Mâconnais

Chardonnay country, at Burgundy's southern end

The Mâconnais is white-wine country first of all: the same Chardonnay as the Côte d'Or's, and it takes up most of the vineyard. For the Mâcon AOC alone, the specification counts, in the 2020s, some 4,000 hectares given over to whites against 300 for reds and rosés. Among the village appellations, the best known are Pouilly-Fuissé, Saint-Véran and Viré-Clessé.

The landscape is neither the Côte d'Or's nor the Côte Chalonnaise's. Bounded by the Saône plain to the north and east, by the Grosne valley and the Charollais to the west, and running on southward into the Monts du Beaujolais, the Mâconnais lines up long parallel ridges, oriented north-north-east to south-south-west and separated by faults. Each one runs, from west to east, from a granite or schist base into limestone and clay beds; in the Mâcon AOC, the plots delimited for white wine are confined to limestone or slightly decalcified soils. The climate is oceanic with a southern streak, open to the influences that come up the Saône valley. The specification describes the whites as balanced, fresh and aromatic, wines that can be enjoyed young.

Pouilly-Fuissé and its premiers crus

Pouilly-Fuissé is the best-known appellation of the Mâconnais, at the foot of the two limestone rocks of Solutré and Vergisson. First recognised by a decree of 11 September 1936, it received new rules by the order of 5 November 2020, which recognised twenty-two climats as premiers crus across the communes of Chaintré, Fuissé, Solutré-Pouilly and Vergisson. They are the Mâconnais's first premiers crus: the Burgundian hierarchy is not set in stone.

White-wine country, with pockets of red and rosé

The Mâconnais is not white-only. Some red and rosé is still made under the Mâcon appellation, on its own or followed by a geographical name, most often a commune; the "Villages" mention, though, is for whites only. These reds and rosés come from Gamay and Pinot Noir, and from Gamay alone when a geographical name follows. Gamay is the grape of neighbouring Beaujolais, with which the Mâconnais shares its southern border. The AOC Mâcon specification places it preferably on the acid soils of the granite fringes in the west, at the southern edge near the Monts du Beaujolais, and in the north, towards the Chalonnais.

A country of cooperatives

Vines are recorded in the Mâconnais as early as the third century, and the abbeys of Cluny, to the west, and Tournus, to the north, drove their growth in the Middle Ages. The twentieth century made it a land of cooperative cellars: the first was founded in 1926 at Saint-Gengoux-de-Scissé, and the AOC Mâcon specification still counts twelve after a wave of mergers, alongside nearly 390 independent cellars.