Burgundy

The finest red and white wines of Burgundy set the standard for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. At their best, Burgundy wines are the world's most aromatically complex, silky, and seductive wines, thanks to their ineffable combination of fruits, flowers, minerals, and earth, and their ability to project flavor authority without excess weight. But first-rate Burgundies are produced in limited quantities. Burgundy is a minefield for the casual wine lover, as there is still far too much mediocre and grossly overpriced wine. The problem in a nutshell is that ownership of a single, small premier cru vineyard may be carved up among a dozen or more owners, and the Burgundy wines produced, even though they sell for roughly the same price at the cellar door, can range from the sublime to the undrinkable, depending on the talent and commitment of the producer.

The Cote d'Or, or "golden slope," is the heart of Burgundy, a 30-mile-long ribbon of vineyards stretching from just south of Dijon to Chagny. But the greater Burgundy region also encompasses Chablis in its extreme north, and the Cote Chalonnaise and Maconnais regions located to the south of the Cote d'Or. Beaujolais, at the extreme southern end of Burgundy, virtually reaches the outskirts of Lyon.

The Burgundy wines of the Côte d’Or are classified into five categories based upon the quality of their terroir, a hierarchy of vineyard sites that has been established over literally hundreds of years. At the base of the quality pyramid is generic Burgundy wine (the label simply says Bourgogne), which may come from any vineyard in Burgundy. Next is a special category of generic wines entitled to use a regional appellation (for example, Côte de Nuits-Villages) on the label. The third category of Burgundy wine, popularly referred to as village wine, comes from vineyards located entirely within the boundaries of a group of favored villages, or communes; the label normally lists only the name of the village—e.g., Chambolle-Musigny, although sometimes additional place names (lieux-dit) are appended.

Next in rank in the Burgundy wine pecking order are the first growths (premiers crus), specially designated vineyards with particularly favorable soil and exposition. The name of the premier cru is appended to the village name on the label (such as Chambolle-Musigny Les Amoureuses), and the words premier cru appear on the label.

Finally, at the apex of the Burgundy pyramid are the grands crus, those ideally situated hillside vineyards that over the centuries have consistently produced the region’s greatest wines. These grand crus (e.g., Chambertin, Musigny) have become so well known that their labels need not make reference to the villages in which they are located. In fact, in the 19th century several villages capitalized on the reputations of their most famous vineyards by appending the name of the grand cru to their own. Unfortunately, this can cloud the important distinction between a vineyard (Musigny) and the village in which it is located (Chambolle-Musigny).

The Burgundy wine history factor. A small dose of history is necessary to explain the jigsaw puzzle that is the typical Burgundy cru, or growth.

Following the French Revolution, vineyards previously owned by the Catholic Church and the aristocracy were confiscated and auctioned off, mostly to wealthy speculators who in turn subdivided and resold them. The parceling of vineyards was accelerated by the French laws of inheritance established by the Napoleonic code, which ended primogeniture and required property to be equally divided among all heirs. The result is that today’s typical vineyard is carved up among multiple owners. Thus, there’s really no single wine called Vosne-Romanée Les Suchots: 20 or more growers and négociants offer this first growth.

The Burgundy wine climate factor. The great wines of Burgundy are made from a single grape variety (either Pinot Noir or Chardonnay) grown in a closely defined site, rather than a blend of varieties from multiple sites. This means that grape growers do not have the luxury of being able to increase the proportion of a particular grape that fared better (as they can in Bordeaux) or to favor a site that did relatively well. Whereas grapes in warmer areas reach reasonable levels of ripeness almost every year, vintage variation is much more of a factor in Burgundy than it is in many other wine-growing regions.

For starters, Pinot Noir buds early and is particularly vulnerable to spring frosts. Highly localized summer hailstorms can decimate a parcel of vines in a matter of minutes. Cold weather in September can prevent proper ripening and result in tart, undernourished wines. Rain just before or during the harvest can swell the grapes with water or bring on rot, always a risk with the relatively thin-skinned, tight-clustered Pinot Noir grapes.

While underripeness has historically been the more common problem in Burgundy, uncharacteristically hot and dry years, like 2003, can produce excessively alcoholic and tannic wines with inadequate acidity or a cooked-fruit character. Some vintages produce such copious crop loads that unless growers take active steps to hold down yields, they are doomed to produce dilute wines. Unfortunately, with the high prices Burgundy fetches in today’s marketplace, and with numerous major markets all clamoring for limited quantities of the best wines, there is little financial incentive to limit production.

A Burgundy’s label will tell you the wine’s vintage and appellation, but it won’t tell you whether the grapes were ripe enough or whether the producer overproduced or cut corners during vinification. While Burgundy snobs gravitate toward the most famous grand cru vineyards and undervalue lesser sites, more liberated pinot fans know that the producer’s name on the label is easily as important as the wine’s origin.