Burgundy

From Chablis to the Mâconnais

Burgundy is not one block of vines but a string of vineyards running from the north-west to the south, between the Auxerre area and the region around Mâcon. It reads best as five districts. Furthest north, more than a hundred kilometres north-west of the Côte d'Or, lie Chablis and the Grand Auxerrois, along the Serein and the Yonne. Then come the Côte de Nuits, from Dijon to Corgoloin, and the Côte de Beaune, from Ladoix-Serrigny to Santenay — together, the Côte d'Or. To the south are the Côte Chalonnaise, between Chagny and Saint-Vallerin, and the Mâconnais, between the Saône and the Grosne valley, down to the Monts du Beaujolais. The Burgundy wine board also counts the Châtillonnais, north of the Côte d'Or, and groups the Hautes-Côtes, on the plateaux above the Côte, with the Côte de Nuits and the Côte de Beaune. Beaujolais, further south, has its own entry in Oenopia as a region in its own right.

Two grapes, and their neighbours

Burgundy rests on two grapes that between them cover more than 80% of the vineyard: Chardonnay for the whites, the more widely planted of the two, and Pinot Noir for the reds. White wine makes up the larger part of production. Pinot Noir has the Côte de Nuits almost to itself; the Côte de Beaune makes fine reds too, but it is also where Chardonnay has several of its most celebrated sites, from Corton-Charlemagne to Le Montrachet. In Chablis and the Mâconnais, Chardonnay leads.

Other grapes have their place, and it is clearly marked out. Aligoté, a white grape with a long history in Burgundy, is grown on land that suits neither Pinot Noir nor Chardonnay; it even has a village appellation of its own, Bouzeron, in the Côte Chalonnaise. Gamay is the main grape of the Mâconnais reds, next door to Beaujolais; the Mâcon AOC also allows Pinot Noir. In the Yonne, Sauvignon Blanc makes the Saint-Bris appellation, and César, a local red grape, may join Pinot Noir at Irancy.

Limestone and marl

Underfoot, Burgundy is above all limestone and marl — a rock that mixes limestone with clay. The Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune follow a major geological fault for some sixty kilometres: the vines line up along the face of an escarpment, with the Saône plain to the east and the plateaux of the Hautes-Côtes to the west. In the Côte de Nuits, that slope is made of Middle Jurassic limestone. In the Côte de Beaune, which is wider and more open, the marls reach higher up the slope, and it is on them that Chardonnay finds several of its most celebrated sites.

Further south, the Côte Chalonnaise loses that continuity: its relief breaks up into scattered hills facing in every direction. The Mâconnais is a country of long parallel ridges separated by faults. Up north, Chablis sits on Kimmeridgian marls and limestones at the rim of the Paris basin; its marls are packed with tiny comma-shaped fossil oysters.

Climats

Burgundy's key word is the climat: a precisely delimited plot of vines that has carried its own name for a long time, often for centuries. Two neighbouring plots on the same slope can carry two different names and give two wines that can be told apart. Burgundy built its whole hierarchy on that idea. The Climats of the Burgundy vineyard, from Dijon to the Maranges, have been on UNESCO's World Heritage list since 4 July 2015.

A four-level hierarchy

Burgundy has 84 appellations: 7 regional, 44 village and 33 grand cru. Its hierarchy still reads on four levels, from the broadest to the most precise, because premiers crus form a level inside the village appellations.

At the base, the regional appellations can be made across a wide area — the whole of Burgundy or a large part of it: Bourgogne, Bourgogne Aligoté, Coteaux Bourguignons and so on. They account for about half of production. Above them, the village appellations carry the name of their commune: Meursault, Pommard, Gevrey-Chambertin… They make up a little over a third of production.

Premiers crus are not separate appellations: they are climats marked out inside a village appellation. The label carries the village name, the words "Premier Cru" or "1er Cru", and often the name of the climat. They represent about 10% of production. At the top, each grand cru is an appellation in its own right, and together they account for between 1 and 2% of production. Twenty-four are in the Côte de Nuits, mostly Pinot Noir reds; eight in the Côte de Beaune, mostly Chardonnay whites, with Corton mainly red; and just one in Chablis. These shares are orders of magnitude, not exact figures.

Reading a label: the Gevrey rule, and where it stops

Burgundy names look alike, and that is where wine lovers can slip up. In Gevrey-Chambertin the rule of thumb is simple: a grand cru does not carry the village name. Chambertin, Charmes-Chambertin and Mazis-Chambertin are grands crus; "Gevrey-Chambertin" is the village appellation, even though "Chambertin" is part of it. The hyphen is not what makes the difference.

That rule does not stretch to the whole of Burgundy. Clos de Vougeot is a grand cru that carries the name of its commune, Vougeot, and so does Chablis Grand Cru. To place a wine, look for the words "Grand Cru" or "Premier Cru" on the label rather than trusting the shape of the name.

Each district, its own pyramid

Chablis has its own ladder: Petit Chablis, Chablis, Chablis Premier Cru and Chablis Grand Cru. That last one is a single appellation whose area is split across seven climats: Blanchot, Bougros, Grenouilles, Les Clos, Preuses, Valmur and Vaudésir.

The Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune hold thirty-two of the thirty-three grands crus, often in the same commune as a village appellation and its premiers crus, as in Gevrey-Chambertin or Vosne-Romanée. Not every village has a grand cru: Meursault, for one, has none, and built its name on its premiers crus.

The Côte Chalonnaise has no grand cru. It is organised around five village appellations: Bouzeron for Aligoté, Rully, Mercurey, Givry and Montagny, the last of these for white only. In the Mâconnais, Pouilly-Fuissé, Saint-Véran and Viré-Clessé sit at the top of the ladder, and Pouilly-Fuissé gained premiers crus in 2020.