Wines from Burgundy

About wines from Burgundy

General information about Burgundy

Jancis Robinson describes Burgundy this way: "If Paris is the head of France and Champagne is its soul, then Burgundy is its stomach." It is a land of long, festive meals, richly laden with the finest ingredients (Charolais beef in the west, Bresse chickens in the east, super-creamy cheeses like Chaource and Epoisses all around). It was the richest of France's ancient duchies, and as a wine region, it has one of the longest histories in the world. Burgundy is not a single large wine-producing region, but the name of a province that contains several distinct and important wine regions.

By far the richest and most important is the Côte d'Or, the heart of Burgundy and the ancestral home of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. It comprises the Côte de Beaune in the south and the Côte de Nuits in the north. In a different context, the Chardonnays of Chablis, the reds and whites of the Côte Chalonnaise, and the whites of the Mâconnais (all equally part of Burgundy) would be the stars in their own right. Immediately south of the Mâconnais lies Beaujolais, quite different from Burgundy in terms of size, style, soil, and grape variety.

Despite its ancient glory and wealth, Burgundy still feels simple and rustic. There's hardly a large house from one end of the Côte d'Or to the other—and the people whose names appear on the label may well be pruning the vines and driving the tractor themselves. Most of the few large estates that once belonged to the Church were dissolved by Napoleon. Burgundy remains one of the most fragmented major wine-growing regions in France. The average vineyard may be larger than it once was, but it still only encompasses 7 hectares.

The fragmentation of Burgundy is the reason for the major drawback of its wine: its unpredictability. Geographically, the human factor is unmappable, and in Burgundy, more than in most places, it must be given the main role. Due to inheritance laws, most vineyard plots are cultivated by many different winegrowers, each owning several rows of vines in different climates. Monopolies, meaning entire vineyards in one hand, are rare exceptions. Even the smallest winegrower has plots in two or three vineyards. The 50 hectares of Clos de Vougeot are divided among up to 80 winegrowers.