Burgundy

Burgundy

Burgundy is the region we know the best and love the most.  We lived there for a year in 1998-99, and got to know the wines well, from everyday glasses to those we think are the world’s best.  So it should come as no surprise that the majority of the wines we import are from Burgundy.

The Côte d’Or (“golden slope”) is the part of Burgundy that produces its greatest wines, with whites from Chardonnay and reds from PInot Noir.  Its towns include storied names like Meursault, Vosne-Romanée, and Gevrey Chambertin, and the wines are priced accordingly.

But there is more to Burgundy.  An hour to the north of the Côte d’Or lies Chablis, whose wonderful white wines (also Chardonnay) are among the world’s greatest wine values. Just to the south of the Côte d’Or is the Côte Chalonnaise, where we are able to buy excellent wines at better prices from less famous villages like Givry and Rully.  Continuing south is the Maconnais, where producers like Nicolas Maillet make wines of extraordinary purity in and around Verzé,as well as superb white Burgundy from Pouilly-Fuissé.

The Beaujolais makes up the southernmost part of Burgundy.  There the red wine grape is Gamay.  Most of the wine from the Beaujolais is like most of the white from Muscadet — straightforward and inexpensive, meant for drinking young.  We have focused on its more serious wine — that from the ten Beaujolais towns with the Cru appellation, where the wine is denser, more complex, and more age-worthy.

Winemakers

  • Alain Gautheron

    Chablis

    Cyril Gautheron is a rising star in Chablis. The Gautheron Family has made wine here for 200 years, but Cyril has taken the reins with an unusual passion.

  • Boyer-Martenot

    Meursault, Burgundy

    Boyer’s wines come from Meursault and Puligny-Montrachet, and display the richness and depth for which these towns are known. According to Master of Wine Jasper Morris, “Boyer-Martenot seems to make better wines year after year.”

  • Domaine des Varoilles

    Gevrey-Chambertin

    The terroirs of Gevrey-Chambertin produce the meatiest and most intense red wines in all of Burgundy. The Varoilles winemaking style is toward richness and density, and when married to their exceptional terroir, results in wines of impressive intensity.

  • Domaine Mégard

    Pommard

    The Mégard family makes a single, elegant Pommard from their 16th century cellars in the heart of the city of Beaune.

  • Domaine Quivy

    Gevrey-Chambertin

    Quivy’s wines are much like the buildings of his home: handsome, meticulously made and cared-for, and true to their considerable history. They embody the tradition and elegance for which the finest Burgundies are known.

  • Domaine Ravaut

    Ladoix

    The Ravaut family is the ultimate local wine source. A generation ago the Ravauts developed a clientele among the workers in the quarries next door, and today they continue to sell more than half of their wine to loyal local customers.

  • Gérard Thomas

    St-Aubin

    The Thomas family has an intimate knowledge of the terroir of St. Aubin — they’ve lived and made wine here for more than 70 years. Their two wines from St-Aubin are among the best values we know of in White Burgundy.

  • Jean Collet

    Chablis

    Winemaker Romain Collet describes his family’s style as clean and dry with a salt air freshness. His wines show the elegance and prestige possible from a single grape in a single microregion.

  • Jean-Marc Monnet

    Juliénas

    Forget everything you know about Beaujolais (particularly nouveau). Jean-Marc Monnet makes wines that are intense, delicious, and inky — think the fruit profile of a Pinot Noir, but the weight of a Northern Rhone Syrah.

  • Laurent Perrachon

    Juliénas

    No Beaujolais source has more impressed us than Laurent Perrachon. From meticulously cultivated old vines and careful use of oak, Perrachon creates remarkably delicious and refined red Burgundies.

  • Maison Picamelot

    Rully

    Picamelot makes delicious, affordable sparkling wines in the classic Burgundian tradition. Made with the same methods as in Champagne, these Crémants de Bourgogne are gently bubbly, dry, complex, and truly delicious.

  • Michel Gros

    Vosne-Romanée

    Michel Gros is perhaps the most recognizable producer in our portfolio, and his wines are well deserving of their praise. His red Burgundies are all elegant and precise, often showing smoky or toasty qualities, and always silky and beautiful.

  • Michel Prunier

    Auxey-Duresses

    The charming, somewhat diminutive, jovial Michel Prunier makes delicious wines at his Domaine in Auxey-Duresses. Prunier has built his domaine into what Clive Coates MW calls “certainly the best grower in the village.”

  • Nicolas Maillet

    Verzé

    Maillet is a man full of passion — for his vineyards, for his rootstocks, for biodynamics, and for the purity of his harvest. And he manages to translate all of this energy into extraordinary wines.

  • Pierre Amiot et Fils

    Morey-St-Denis

    At their best, the wines of Morey-St. Denis show beautiful lace-like minerality, and an elegance only possible in Pinot Noir from Burgundy.

  • Propriété Desvignes

    Givry

    The Desvignes family makes Pinot Noir in a heartier, brisker form. These are red Burgundies that trade elegance for rusticity, more comfortable in a Parisian bistro than a three-star restaurant.

  • Roger Belland

    Santenay

    With 176 years of experience, the Bellands know their terroir intimately. They have used no herbicides for more than 20 years, and their wines are all careful, pure expressions of their origin.

  • Thomas Morey

    Chassagne-Montrachet

    Thomas Morey’s style is one of precision and intensity. His careful use of oak and careful vinification mean that his wines are more sophisticated and less showy than much Chassagne. But their smoothness and ease of enjoyment reveal their true origin.

Available Burgundy wines