Wine
Regiions
Old World
France
Burgandy
Cote d'Or

ABOUT COTE D'OR

Map

The heart of Burgundy is the Cote d'Or a long, irregular hillside that starts just south of Dijon and ends 50 kilometers (31 miles) to the southwest at Santenay. The wine villages and their vineyards lie along Route Nationale 74 that links Dijon with Chagny. Only at a fey places, such as the marble quarries of Comblanchien and Corgoloin, do vines disappear from view. For centuries now, the best vine arcs have been on the sunny, east-facing slopes below a wooded escarpment that protects them from rain-bearing winds from the west. The soil on these slopes differs with every commune - and often even with every vineyard. This diversity is further intensified by the fragmentation of Burgundian wine properties. There are very few large consolidated vineyards belonging to a single owner. The growers here mostly cultivate a number of small plots scattered over various ancient fields. The result is that most wine growers make small amounts of a range of diverse wines. The quantities are often so minute that it would make no sense for the grower to nurture, bottle and market the wine himself. This is why the shippers play such an important part: the! buy small consignments of wine of the appellations they want and then blend them to produce a marketable amount. However these merchants, the negociants-eleveurs, by no means have a monopoly for a substantial minority of growers do sell their own wines in the bottle, and with considerable success.

Another result of the fragmented vineyard holdings is the enormous variation in the wine produced by a single vineyard in the same year, simply because every plot owner makes a different burgundy. In the Cote d'Or, therefore, it is at least as important to know. the reputation of a wine's maker as the name and possibly the classification of the vineyard. A "village" wine hearing just the name of its commune, but from a quality conscious, expert grower, may be better than a Premier Cru from a slipshod estate.

The wines of the Cote d'Or are officially divided into four classes. The top category is Grand Cru, which applies to 30 individual vineyards, including Chambertin, Musigny, Clos Vougeot and Montrachet. The wines they produce are sold under their own names, with no mention of the commune where the Grand Cru vineyard is situated.

The next class is Premier Cru, which includes over 300 of the best sites along the whole Cote d'Or. Wines in this class are always sold with the name of the relevant commune, followed by that of the vineyard - or simple by the words "Premier (or 1er) Cru" if the wine comes from more than one vineyard.

The third class comprises village appellations (Gevrey-Chambertin etc.). Wines in this category may be sold with their vineyard names providing these are printed on the label in smaller type than that of their commune. The Cote de Nuits-Villages and Cote de Beaune-Villages appellations also come in this category: they are used by two groups of lesser-known communes.

The fourth category applies to the regional wines - Bourgogne, Bourgogne Aligote, etc. These wines often come from the flatter land to the east of Route Nationale 74. A superior version within this classification comes from the Hautes-Cotes, the hill! hinterland to the west of the Cote d'Or. Wines produced there are entitled to the appellations Bourgogne Hautes-Cotes de Nuits or Bourgogne Hautes-Cotes de Beaune. Prices in the actual Cote d'Or are so high that the Hautes-Cotes wines are a welcome chance to drink real burgundy as more than a very occasional treat.

The Cote d'Or itself is divided into two. The southern part is called the Cote de Beaune, the northern the Cote de Nuits. The boundary comes at Corgoloin, about halfway between Beaune and Nuits-St-Georges, and is marked by a sign on the roadside. All the great white wines of the Cote d'Or are produced in the Cote de Beaune, together with many good reds. In the Cote de Nuits the emphasis is on red and whites are a rarity.