What I knew before:
This is the most famous region in the world for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. But it’s complex to the consumer because these are rarely estate wines as in Bordeaux and Napa. Quality is dependent upon both vineyard and winemaker. In the 1970’s I had few memorable experiences. One was a 1970 Chambertin, $10 at the Wine Merchant in Beverly Hills. My bridge partner Steve and I drank it within a few weeks, a top ten lifetime wine, but of course there were no more. But one of the great Trader Joe bargains was $5 village Vosne-Romanee. We bought this by the case and no other $5 wine could touch it. TJ’s had some Puligny-Montrachet whites for about $7, excellent but I remember mainly because it was the only time I have dropped and broken a bottle.
The short notice and above complexity called for a curated tour, expertly provided by Thomas, a well traveled American expat, former an international banker now enjoying the good life in Burgundy. Very few of the top producers offer public tours or tastings, even by appointment.
I knew the prime Cote de Nuits/Cote de Beaune land was on an east facing slope. That’s for morning sun and good drainage. The grand crus and premier crus are nearly all on the slopes with the village wine on the flats below. There are 33 grand cru vineyards in Burgundy; the classification of grand and premier cru vineyards was done in 1935 vs. 1855 in Bordeaux. Chardonnay is grown where the soil has a lot of limestone, mostly in the southern Cote de Beaune.
Vineyards and wine producers are even more fragmented than I thought. Romanee Conti makes 5,000 bottles per year vs. 20,000 cases a year at Chateau Latour in Bordeaux. Within a vineyard there are nearly always multiple owners of plots typically of 5 acres or less. The winemakers make in small batches from the specified vineyards; blended wine must be labelled from the lowest class in the blend.
Thus there are no economies of scale in either winemaking or distribution, which leads to high pricing. And of course the vineyard owners and winemakers want to keep it that way. So don’t expect to see these wines at Trader Joe’s or Costco. That said, here in Burgundy the premier crus we tried were in the $50 $100 range, which is no more than premium Pinot Noirs from Oregon or California. When we will get home it will be interesting to see what pricing is like in specialty wine shops. Grand Crus start at $100 and go far higher with premium winemaker names like Domaine Romanee Conti.
Chablis is a separate district northwest of Dijon subject to 1935 classifications also but is an exception to the above. There is far more volume of Chardonnay produced and there is even a Kirkland Chablis Premier Cru at Costco in the $15-$20 range that we recommend highly.
Our first stop was at Domaine Marguerite Carillon near Meursault.
They had fermentation tanks and barrels labeled with multiple vineyard sources.
With Thomas here in bottling area:
We got to taste from a barrel first.
Domaine Marguerite Carillon participates in the famous Hospices de Beaune charity wine auction every November. https://hospices-beaune.com/en/discover/domaine-hospices-estate/wine-auction/
Wines labeled Domaine Marguerite Carillon come from vineyard plots owned by the winery. Other wines where the grapes were bought from other owners had a Chartron et Trebuchet label, which is a brand name that Domaine Marguerite Carillon purchased.
My ~350 bottle wine cellar is mostly red wine, with the plurality of the high end in California Cabernets. However we have been drinking quite of bit of Oregon and California Pinot Noir over the time Liz has been here. While we have some decent white wine around for our frequent fish dinners, Liz said she had never had white wine at the level of these Burgundy tastings before. Map of Puligny-Montrachet with Champ Gain premier cru vineyard marked slightly above and to the right of the darker colored grand cru Montrachet vineyards:
One example of a consumer pitfall in Burgundy is Clos de Vougeot, the oldest continuous Pinot Noir designated terroir in Burgundy and the largest grand cru plot. There are 80 land owners there and a further complication is that some of the land is down on the flats and the wine from there is not really grand cru quality. Domaine Marguerite Carillon buys Clos de Vougeot grapes from the western third of the land so definitely on the slope.
Our next stop was at Comte Senard in Aloxe-Corton, which is Thomas’ personal favorite sector of Burgundy.
One of the wines, Corton Clos des Miex, is a very small vineyard owned 100% by Comte Senard, thus the rare designation Monopole (dotted line on map). This Pinot Noir was a 2021, so young that we would have to speculate upon “where it was going” to justify the Grand Cru price.
However the 2019 Les Valozieres Premier Cru and the 2018 Les Paulands Grand Cru (solid outline on map) were outstanding and thus among our purchases, very synergistic with the accompanying beef bourguignon lunch.
Driving through the countryside we passed Clos de Vougeot.
Its castle built in 1551 is popular for weddings and needs to be reserved two years in advance.
We passed variably pruned vineyards. Most are pruned by the Guyot method to have one long and one short branch.
These have not been pruned yet.
A few vineyards leave high branches to form a shade canopy.
These can better protect the grapes during those infamous summer heat waves that are melting the French glaciers.
We were surprised to see THIS in Burgundy wine country!
The final stop was at a wine shop in Fixin.
Thomas attempted to find modern equivalents to my two noteworthy wines of the 1970’s. These three wines came home in our suitcases.
The village Vosne-Romanee was from Les Barreaux plot (marked in pic below) on the hill just above the Grand Crus rather than from the flats.
Note the location adjacent to Richebourg, one of the Domaine Romanee Conti wines well out of our price range.
The Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru was an impressive grand finale, though not an easy comparison to a wine I had 45 years ago.
In general the Vosne-Romanee and Gevrey-Chambertin districts tend to be the most prestigious and expensive because they each contain 9 of the 33 Grand Crus. Thomas said sometimes good values can be found in Premier Crus from districts without a Grand Cru.
This tour was an oenophile’s equivalent to a ski day in the heli. Including the 15 bottles coming home that applies to the cost as well. At the other two stops we bought 6 bottles, which are the minimum to ship. Overseas shipping cost is partially offset by not paying the VAT as we did on the 3 bottles at the shop.
Liz and I are usually do it ourselves travel planners. This is the only wine region in the world where I would pay as much for a curated tour, for reasons explained above. We feel lucky we got this on this tour on about 36 hours notice. Overall January is likely a quiet tourist season for Dijon/Burgundy, though there was a music festival in Chambolle-Musigny the weekend after our visit.
This is the most famous region in the world for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. But it’s complex to the consumer because these are rarely estate wines as in Bordeaux and Napa. Quality is dependent upon both vineyard and winemaker. In the 1970’s I had few memorable experiences. One was a 1970 Chambertin, $10 at the Wine Merchant in Beverly Hills. My bridge partner Steve and I drank it within a few weeks, a top ten lifetime wine, but of course there were no more. But one of the great Trader Joe bargains was $5 village Vosne-Romanee. We bought this by the case and no other $5 wine could touch it. TJ’s had some Puligny-Montrachet whites for about $7, excellent but I remember mainly because it was the only time I have dropped and broken a bottle.
The short notice and above complexity called for a curated tour, expertly provided by Thomas, a well traveled American expat, former an international banker now enjoying the good life in Burgundy. Very few of the top producers offer public tours or tastings, even by appointment.
I knew the prime Cote de Nuits/Cote de Beaune land was on an east facing slope. That’s for morning sun and good drainage. The grand crus and premier crus are nearly all on the slopes with the village wine on the flats below. There are 33 grand cru vineyards in Burgundy; the classification of grand and premier cru vineyards was done in 1935 vs. 1855 in Bordeaux. Chardonnay is grown where the soil has a lot of limestone, mostly in the southern Cote de Beaune.
Vineyards and wine producers are even more fragmented than I thought. Romanee Conti makes 5,000 bottles per year vs. 20,000 cases a year at Chateau Latour in Bordeaux. Within a vineyard there are nearly always multiple owners of plots typically of 5 acres or less. The winemakers make in small batches from the specified vineyards; blended wine must be labelled from the lowest class in the blend.
Thus there are no economies of scale in either winemaking or distribution, which leads to high pricing. And of course the vineyard owners and winemakers want to keep it that way. So don’t expect to see these wines at Trader Joe’s or Costco. That said, here in Burgundy the premier crus we tried were in the $50 $100 range, which is no more than premium Pinot Noirs from Oregon or California. When we will get home it will be interesting to see what pricing is like in specialty wine shops. Grand Crus start at $100 and go far higher with premium winemaker names like Domaine Romanee Conti.
Chablis is a separate district northwest of Dijon subject to 1935 classifications also but is an exception to the above. There is far more volume of Chardonnay produced and there is even a Kirkland Chablis Premier Cru at Costco in the $15-$20 range that we recommend highly.
Our first stop was at Domaine Marguerite Carillon near Meursault.
They had fermentation tanks and barrels labeled with multiple vineyard sources.
With Thomas here in bottling area:
We got to taste from a barrel first.
Domaine Marguerite Carillon participates in the famous Hospices de Beaune charity wine auction every November. https://hospices-beaune.com/en/discover/domaine-hospices-estate/wine-auction/
Wines labeled Domaine Marguerite Carillon come from vineyard plots owned by the winery. Other wines where the grapes were bought from other owners had a Chartron et Trebuchet label, which is a brand name that Domaine Marguerite Carillon purchased.
My ~350 bottle wine cellar is mostly red wine, with the plurality of the high end in California Cabernets. However we have been drinking quite of bit of Oregon and California Pinot Noir over the time Liz has been here. While we have some decent white wine around for our frequent fish dinners, Liz said she had never had white wine at the level of these Burgundy tastings before. Map of Puligny-Montrachet with Champ Gain premier cru vineyard marked slightly above and to the right of the darker colored grand cru Montrachet vineyards:
One example of a consumer pitfall in Burgundy is Clos de Vougeot, the oldest continuous Pinot Noir designated terroir in Burgundy and the largest grand cru plot. There are 80 land owners there and a further complication is that some of the land is down on the flats and the wine from there is not really grand cru quality. Domaine Marguerite Carillon buys Clos de Vougeot grapes from the western third of the land so definitely on the slope.
Our next stop was at Comte Senard in Aloxe-Corton, which is Thomas’ personal favorite sector of Burgundy.
One of the wines, Corton Clos des Miex, is a very small vineyard owned 100% by Comte Senard, thus the rare designation Monopole (dotted line on map). This Pinot Noir was a 2021, so young that we would have to speculate upon “where it was going” to justify the Grand Cru price.
However the 2019 Les Valozieres Premier Cru and the 2018 Les Paulands Grand Cru (solid outline on map) were outstanding and thus among our purchases, very synergistic with the accompanying beef bourguignon lunch.
Driving through the countryside we passed Clos de Vougeot.
Its castle built in 1551 is popular for weddings and needs to be reserved two years in advance.
We passed variably pruned vineyards. Most are pruned by the Guyot method to have one long and one short branch.
These have not been pruned yet.
A few vineyards leave high branches to form a shade canopy.
These can better protect the grapes during those infamous summer heat waves that are melting the French glaciers.
We were surprised to see THIS in Burgundy wine country!
The final stop was at a wine shop in Fixin.
Thomas attempted to find modern equivalents to my two noteworthy wines of the 1970’s. These three wines came home in our suitcases.
The village Vosne-Romanee was from Les Barreaux plot (marked in pic below) on the hill just above the Grand Crus rather than from the flats.
Note the location adjacent to Richebourg, one of the Domaine Romanee Conti wines well out of our price range.
The Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru was an impressive grand finale, though not an easy comparison to a wine I had 45 years ago.
In general the Vosne-Romanee and Gevrey-Chambertin districts tend to be the most prestigious and expensive because they each contain 9 of the 33 Grand Crus. Thomas said sometimes good values can be found in Premier Crus from districts without a Grand Cru.
This tour was an oenophile’s equivalent to a ski day in the heli. Including the 15 bottles coming home that applies to the cost as well. At the other two stops we bought 6 bottles, which are the minimum to ship. Overseas shipping cost is partially offset by not paying the VAT as we did on the 3 bottles at the shop.
Liz and I are usually do it ourselves travel planners. This is the only wine region in the world where I would pay as much for a curated tour, for reasons explained above. We feel lucky we got this on this tour on about 36 hours notice. Overall January is likely a quiet tourist season for Dijon/Burgundy, though there was a music festival in Chambolle-Musigny the weekend after our visit.
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