Wine-O-Pedia: Burgundy Part 2

All right, Burgundy, part two. Today we're going to talk about... what are we going to talk about? Okay, the first part we talked about the Chablis area, and we talked about the Côte de Nuit, the northern part of the Côte d'Or, or that golden slope of Burgundy. Both of those can be found in Burgundy part one, our tutorial for that guy. Now for part two, we're going to focus... we're going to start at the town of Bonne, or just north of the town of Bonne, and then continue to head south along Burgundy, and as we go we'll talk a little bit about the different wines. Let's see, what did we talk about last time? Oh, right away, from the get-go, from the start, let's get this out of the way, because this will simplify things a lot. The red grape in Burgundy is Pinot Noir 99% of the time, and the white grape in Burgundy is Chardonnay 99% of the time. Sure, there's going to be a Ligotet, Gamay, that sort of... oh, Gamay, we'll get to that in a bit. Ligotet, Gamay, Pinot Blanc once in a while, that sort of deal, but we're dealing with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, all right? So now we're dealing with the Côte de Bonne. This is the southern part of the Côte d'Or, this golden slope. The Côte de Bonne starts with red grapes. It's red wine still, you know, the whole northern part is red wine, pretty much, a few little pockets of white wine, but we start with red wine in the north around Corton, Los Corton, this area, this neck of the woods in the very northern part, and once again, we're dealing with 100% Pinot Noir. Bonne, Volnay, these wines are... how do I say it? It feels like a little warmer down there, so the wines have a little more generosity. There's like a yummy character to them, that just vibrant red cherry really kind of busts out. The wines in this area are generally a little less stern than the wines from the Côte de Nuit, and they're usually a joy to drink earlier on. You don't have to wait as long for these Bonne wines and the Los Corton and things like that. Then as we head south from there, we start getting into white wine country. The soils kind of switch up a little bit, and it's more conducive to growing Chardonnay, and from here, this area, this tenderloin, this middle part of the Côte de Bonne is where you get some of the world's greatest Chardonnays. Wines like Montrachet, Bâtard Montrachet, villages like Merceau. These are some of the most known names in the world of Burgundy, and they produce these generally profound, rich, yet restrained expressions of Chardonnay. Complex, usually quite ageable, and just wonderful, wonderful, wonderful bottles of white wine. Some of the greatest white wine in the world is produced in the central section of the Côte de Bonne. Now, as we head south from this great area, as we head south, things start getting interesting, and they start mixing up a little bit. We bump into a little more red wine like in Mercure and Givry, as opposed to Givre. These wines provide excellent value. Once again, they're 100% Pinot Noir, and they're kind of earthy, funky, but in the riper years, they have this wonderful expressive mineral character, and they can be a pleasure to drink, and age wonderfully midterm, five to seven years. Then we start bumping into these areas. Okay, before I get into this, these areas are actually part of Burgundy, even though you might have thought of them as something else, they're in fact Burgundy. Now, what I'm talking about specifically first is the Mâconné. Now, this area called the Mâconné is, once again, we're back in the Chardonnay country. After a little red wine detour, we're back to where the Chardonnay grows. And here you have such areas as Puy-Fuisé, Mâcon, and Saint-Veron, and these villages that produce some of the greatest value Chardonnays in all of France. Because this area is not quite the Tony real estate that it is further up in the Côte d'Ivoire. So these guys generally charge less, you know, half to a third of the price. And what can happen, especially in the older vineyards with the older vines, you can find some really terrific values. I mean, an $18 bottle of wine, it tastes maybe like a $50 bottle of wine in the Côte d'Ivoire, if you know who to look for and what kind of vineyard sites and such. But generally, you're going to get pretty good value wine in the Mâconné. It's a big area, they make quite a bit of wine, particularly in the context of their neighbors north. But again, the wines aren't crazy expensive, and they can be really delicious. At the very least, they're crisp, driving, racy, and perfect accompaniment to some fresh seafood, or, you know, just basic seafood preps and stuff. You wash it right down. Boom, boom. I like that area. I drink a lot of Mâconné wine, by the way. We head from the Mâconné, and then we go to an area that, believe it or not, is part of Burgundy, technically. And this area is Beaujolais. Now, I'm not sure whether a lot of you knew whether or not that Beaujolais is actually part of Burgundy. But indeed, it is. Now, but in Beaujolais, the difference being the grape is Gamay. 100% Gamay. So in Gamay, interesting story, Gamay was this grape that kind of, for the most part, except for that one percent that's clinging on, got kicked out of the northern part of Burgundy, you know, centuries ago. When this monk, or that duchess, or duke, or whatever, said, hmm, Gamay stinks, get it out of here. And they gave it the boot. But Gamay found a really nice home further south. Because a Gamay grape, further south, ripens fully. So you can get these delicious kind of blueberry expressions of punchy, bright, effusive, juicy, yum, yum, yum, you know, eat with salami, and charcuterie, and pâtés, and that kind of stuff. These wines are delicious examples of French red wine. And in the ripe years, once again, they almost get a Pinot Noir type quality. Except they have this darker skin, so the wines are deeper in hue, though maybe not as long-lived. Although, in some cases, you can get 10 years of a bottle of Beaujolais. Now, I could get in a whole... Do I want to get in a whole crew thing in Beaujolais? Let me put it to you this way. There's a series of crews, of regions within Beaujolais, that produce even better wines than just the typical Beaujolais. And, okay, well, here's something. I'm going to try and name them all. And basically, on the groovy pop-up next to me, the ones I don't name, they're going to pop up anyway, because we have that technology. So, let me see if I can do it from scratch. Morgon, Moulin Au Vent, Saint-Amour, Regnier, Fleury, Cheroub... Mmm, slowing down. I'm close, huh? Like six out of nine? These areas produce the best wines in Beaujolais. But there's a catch, because these wines, generally, except for like little small letters, are not listed as Beaujolais wines. They don't say Beaujolais on the label, except in teeny tiny little letters. So, you have to know the regions. That's why I want to bring those up to you really quick, because those wines are, in fact, Beaujolais. They are, in fact, 100% Gamay, and they will be, for the most part, better than your typical bottle of Beaujolais you get off the shelf. And that being said, you know, when you're talking about, since Beaujolais is technically Burgundy, and the wines aren't very expensive, you can drink Burgundy for 10 to 15 bucks a bottle. Which, in the great years, like 2009, they are remarkable values. Remarkable values. So, there you have it. Burgundy, South, in a nutshell. Pinot Noir, then a lot of Chardonnay, little Pinot Noir again, then a lot of Chardonnay, and then Gamay. Beaujolais and Burgundy. Who knew?