Côte de Nuits

On soils thinner and more calcareous than its neighbours', at the mouth of a combe that funnels cool air, Chambolle-Musigny makes the finest and most perfumed reds of the Côte de Nuits. Its two grands crus, Musigny to the south and Bonnes-Mares to the north, frame the premier cru Les Amoureuses, often held to be a grand cru in all but name.

A village appellation in the north of the Côte de Nuits, south of Dijon, Fixin is made in the communes of Fixin and Brochon. It produces mostly Pinot Noir reds and a little white; six climats are classified as premier cru, among them the Clos de la Perrière, once owned by the abbey of Cîteaux, and the Clos du Chapitre, a reminder of the lordship of the chapter of Langres. The specification describes deeply coloured, powerful reds with dense tannins, built to age.

The largest of the Côte de Nuits village appellations, Gevrey-Chambertin lines up nine grands crus around Chambertin and Chambertin-Clos de Bèze, on a marly shelf at mid-slope extended to the north by the combe de Lavaux. Its wines pass for the most powerful and the most firmly built of the Côte.

At the northern tip of the Côte de Nuits, on Dijon's doorstep, Marsannay is made in the communes of Marsannay-la-Côte, Couchey and Chenôve, and covers all three colours: red, white and rosé. The vineyard, turned over to everyday Gamay wines in the 19th century, was replanted with Pinot Noir and made its name with rosés, sold as AOC Bourgogne from 1937 and, from 1961, as Bourgogne with the added name Marsannay. The village appellation was recognised in 1987. The reds, which make up most of the output, are described as deeply coloured, powerful yet supple; the rosés as tender and fruity.

Wedged between Gevrey-Chambertin and Chambolle-Musigny, Morey-Saint-Denis is the most self-effacing of the great Côte de Nuits villages, although it has four grands crus of its own — Clos de la Roche, Clos Saint-Denis, Clos des Lambrays and Clos de Tart — plus the share of Bonnes-Mares that spills over its boundary. Its wines sit midway between the power of Gevrey and the lace of Chambolle.

A village appellation of the Côte de Nuits, Nuits-Saint-Georges is made in two communes, Nuits-Saint-Georges and Premeaux-Prissey, on either side of the Meuzin valley. It has no grand cru, but its specification classifies forty-one climats as premier cru. It is almost entirely an appellation for Pinot Noir reds, described as powerful and long-lived in the premiers crus; white wine, from Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc, remains marginal. The town, which rose in the 18th century to become Burgundy's second wine-trading centre alongside Beaune, added to its own name, in 1892, that of its best-known cru, Saint-Georges.

A red village appellation of the Côte de Nuits produced in the communes of Vosne-Romanée and Flagey-Échezeaux, Vosne-Romanée packs into little more than a hundred and fifty hectares six grands crus of its own — Romanée-Conti, La Romanée, La Tâche, Richebourg, Romanée-Saint-Vivant and La Grande Rue — and fourteen climats classified as premier cru. Flagey's two grands crus, Échezeaux and Grands-Échezeaux, back onto it to the north, and Flagey's village wines are sold under the Vosne-Romanée name. Pinot Noir here gives velvet-textured wines built to age, which Gaston Roupnel called the pearl of the Côte.

A tiny village appellation almost entirely swallowed by the Clos de Vougeot, a grand cru of some fifty hectares that the monks of Cîteaux began walling in from the twelfth century. The château du Clos de Vougeot, now the seat of the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, is its emblem.

A Côte de Nuits commune whose two grands crus, Échezeaux and Grands-Échezeaux, back onto the Clos de Vougeot at the mouth of a steep-sided combe. Flagey has no village appellation of its own: its village wines are sold as AOC Vosne-Romanée, and three of its climats are classified as premier cru of that appellation.