bordeaux vs burgundy

One of my shameful wine secrets is that I crave good bordeaux more than I do good burgundy. Wine lore has it that bordeaux is more for beginners; a drink you enjoy before your palate is quite fully mature and you learn to understand the exquisite beauty of burgundy.

Most of the high quality white wines hail from the area called Graves while the best dessert wines are found in Sauternes and Saint-Croix-du-Mont.

Bordeaux is said to be cerebral: the algebra, the musical theory, the astrophysics and the essay;

burgundy, meanwhile, is a scintillating flare of emotion and pure being that eclipses thought like the sound of an operatic aria or the sight of the northern lights (without the technical explanation of why they appear).

Roald Dahl once wrote that "to drink a Romanée-Conti is like having an orgasm in the mouth and nose at the same time", a sentence I cannot imagine being composed about bordeaux, about which the words "distinguished" or "dignified" usually seem more apposite.

It's a dichotomy that Jean-Robert Pitte evokes in his brilliant book Bordeaux/Burgundy: A Vintage Rivalry, which explores the cultural, historical and geographical differences between the regions. As you might expect, the French can be wonderfully insulting on the subject of whose wine is best. Pitte tells the story of one Bordelais who, on being told the wine he was enjoying was a burgundy, smiled thinly: "Really? I had no idea. It's excellent, but just the same, I prefer wine." And of the Burgundian who loftily proclaimed, "We abandoned [bordeaux] willingly to its medicinal vocation and to its sad fate as the 'wine of the sick', contenting ourselves with the 'wine of the healthy'."

Aside from geography, grapes are the most easily defined difference between bordeaux and burgundy. The best red burgundy has been all about one grape, pinot noir, since the 14th century, when Philip the Bold decreed that all the "very bad and unlawful" gamay in the area should be uprooted because it made wine "of such a nature that it is very much harmful to human creatures". And when you taste a wine made from just one grape, there is, when it is at its best, a sense that the wine is just... happening.

Bordeaux, on the other hand, is almost always built; a blend that may take in cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc, malbec and petit verdot, so you find a sense of detail and structure. It looks after you, you feel you could have a conversation with it. That's what I like about it. Then again, perhaps I have yet to learn.

As it happens, I've recently tasted as many decent burgundies as bordeaux. Château Saye 2005 Bordeaux Supérieur (£7.99, M&S; 13.5% abv) is fleshy and easy-going. Château Cantegrive 2006 Côtes de Castillon (£7.29, down from £10.99 until December 16, Waitrose; 13.5% abv) is a steal at that discount: it has a light touch, great freshness, elegance and the soothing, red fruit taste you often find in the Castillon area.

Château La Vielle Cure 2002 (£16.99, Sainsbury's; 14% abv) is a merlot-based blend that would see you well through a Sunday roast.

Over to Burgundy: Domaine de la Vougeraie Gevrey-Chambertin Evocelles 2001 (£29, The Wine Society; 12.5% abv) has a quivering finesse that makes you think of crunching through crimson leaves on an autumn day. The Wine Society also has a gorgeous white burgundy, Domaine Jean-Marc Vincent Les Hautes Auxey-Duresses 2006 France (£14.95; 13.5% abv), that tastes serious and a little bit toasty.

There are American regions cultivating "Burgundian style" Pinots. Santa Barbara is famed for these reds and Oregon…

California's Meritage (pronounced like Heritage with an "M") and Italy's Super Tuscan's are "Bordeaux-style" wines. They are made from a blend of grapes.

Jean-Robert Pitte

With access to the Atlantic, the estates of Bordeaux, known as chateaux, made carefully blended wines for sale in England and Northern Europe.

Landlocked estates in Burgundy, known as domaines, made single varietal wines for consumption in Paris, the former duchy of Burgundy, and parts of Germany. The French Revolution broke up the vast vineyard holdings of the church in Burgundy, but not so in Bordeaux. Consequently high society, gentlemen farmers of Bordeaux today lord over much larger estates than the descendants of Burgundian peasants, who take great pride in their provincial ancestry and their wines "of sauce and blood."

In the early 19th Century, Bordeaux glassmakers invented a square-shouldered bottle to facilitate the English and Dutch custom of decanting by candlelight. In contrast, Burgundy wines are almost never decanted. Their slope-shouldered bottles come straight from cellar to table; and so much the better if heavy with dust and cobwebs.

This rivalry only enhances appreciation of their wines' subtle complexities. Let's hope fledgling feuds between Oregon and California help produce spectacular wines as well.

Bordeaux/Burgundy: A Vintage Rivalry Jean-Robert Pitte (Translated by M. B. DeBevoise)

Jean-Robert Pitte looks at the centuries-old rivalry between the most revered wine regions in the world

'Your Honour,' an old marquise once asked, from her end of the table to the other, 'which do you prefer, a wine from Bordeaux or from Burgundy?'

'Madame,' the magistrate who was thus questioned answered in a druidic tone, 'that is a trial in which I so thoroughly enjoy weighing the evidence that I always put off my verdict until the next week.' Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste

The famous anecdote above, told by Brillat-Savarin, reveals an educated and eclectic connoisseur who varies his wines to suit the food he eats, the weather, and his mood.

In 1963, the Burgundian cellar master and wine taster Pierre Poupon adopted a similarly civil tone:

'I am not jealous of the wines of Bordeaux. These are difficult wines for our Burgundian palates; we have to spend a long time with them, with an open mind, before being able to detect their great virtues. But they are so different from ours that I manage to like them only when I stop trying to compare them.'

And Parisian journalist Bernard Frank cheerfully confessed, 'I had probably never drunk a single glass of wine when I chose my camp once and for all: Bordeaux rather than Burgundy. Once and for all! But one lives and learns. Since then I have learned to put some Burgundy in my wine. The palate must give way to the mind.'

A fine phrase, this last one, that illuminates a whole geography of wine, a geography founded upon the marriage of pragmatism and the senses.

It is true that in Bordeaux the aristocrats of the vine sometimes condescend to serve one or another of the great white wines of Burgundy at the splendid feasts they hold in their townhouses on the Pavé des Chartrons or in their châteaux.

Bernard Ginestet describes a prodigious luncheon given not so very long ago at Mouton by Baron Philippe de Rothschild, one of the most discriminating gourmets and connoisseurs of the Médoc:

'With the fried filets of sole, sauce tartare, a Montrachet was served, Marquis de Laguiche 1952; a marvelous wine, pale golden yellow in colour, flecked with green tints. It captivated the entire table, which was unanimous in its praise.

“You spoil us, dear friend Philippe,” declared Edouard Minton. “There is hardly anywhere in all of Bordeaux, except your home, that one can drink white Burgundies of such quality. This is truly magnificent. We don't have such wines.”

“Glad you like it, my dear Edouard. For a long while now I have exchanged two or three cases of Mouton every year for some Montrachet from my friend Philibert. Do you know how large his vineyard is? Hardly more than two hectares! I serve this wine only to those who are worthy of it. But I find it agreeable to let my taste buds wander through other lands.” '

Exchanges of this sort are unfortunately exceptional in both the Gironde and the Côte d'Or. Seldom do they do each other such favours. Ask the natives of these two universally renowned wine producing regions about each other, and you will not find the slightest sign of sympathy or fellow feeling.

They are not from the same world – a fact they miss no occasion to proclaim loudly and clearly. Not content to ignore each other, hardly tasting each other's wines, they delight in denigrating each other more or less fiercely.

The Bordelais are annoyed by the subtle smells of the great Pinots, by their colour, which is often less bold than the reds of the Gironde, and by the fact that these wines nonetheless manage to overwhelm the head and the senses with lighthearted ease.

They are a bit jealous, too, of the best Chardonnays, tinged with the flavour of honey like their sweet, strong white wines, yet at once dry, full-bodied, and round.

But above all they are irritated by the division of minuscule appellations into a multitude of parcels belonging to many owners: to the Bordelais mind, such a practice is incomprehensible and unjustifiable.

Jean-Paul Kauffmann, who, though he is not originally from the Gironde, sang the praises of its wines for years as the editor-in-chief of L'Amateur de Bordeaux, comes straight to the point.

'The system of classification of Burgundies is a work of art, but, like all works of art, it contains an element of mystery. Its beauty is a real puzzle. Burgundy, with more than 100 different appellations, is as complex as the duchy of the same name in the time of Charles the Bold. With 51 hectares, the Clos Vougeot consists of some 90 parcels divided among 80 different owners. Nothing lasting can be built on such subtleties.'

Let it be said, too, that the Bordelais find it hard to get along with these crafty, food loving peasants, whose hands are calloused and deformed by manual labor, their heads habitually covered by an old cap; who roll their rs and who are given to telling crude jokes when they get together, and drinking to excess like their ancestors, the bearded Gauls and ancient Burgundians. None of this prevents them from having access to large piles of money, in the form of real estate and business profits both, which they spend on expensive foreign cars like so many vulgar nouveaux riches.

Some years ago, the television host Bernard Pivot devoted his Christmas show to the subject of good eating and fine wine. One of his guests, the Bordelais Jean Lacouture, expressed a rather favourable opinion of one glass he was given to taste.

On learning that it was a fine Burgundy, Lacouture replied, 'Burgundy, really? I had no idea. It's excellent, but just the same I prefer wine.'

Some years later he acknowledged having issued this backhanded compliment, saying that he still did not understand Burgundies and could fully appreciate only Bordeaux.

It is true that poor Lacouture is much to be pitied, suffering as he does from a dramatic impairment of the faculty of taste known as anosmia, or insensitivity to smells – a fatal impediment in the case of Burgundy…

In saying as much, however, Lacouture was only following in the steps of the author François Mauriac, perhaps without knowing it. Father Maurice Lelong recounts a delightful anecdote told to him by the superior general of the Dominicans, Father Martino Stanislao Gillet.

Gillet was living in Dijon and hoped to be elected to the Académie Française. Mauriac, accompanied by another academic, paid him a visit. The candidate took his guests to Aux Trois Faisans and ordered, altogether correctly, a bottle of Burgundy.

At this point, Lelong relates, one of the Immortals, congenitally devoted to a certain vineyard of the Gironde, doubtfully pursed his lower lip.

There was a long silence, the kind that occurs when a faux pas has been committed. The eyes of the guest searched the eyes of the host, who now found himself in a state of most painful anxiety:

'It's wine,' said the most reverend father, who told this to me with a certain bitter amusement. 'I shouldn't have thought so,' replied Mauriac, with the inimitable tone of false naivete for which he was famous.

The epilogue to this story will not come as a surprise: Father Gillet never became a member of the Academy. Mauriac, for his part, naturally placed Bordeaux, his Bordeaux, at the pinnacle, 'For me, the superiority of Bordeaux comes from its naturalness: it is born of my earth, of my sun, and of the attentive love that my people devote to it. The primary virtue of Bordeaux is honesty.'

Extraordinary – to think that honesty has always reigned along the Quai des Chartrons!

Philippe Sollers, another Bordelais, has expressed himself still more explicitly on this point, and far less good-naturedly,

'True wine exists only in Bordeaux. I would like to make it clear that wine which is not from Bordeaux is a false wine. Of course, there is Burgundy! But it's too full-blooded; it doesn't have the circulation, the sifting of the various states of matter that you find in the wines of Bordeaux. It isn't by chance that one says “beef bourguignon,” for the wine accompanying it is indistinguishable from the sauce. I know that the French much like this sort of thing, but then again, I don't much like the French.'

Not content to leave matters there, Sollers went on to indulge a taste for doubtful historical commentary that would have brought him a defamation suit in the courts of Dijon.

'It is no use to recall the immemorial struggle between Armagnacs and Burgundians – this is a fundamental reality of French history. There is a France of ports and a continental France, a France of the periphery and a France of the land, a France of trade and a central, centric France, which conjures for me the various episodes of the closing of the nation – the incessant reproduction of the peasant spirit of collaboration with foreign powers, German or Russian – the supreme tragedy of which in France is Pétainism.'

Sollers reverted to this theme a few years later:

'I loathe Burgundy, it is a wine of sauce and blood. It is necessary just the same that people be made aware of the fact, and recognize that Burgundy is not wine, it is a drink used for making sauces. The more Burgundy one consumes, the more one has the terrible sensation of drinking something bloody, not to mention the dreadful heaviness of the land that one senses in it as well. For me, then, anyone who likes Burgundy (and Beaujolais) is, let's face it, a hick.'

The domaine owners of Burgundy, for their part, fail to understand the red wines of Bordeaux, which give themselves up to the nostrils and taste buds with such difficulty until they have reached maturity, especially if Cabernet Sauvignon is predominant.

The sweet white wines of Bordeaux sicken Burgundians, and in any case they do not know what to eat them with. The notion that one might produce the same wine on domaines of several dozen hectares belonging to a single owner has been totally foreign to them since the Clos Vougeot was dismantled in the 19th century.

The distrust the Bordelais practice of skillful blending, so contrary to their devotion to single grape varieties, small-scale production and small scale parcels.

Most of all, they dislike the pretensions of the lords of the great Bordelais estates and the wine merchants and brokers of the Chartrons, with their light southern accents (and English intonations), their bow ties, their tweeds (old, but impeccably tailored), and their handmade English shoes (worn, but well polished).

Many years ago the Parisian poet Raoul Ponchon, a man who seldom, if ever, touched water, and who inherited the capital's ancient predilection for the wine of Burgundy, dashed off a few lines that no Burgundian today would dissavow,

'Oh! never to have been trailed by a lackey serving me Bordeaux; I make no bones about it, it's Burgundy I prefer above all.'

Jean-Francois Bazin, a former president of his region and bard of Burgundian viticulture, recalls that during his childhood Bordeaux was practically never mentioned in the family home of Gevrey-Chambertin.

No bottles of Bordeaux appeared on the table, 'We abandoned it willingly to its medicinal vocation and to its sad fate as the “wine of the sick,” contenting ourselves with [drinking] the “wine of the healthy.” '

People made fun of the shape of the Bordeaux bottle, stretching their necks and hunching their shoulders. A more serious cause for complaint was the stingy Bordelais custom of allowing guests to taste only a little wine from the barrel:

'When you visit a cellar [here], at least you are offered something to drink. Unlike in Bordeaux.'

Jean Laplanche, a professor of psychoanalysis and formerly the owner of Château de Pommard, had a cruel experience of this practice not long ago, in 1989.

'Since then,' he says, 'whenever I receive visitors from Bordeaux in my cellar, I give them a glass of the newest wine in casks, and then I announce, “The visite bordelaise is over. Now begins the visite bourguignonne” ' – and, with it, the opening of a dozen bottles, some quite old, going back through all the great years.

Ah, what sweet vengeance! With a great roar of laughter, Laplanche admits he now enjoys a glass of Bordeaux once it has matured, but that in the past he had always found that it resembled the ink he knew as a schoolboy.

As an eminent member of the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, and despite two official and reciprocal visits, he notes that the members of his brotherhood have never managed to establish close, friendly relations with their counterparts in the Bordelais confréries.

Laplanche adds that on the wine lists of restaurants in Burgundy one always finds at least two Bordeaux wines – a small gesture, to be sure, but better than nothing, since the like of it, he says, is never found in the Gironde with Burgundies.

It must be admitted that exchanges of courtesies of this sort, whose value is inevitably a matter of opinion, testify to the existence of a geographic barrier between two impenetrable worlds.

With the death of Jean Calvet in Beaune and the recent failure of negotiations between Château Smith-Haut-Lafite and Château de Pommard, financial investment in one region by a house from another is hardly ever contemplated anymore.

Yet the requisite capital is lacking in neither Burgundy nor Bordeaux. It is invested instead in Languedoc or abroad.

To hope to be able to heal the rift, and one day to move beyond it, we need to understand its origins, and therefore to examine not only the whole cultural and economic history of the two regions, but also the people who manage the vineyards, their customers, and, incidentally, various aspects of the natural environment.

To use the term incidentally in this context may seem an affront to the viticulturalists and the many professional experts who assist them in their work – soil scientists, agronomists, biologists, chemists, oenologists, lawyers, bankers, and geographers, all of whom have devoted years of research to explaining the nuances of winemaking.

Yet after listening to Philippe Sollers, one cannot reasonably suppose that a few hours of sunshine and a bit more or less gravel will suffice to bridge the gap.

This is an edited extract from Bordeaux/Burgundy: A Vintage Rivalry (California Press,

£14.95), Jean-Robert Pitte is president of the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne.

Burgundy

by Tom Cannavan

The fine wines of Burgundy and Bordeaux could not be further apart in terms of what "makes them tick". Whilst Bordeaux is dominated by large estates each producing a classic red wine, Burgundy is composed of thousands of small-scale growers, often with only tiny parcels of land, who may make a range of a dozen or more different wines, both red and white. In Bordeaux, almost all wine is labelled Mis en Bouteille au Château which means the whole process, from growing the grapes to bottling the wine, is carried out by the Château. Whilst there are many similar producers in Burgundy (usually referred to as "domaines" rather than "châteaux"),

a very significant part of the production comes from négociants: merchants who may own no vineyards, but who buy grapes and finished wines for blending and bottling under their own label.

Geography and climate

The Burgundy region lies a couple of hundred miles east and north of Bordeaux. It covers a large area, the vineyards running in a long, thin line from Auxerre in the north to Lyon in the south. The climate is continental, with cold winters, hot summers but plenty of rain. It is easiest to think of Burgundy in terms of its distinct regions. Running from north to south, these are:

Chablis by far the most northerly of Burgundy's regions, known exclusively for dry white wines.

The Côte de Nuits home of the great red Burgundies. Some white is produced too, but the reds are the region's glory.

The Côte de Beaune known for both red and white wines, but the greatest white Burgundies (other than Chablis) are from here.

The Côte Chalonnaise generally regarded as a lesser district. It still produces some extremely fine wines, both red and white.

The Mâconnais the southern limit of Burgundy. Wines tend to be cheaper and made for drinking young but can be excellent value.

Beaujolais (not shown) is quite a bit further south. Though not part of Burgundy, it is usually included when we talk about the region.

Grapes

The great Burgundies, both red and white, are un-blended wines made from a single grape variety. This again is a major difference from Bordeaux. The grapes used are:

Pinot Noir (red wines) Chardonnay (white wines)

Various other grape varieties are permitted within Burgundy, though these are never used in the great wines and can be considered as the "second rank" of grapes.

They will appear in budget level bottlings and are increasingly common the further south you travel into the Côte Chalonnaise, Mâconnais and Beaujolais.

Varieties include:

Gamay (red wines) Aligoté, Pinot Blanc (white wines)

Appellation Contrôlée areas

Burgundy is divided into many, many different appellations. Often these are tiny, sometimes covering only a single vineyard. This, along with a rather complicated system for naming wines, can make the region seem quite difficult to understand for the Burgundy beginner. Like Bordeaux, there is a quality hierarchy. Partly, this

is governed by Appellations that cover tighter and tighter geographical areas. The main geographical unit of Burgundy is the village. The original wine villages gave their names to many of the wines as we will see.

But let's look at the Appellations in ascending order of quality:

AC Bourgogne covers all of Burgundy. Just like AC Bordeaux, it is a generic AC that covers those wines that don't qualify for a higher level of classification.

Regional Appellations cover groups of villages, such as AC Côte de Nuits-Villages. These are usually good quality wines that don't qualify for the next rung up the ladder, individual village AC's.

Village ACs such as AC Pommard or AC Gevrey-Chambertin are commonly known as "village wines". Bottles labeled as coming from a particular village should be of quite high quality though they will usually be blends from many different vineyards.

The Village Premiers Crus are from particularly good vineyards surrounding a village. A wine labelled AC Chassagne-Montrachet Premier Cru should be significantly better than AC Chassagne-Montrachet. These wines are usually blended from various smaller individual Premier Cru vineyards.

Individual Vineyard Premiers Crus come from superior vineyards, the name of which is shown on the label: Chassagne-Montrachet Premier Cru Champgains for example. These wines should be extremely fine and worth the considerable money they cost.

Grands Crus are the élite of Burgundy. These wines come from the very best slopes and the label will bear only the name of the vineyard, not the name of any village. Examples include: Musigny, Montrachet, Echézeaux. These wines - both red or white - cost a small fortune but should be the epitome of fine wine.

Often the 1er or Grand Cru sites are shared by many growers, the land divided into small parcels owned by each. A dozen different producers might each make an Echézeaux Grand Cru, for example. Other sites are Monopoles, that is the whole Cru is owned by one domaine, like La Tâche Grand Cru, owned solely by Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.

Domaine or Négociant bottled?

The tradition of négociants in Burgundy is as old as Burgundy itself. Négociants play a vital role in taking the grapes and sometimes finished wines from small estates to produce wines which they can market on a commercially viable scale. Their role can range from simple labelling and distribution, to carrying out the entire wine-making process. Négociants may supply wines at all quality levels, including Grand Cru.

Many négociants are also vineyard owners, producing domaine bottled wines alongside their négociant bottlings. The larger houses are generally very reliable and their wines widely available. Look for Jadot, Drouhin, Bouchard, Louis Latour and Faiveley amongst others.

Terroir! - the war-cry of Burgundy

The Burgundians are the great believers in terroir. Terroir is a French word without a direct English translation. It is applied to specific vineyard sites. Roughly translated, it means the combination of soil, climate, aspect to the sun and geography which believers maintain is a fundamental, defining influence on a finished wine.

It would be easy to dismiss the Burgundian adherence to terroir as little more than self-interest, but there are growing numbers of believers amongst New World wine-makers too. It is certainly true that there can be marked differences between two wines, made from grapes grown in adjoining fields. All over Burgundy you will find Grand Cru vineyards, with 20 yards away, vineyards that are designated to produce simple regional wines. This is all down to terroir.

The great red wines

The Pinot Noir seems happiest on the cool limestone slopes of Burgundy, finding only limited success when planted elsewhere in the world. The area lies on the edge of the quality wine-making zone.

The Pinot Noir is also a fickle grape and is easy to over-crop. These factors, along with the question of terroir and the vast range of wines and domaines, mean that choosing red Burgundy has to be done carefully.

The Côte de Nuits (together with the Côte de Beaune are known as the Côte d'Or, or "Golden Slopes") the home of the great red Burgundies and the vast majority of Grands and Premiers Crus.

Here too are some of Burgundy's most famous villages such as Gevrey-Chambertin and Vosne-Romanée.

Any wine from this region will be expensive but all should be of good quality. The wines from each village area have their own character: sturdy, tannic and long-lived from around Nuits-St-Georges, aristocratic, rich and complex from Vosne-Romanée for example.

Further south the Côte de Beaune is most famous for its whites, but there are very good, reliable, sturdy Pinots Noirs. They might lack the finesse of the best Côte de Nuits, but they are also a little cheaper. Corton is the only red Grand Cru of the Côte de Beaune, whilst Pommard is probably the most widely known red of the region, made just south of the city of Beaune.

The great white wines

Chardonnay has, of course, been grown very successfully all over the world. As a variety it is relatively easy to grow and tolerant of a wide variety of soil and climatic conditions.

Chablis

By far the most northerly area of Burgundy, Chablis lies almost half-way between the Côte d'Or and Paris. It is home to one of the world's best known Chardonnay wines which should be steely and dry with flavours of lemon and minerals. Traditionally Chablis is un-oaked, setting it apart from most other top Chardonnays from Burgundy and elsewhere.

There are 4 quality levels for Chablis, each with its own AC:

AC Petit Chablis

Arguably not true Chablis at all, from grapes grown on the outskirts of the area. Usually fresh and pleasant, but rarely showing the true character of Chablis.

Chablis proper consists of:

AC Chablis

AC Chablis Premier Cru esp. Fourchaume, Montmains, Montée de Tonnerre

AC Chablis Grands Cru

It is a consistent area, so most Chablis is good - look for wines made by a huge co-operative of growers called La Chablisienne - unlike some other co-operative wines, these offer good value for money.

The Côte de Beaune

Chardonnay from here is quite different from Chablis. It is generally aged in oak barrels and the fruit is usually more ripe giving much fuller, rounder wines. The best known villages of the area include Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet.

As elsewhere in Burgundy, quality and prices vary dramatically. The wines at Premier Cru level and above should be nutty, buttery and toasty, but with racy acidity and often hints of unusual mineral and stony flavours. Unusually, these are white wines that can reward cellaring for between 5 and 15 years.

The Minor regions

Again. As with Bordeaux there are many excellent wines available from outside these great regions. The Côte Chalonnaise has many fine mid-range reds which have good, strawberry fruit and will keep for 5 years or so. Top villages include Mercurey, Givry and Rully. Look for the wines from the Co-operative at Buxy - very reliable.

The Mâconnais is better known for its Chardonnay whites which are fresh and sappy with honeysuckle aromas. The top wines come from Pouilly-Fuissé and St-Véran,

****though wines labelled Mâcon-Villages or Mâcon-Lugny should come from the better vineyards, are reliable and should be quite cheap.

Beaujolais can range from the light, hopefully fresh and fruity wines of Beaujolais Nouveau to the more serious wines of the Beaujolais-Villages.

The best 10 Villages have their own ACs and often the name "Beaujolais" doesn't appear on the label. These wines are known as the "Crus": Brouilly, Chénas, Chiroubles, Fleurie, Morgon, St-Amour, Côte de Brouilly, Moulin-à-Vent, Réginié, Juliénas.

Beaujolais is a French Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) wine generally made of the Gamay grape which has a thin skin and is low in tannins. Like most AOC wines they are not labeled varietally.

Whites from the region, which make up only 1% of its production, are made mostly with Chardonnay grapes though Aligoté is also permitted.

Beaujolais tends to be a very light-bodied red wine, with relatively high amounts of acidity. In some vintages, Beaujolais produces more wine than the Burgundy wine regions of Chablis, Côte d'Or, Côte Chalonnaise and Mâconnais put together.

The wine takes its name from the historical Beaujolais province and wine producing region. It is located north of Lyon, and covers parts of the north of the Rhône département (Rhône-Alpes) and parts of the south of the Saône-et-Loire département (Burgundy). While administratively considered part of the Burgundy wine region, the climate is closer to the Rhône and the wine is unique enough to be considered separately from Burgundy and Rhône. The region is known internationally for its long tradition of winemaking, uniquely emphasized the use of carbonic maceration, and more recently for the popular Beaujolais nouveau.

Gamay grape

When Philippe the Bold outlawed the cultivation of Gamay in Burgundy, it pushed the grape south to the

Beaujolais region. Gamay noir is now known to be a cross of Pinot noir and the ancient white variety

Gouais, the latter a Central European variety that was probably introduced to northeastern France by the Romans. The grape brought relief to the village growers following the decline of the Black Death. In contrast to the Pinot Noir variety, Gamay ripened two weeks earlier and was less difficult to cultivate. It also produced a strong, fruitier wine in a much larger abundance. In July 1395, the Duke of Burgundy Philippe the Bold outlawed the cultivation of Gamay as being "a very bad and disloyal plant", due in part to the variety occupying land that could be used for the more "elegant" Pinot Noir. Sixty years later, Philippe the Good, issued another edict against Gamay in which he stated the reasoning for the ban is that "The Dukes of Burgundy are known as the lords of the best wines in Christendom. We will maintain our reputation".[2] The edicts had the effect of pushing Gamay plantings southward, out of the main region of Burgundy and into the granite based soils of Beaujolais where the grape thrived.

The climate of Beaujolais is semi-continental with some temperate influences. The close proximately of the Mediterranean Sea does impart some Mediterranean influence on the climate. The region is overall, warmer than Burgundy with vintages more consistently ripening the grapes fully. By the time that the Beaujolais Nouveau is released in late November, the foothills in the western regions will have normally seen snow. A common viticultural hazard is spring time frost.[1]

The soils of Beaujolais divide the region into a northern and southern half, with the town of Villefranche serving as a near dividing point. The northern half of Beaujolais, where most of the Cru Beaujolais communes are located, includes rolling hills of schist and granite based soils with some limestone. On hillsides, most of the granite and schist is found in the upper slopes with the lower slopes having more stone and clay composition. The southern half of the region, also known as the Bas Beaujolais, has more flatter terrain with richer, sandstone and clay based soils with some limestone patches. The Gamay grape fares differently in both regions-producing more structured, complex wines in the north and more lighter, fruity wines in the south. The angle of the hillside vineyards in the north exposes the grapes to more sunshine which leads to harvest at an early time than the vineyards in the south.

The grapes are harvested between late August and early September. It is fermented for just a few days and released to the public on the third Thursday of November - "Beaujolais Nouveau Day". It is the first French wine to be released for each vintage year. In 1992, at its peak, more than half of all Beaujolais wine was sold as "Beaujolais Nouveau".[1] The wines are meant to be drunk as young as possible, when they are at their freshest and fruitiest. They can last up to one or two years but will have lost most of their characteristic flavors by that point.[8]

The Beaujolais region has one of the highest vine density ratio of any major, worldwide wine region with anywhere from 9000 to 13,000 vines per hectare.

Most vines are trained in the traditional goblet style where the spurs of the vines are pushed upwards and arranged in a circle, resembling a chalice. This method has its roots in the Roman style of vine training and has only recently begun to fall out of favor for the guyot method which involves taking a single or double spur and training it out horizontally. Harvest usual occurs in late September and is almost universally done by hand rather than with the use of mechanical harvesters. This is because the Beaujolais wine making style of carbonic

maceration utilizes whole bunches of grapes clusters that normally get broken and separated by a mechanical harvester.[1]

The Gamay grape, more accurately known as Gamay Noir à Jus Blanc to distinguish it from the Gamay teinturier grapes with red juice and different from the Napa Gamay and the Gamay Beaujolais grapes of California, is the most widely planted grape in Beaujolais accounting for nearly 98% of all plantings.[8] The remaining plantings are mostly Chardonnay. Aligote vines that were planted prior to 2004 are permitted in wine production but the entire grape variety is being phased out of the region by 2024. According to AOC regulation, up to 15% of white wine grape varieties can be included in all Beaujolais red wines from the basic Beaujolais AOC to the Cru Beaujolais wines but in practice the wines are almost always 100% Gamay. Pinot noir, which has very small plantings, is also permitted but that grape is being phased out by 2015 as Beaujolais winemakers continued to focus their winemaking identity on the Gamay grape.[1] The characteristics that the Gamay grapes adds to Beaujolais is bluish-red deep color with low acidity, moderate tannins and light to medium body. The aromas associated with the grape itself is typically red berries.[8]

Since the 1960s, more focus has been placed on the choice of rootstocks and clonal selection with six approved clones of Gamay for the wine region. In recent years the rootstock Vialla has gained popularity due to its propensity to produce well in granite soils. The SO4 and 3309 rootstocks also account for significant plantings. Clonal selections of the Gamay grape has shifted towards an emphasis on smaller, thicker skinned berries.[1]

Winemaking and style

Beaujolais nouveauBeaujolais wines are produced by the winemaking technique of semi-carbonic maceration. Whole grape clusters are put in cement or stainless steel tanks with capacities between 40-300 hectoliters (1,056 to 7,920 gallons). The bottom third of the grapes gets crushed under the weight of gravity and resulting must begins normal yeast fermentation with ambient yeasts found naturally on the skins of the grapes. Carbon dioxide is released as a by product of this fermentation and begins the saturate the individual, intact grape berries that remain in the barrel. The carbon dioxide seeps into the skin of the grape and begin to stimulate fermentation at an intracellular level. This is caused, in part, because of the absence of oxygen in the winemaking environment.[8] This results in a fruity wine without much tannin. In the case of Beaujolais nouveau, this process is completed in as little as four days with the other AOCs being allowed longer time to ferment. As the grapes ferment longer, they develop more tannins and a fuller body.[1]

After fermentation, the must is normally high in malic acid and producers will put the wine through malolactic fermentation to soften the wine. The process of chaptalization, adding sugar to the grape must to boost alcohol levels, has been a controversial issue for Beaujolais winemakers. Historically, Beaujolais producers would pick grapes at ripeness that were at minimum potential alcohol levels of 10-10.5% and then add sugar in order to artificially boost the alcohol levels to the near the maximum of 13-13.5%. This created wines that lack structure and balance to go with the high alcohol body and mouthfeel. The recent trend towards higher quality wine production has limited the use of chaptalization in the premium levels of Beaujolais wine.[1] Filtering the wine, in order to stabilize it, is practiced to varying degrees by Beaujolais winemakers. Some producers who make Beaujolais on a large commercial scale will filter the wine aggressively, to avoid any impurity or future

chemical reactions. This can have the negative side effect of diminishing some of the wines unique fruit character and leave a flavor that critics have described as Jell-O-like.[9]

Basic Beaujolais is the classic bistro wine of Paris; a fruity, easy-drinking red traditionally served in 1 pint glass bottles known as pot. This is epitomized in Beaujolais Nouveau, which is fermented for just a few days and can

be dominated by estery flavors such as bananas and pear drops. Basic Beaujolais and Beaujolais nouveau are meant to be drunk within a year of their harvest. Beaujolais-Villages are generally consumed within 2–3 years and Cru Beaujolais has the potential to age longer, some not even fully developing till at least 3 years after harvest. Premium examples from Chénas, Juliénas, Morgon and Moulin-à-Vent can spend up to 10 years continuing to develop in the bottle and in very good vintages can take on Burgundian qualities of structure and complexity.[1]

Serving and food pairing

Light bodied Beaujolais wine, such as Beaujolais Village pair well with lighter fare like salads. Wine expert Karen MacNeil has described Beaujolais as "the only white wine that happens to be red".[9] Similarly, Beaujolais is often treated like a white wine and served slightly chilled to a lower temperature, the lighter the style. Beaujolais Nouveau, being the lightest style, is served at about 52 °F (11 °C). Beaujolais AOC and Beaujolais-Villages are generally served between 56-57 °F (14 °C). Cru Beaujolais, especially the fuller bodied examples, can be treated like red Burgundy wine and served at 60-62°F (15-16°C). The wines rarely need to be decanted.[8] In Beaujolais, it is traditional to soak the bottles in buckets of ice water and bring them out to the center villages for picnics and games of boules.[9]

Beaujolais wine can be paired with a variety of food according to the lightness and body of the wine. Beaujolais Nouveau is typically used as an apéritif with basic Beaujolais and Beaujolais-Villages doing well with light fare, like picnics and salads. The lighter Cru Beaujolais pair well with poultry and the heavier Crus pairing better with red meats and hearty dishes like stews. In Norway, Beaujolais is a favorite with cod and bacalhau dishes. According to Lyon chef Paul Bocuse, Beaujolais wine is used to make a traditional regional dessert involving a glass of sliced peaches, topped with black currants and drenched in chilled Beaujolais wine.