Wineshark talks about wine - Burgundy

Burgundy is the stomach of France, richly furnished with the best food ingredients, and having one of world’s longest history in wines. It contains several wine regions including Cote d’Or, the heart of Burgundy, separating into Cote de Beaune in the south and Cote de Nuits in the north; Chablis; Cote Chalonnaise; and Maconnais. And immediately south of Maconnais is Beaujolais, quite different in scale, style, soil, and grape.

Despite its fame, the region can feel quite simple and rustic, as there is no grand chateau like Bordeaux and the people whose name is on the label may well be pruning and driving the tractor themselves. Most of the few big landholdings were once belonged to the church but were broken up by Napoleon under the inheritance laws.

As a result, Burgundy is one of the most fragmented of France’s important wine region, with the average size of a domaine a mere 7 ha. This fragmentation has a major drawback on unpredictability, with the human factor being a key element, evidenced by many climats farmed by many different growers, who also turn out to own multiple rows of vines in different climats.

Monopoles, meaning whole vineyards in the hands of one owner, are rare exceptions. Even the smallest grower has parcels in two or three vineyards, while bigger ones may own a total of 20-40 ha spread in small lots. An example is Clos de Vougeot’s 50 ha divided among 80 growers.

A good half of Burgundy still bought in barrel from the grower by negociants, then blending wines from same appellation to achieve marketable quantities of a standard wine, offered as wine of given AOC. Reputations of larger negociants vary enormously, and most are now owning also significant amounts of vineyards. There are increasing number of smaller scale negociants offering very good wines, and many respected growers also run their own negociant business in parallel.

There are now more than 80 AOCs in Burgundy, with several able to make wines from grapes grown in any part of Burgundy: Bourgogne AOC, with subdivisions such as Bourgogne Cote d’Or, Bourgogne Passetoutgrains and Bourgogne Aligote. Coteaux Bourguignons encompasses all the vineyards in Burgundy plus the Beaujolais area.