entry cannot say

That is where to begin. Bouzeron, the one Burgundian appellation devoted to Aligoté, has no node in this corpus. Its cahier des charges has not been opened. A reader looking up Aligoté is probably looking for Bouzeron first, and this entry does not have it.

Likewise, its vigour and its structure are not filled in, and that is not an oversight. A sourcing audit established that Pl@ntGrape gives no word for vigour for this variety — only a fertility and a frequent millerandage — and no quantifiable winemaking character. The fields stay empty, which means "not established" and not "medium". A test in the repository holds them empty, and continues to do so now that the entry is published.

In the vineyard

It buds early and ripens early, which is both unusual and useful: early ripeness in a cool climate lets you pick before the rains.

The price is twofold. Budding early means exposure to spring frost. And it is prone to millerandage — those bunches where the berries stay uneven, some of them tiny — which Pl@ntGrape reports as frequent in it. Regular millerandage means an irregular crop from year to year.

On disease, its profile is unusual and rather favourable: little troubled by powdery mildew, but fairly susceptible to downy mildew and grey rot.

In the glass

This entry carries a single descriptor, lemon, and there will not be eight: no source opened for it gives an aroma profile for Aligoté.

What can be said without inventing comes from how it is used. In the appellations that name it, it is almost always an accessory in a white, alongside Chardonnay in Beaujolais. A grape added to a white for acidity and liveliness, not for weight.

Where it is named

In Savoie, a principal variety of Vin de Savoie — the only appellation in this corpus to give it that rank.

In Beaujolais, an accessory variety for white wines, and that throughout the hierarchy: the regional appellation, Beaujolais-Villages, and each of the ten crus. Twelve texts that permit it, none that puts it first.