Category: Burgundy

Weather plays an important role in shaping a vintage. Warmer years produce richer wines; years with rain usually drive down yield. And then there are years where nearly everything goes just right. 2015 was such a year, though most of its wines have yet to be bottled. But while we wait, we continue to enjoy the fruits of the last…

In a region as small and well trodden as Burgundy, it’s amazing there are any surprises left at all. But today’s wine might be the single most exciting Burgundy of either color we’ve found in the last few years. Hailing from tiny and oft-forgotten town of Ladoix, it’s a wine of extraordinary complexity and depth.

Chablis remains one of the best bargains in the wine world. Forever playing second fiddle to the rest of Burgundy, the brand suffered damage from the jug-wine “California Chablis,” and has yet to recover fully. The wines themselves, however, have never been better.

Some of the finest wines in our cellar are White Burgundy. Grown in a small collection of vineyards where Chardonnay reaches its highest expression, White Burgundy can be as profound as any red wine. Burgundy is where Chardonnay strikes its most elegant balance between soft, mouthfilling fruit, and crisp, refreshing acidity.

Wine is only one expression of France’s terroir. In our travels around the country we always enjoy sampling the others -- from Belon oysters and real Epoisses to pâtés de campagne and fleur de sel. One of our favorite such products is crème de cassis, a blackcurrant liqueur originally from Burgundy.

Gevrey-Chambertin is the largest appellation of Burgundy’s Côte d’Or. And because of its clay rich soils, its wines are similarly grand. Known for power and longevity, Gevrey-Chambertin shows dark, intense fruit and a sturdy tannic structure.

Chablis remains among the best bargains in the wine world. Its distinctive wines are always more affordable than their counterparts in the Côte d’Or, a result of damage to the name from imitation “California Chablis” of decades ago. Drawing from the distinctive Kimmeridgean terroir and a tradition of subtle or no oak, the winemakers of Chablis create some of the…

The are two main distinctions between Champagne and other French sparkling wine. First, terroir: Champagne’s unique chalky soils contribute to the singular flavors of its wines. Second, time spent on the lees: Champenois must age their wines for a minimum of 15 months on the lees, adding complexity and depth to the wines. (Lees are the dead yeasts that precipitate…

“Puligny-Montrachet is where Burgundian Chardonnay is at its most complete,” writes Clive Coates MW. The tiny town, covering over less than one square mile, has made highly sought-after wine for nearly a thousand years. Today many consider it, as Coates puts it, “the greatest white wine commune on earth.”

The 2015 vintage continues to impress. An unusually warm and sunny year resulted in wines of deep richness and concentration, even in regions where ripeness is often a concern. In the Beaujolais, home to our new winemaker Jean-Marc Monnet, the Gamay reached a density that resembles northern Rhône syrah.

Beaujolais is the source of plenty of uninteresting wines. Fully a third of the region’s production is the Beaujolais Nouveau, a cheap insipid red rushed to market a month after harvest. But the rest of the region contains many highly undervalued wines, some in the same class of top wines from the north of Burgundy.

We find some of our favorite values in towns just off the beaten path. The neighbor villages of Chassagne-Montrachet and Puligny-Montrachet are the world’s best known sources for fine white wine. But just two miles to the west lies the often-overlooked town of Saint-Aubin, which turns out to be an exceptional source for value in white Burgundy.

This past June we went searching for a new source in the Beaujolais. One morning we lined up two tasting appointments in Juliénas, one of the ten Beaujolais Cru. The first domaine (last week’s Jean-Marc Monnet) was so good that we continued to the second mostly as a matter of courtesy.

If Burgundy is the heart of the Pinot Noir universe, then Vosne-Romanée is the heart of Burgundy. Celebrated for more than eight centuries and boasting some of the world’s most sought-after wines, Vosne-Romanée is Mecca for Burgundy enthusiasts and Pinotphiles around the world.