As France editor, I’ve been lucky enough to taste some thrilling Burgundy over the years, from the new Domaine de la Romanée-Conti releases shrouded in mystery, to sipping samples of Domaine de Montille, Domaine Dujac and Domaine Leflaive while listening to hip hop in a 16th-century château.

I understand the compulsion to search for the kind of tension, precision, poise and concentration that stops you short mid-sentence.

But Burgundy prices remain at an all-time high, despite a general softening of the secondary fine wine market.

And with plenty of other fine and honourable wines available at far more accessible price points, the question has to be asked: why look to Burgundy at all for value or everyday drinking?

Well, even on a modest home-drinking budget, when you find the right bottle, things can just...slot into place. When you pick up a wine that’s reasonably affordable and delivers freshness and pleasure and not disappointment, you’ll keep going back to it.

So instead of abandoning the search, it’s a region I’ll keep hunting for value in – and if you have some good insights, there’s nothing like the thrill of a canny buy.

Confession time

When I’m opening wine at home, I don’t really think about how it will pair with what I’m eating. I’m just not that big on food and wine pairings. There, I’ve said it.

My partner is a great cook, so we pick a dish we want to eat, and we simply pick a wine we feel like drinking – unless there’s heavy spice and heat involved, in which case we tend to stick to beer or cider.

We cook hearty vegetarian dishes where good quality organic vegetables take centre stage. Pulses and grains feature heavily and bring great textural variety.

Our staple flavour palette ranges from the herbs and olive oil of the Mediterranean, to the deep spicing of harissa, ras el hanout, paprika and cumin, to miso, sesame and soy.

It’s simple cooking, but deep and warming. I get as much joy from the food and the wine as separate pleasures as I would from fussing over matching exact flavour, fat or acidity profiles.

That means when I buy Burgundy to drink at home, I’m not looking for a wine that needs a dish to complete it.

Wines that stand on their own

I recently discovered this £30 Montagny 1er cru 2023 from Domaine de Montorge. that packed in so much zesty flavour, there was more than enough going on in the glass to hold its own throughout the evening.

Looking for something more opulent, I recently reached for Maison Roche de Bellene’s Bourgogne Côte d’Or Chardonnay 2022. It has this gorgeous burst of ripe pineapple, the richness of vanilla cream and toast and a really appealing succulence of sweet fruit, balanced by the salinity of crushed sea shells.

It offers a lot of pleasure at the £25-£28 price point.

Beyond style I look for lesser-known appellations that punch above their price. The Pouilly-Loché Les Mûres 2022 from Clos des Rocs is one.

Loché is less well known that neighbouring Fuissé, so it’s a little cheaper, and from the 2024 vintage this site will be reclassified as premier cru, making this 2022 a sweet buy while it lasts. It’s vibrant, racy, with a little confit lemon and tarte tatin.

Auxey-Duresses is another example. The 2021 from Domaine Lafouge is a dainty, perfumed Pinot from a cooler vintage that’s perfect for early drinking and still retails under £30.

Some sleuthing pays off too. I love finding wines that are much more than what they appear.

Secret insights

Domaine Arlaud’s Roncevie Bourgogne 2023 is a favourite of mine for this reason. This 4.8ha plot of Pinot Noir was historically classified as Gevrey-Chambertin, but when Joseph Arlaud, an incomer from neighbouring Morey-St-Denis, bought it in 1964, Arlaud’s half was declassified while the other half remained Gevrey.

Essentially village-level red Burgundy at a regional-level price point, under £30.

I also look for lesser appellations made by renowned producers. Bret Brothers, the négociant side of top producer La Soufrandière, makes Cuvée Terroir du Mâconnais, Mâcon-Villages 2023 which is sourced from from parcels in Pouilly-Fuissé, Pouilly-Loché and Pouilly-Vinzelles.

It’s so mouthwatering yet also has these notes of buttery biscuit and spiced apple.

Or there’s Domaine Tessier’s Cote d'Or Bourgogne – made by a small Meursault domaine from two lieux-dits (Les Pellans and Les Herbeux) in the Meursault appellation and one (Femelottes) in Puligny.

With its rich and silky texture, it’s a steal for the quality.

I have a real soft spot for Aligoté; at its best it can be fragrant, floral, crisp and juicy. The Domaine Jean-Baptiste Ponsot, En l'Asne, Bourgogne Aligoté 2022 is a serious wine in its own right.

From 65-year-old vines (old vines are another thing I look out for, for the extra concentration and depth they can bring) grown in Rully.

And under £20?

If I want something under £20, I've more or less accepted Burgundy isn't really the place to look – personally for that money I'd rather buy something knockout from the Languedoc.

But when I need Burgundy that’s widely available and decent, I turn to a reliable cooperative, like Cave de Lugny.

It produces a fair amount of the own-label Burgundy sold at lower price points in the UK.

I particularly like the Bourgogne Blanc it makes for Yapp Bros (£18.50), and the Crémant de Bourgogne it makes for Tesco (£15).

I’m yet to be truly wowed by red Burgundy at lower price points, so for great value reds with real character I tend to look south instead, to Beaujolais, where fine and ageworthy Gamay can be found for a fraction of the equivalent quality in the Côte d’Or.

Finding everyday drinking wines in Burgundy isn’t easy, but it’s not impossible either, and once you find some favourites they’ll have been worth the wait.

Some Burgundy to drink at home

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Although it is endowed with the smallest vineyard area among the ‘golden triangle’ villages of Meursault, Chassagne and Puligny, it boasts some or all of no fewer than four grands crus: Montrachet, Bâtard-Montrachet, Chevalier-Montrachet and Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet.

From this epicentre of grands crus, top-notch premiers crus radiate north, and village-level vineyards stretch down the slope.

It is a compact, ideally situated terroir. Superlative wine, though, requires more than a brilliant site.

It also needs winemaking talent, and Puligny today enjoys a rich array of talent ranging from experienced domaines with deep traditions to newer domaines and innovative young winemakers that make this a truly exciting village.

Puligny: Five family names to know

Domaine Leflaive & Olivier Leflaive

Domaine Leflaive is among the finest producers of white wine – not just in Puligny, but in the world.

Despite a period from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s when the domaine struggled with premature oxidation, the wines are today better than ever, thanks to the efforts of previous winemaker, Pierre Vincent.

A recent tasting of the 2024s showed that his replacement, Amandine Brillanceau, is carrying the domaine forward in style.

The domaine farms an enviable portfolio of vineyards, from the grands crus of Bâtard-Montrachet and Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet (where it is the largest landowner), to Chevalier-Montrachet and on to the equally compelling premier cru offerings, making magical wines that age supremely well.

This domaine, however, is not the only Leflaive in town. Olivier Leflaive produces a range of delicious wines under his eponymous négociant business, alongside his brother Patrick.

Although Olivier became co-manager of Domaine Leflaive with his uncle Vincent in 1982, in 1984 he founded his négociant operation, and by 1994 he had departed the family business to focus entirely on this business.

The Olivier Leflaive négociant business has flourished; his Bourgogne Les Sétilles is among the most reliable entry-level white Burgundies.

He always makes wines from his own vineyards, marked ‘Récolte du Domaine’, which include Chevalier-Montrachet and the Puligny premiers crus Pucelles and Folatières.

The winemaking today is overseen by Solène Panigai, successor to Franck Grux, who had been the technical director for 35 years.

Chartron

Another luminous name in Puligny is Chartron. The domaine produces delightful wines throughout the range, but is known above all for its three clos: Clos des Chevaliers, Clos du Cailleret, and the Clos de la Pucelle monopole.

The family has owned these plots since the early 20th century. Portions have been replanted over time, and the oldest vines date to the 1950s and 1960s.

Jean-Michel Chartron is the fifth-generation owner and the winemaker. His style is elegant and sophisticated: the wines are concentrated and focused without showy amounts of reduction or oak, making them wines of restraint and timeless beauty.

The Carillon clan

The Carillon family has lived in Puligny longer than either the Leflaives or the Chartrons, tracing their ancestry to the 16th century.

Well into the years following World War II, however, the family was selling the majority of its production to négociants.

By the 1990s, the domaine, then known as Louis Carillon, was run by brothers Jacques and François. With the 2010 vintage, the brothers split the vineyards between them.

Jacques got the slice of Bienvenues-Bâtard Montrachet, premiers crus Referts, Champs Canet and some of the Perrières, and labels under Domaine Jacques Carillon.

François farms the Folatières, Combettes, Champs Gain and the balance of the Perrières and produces village-level wines from Enseignères, Aubues and Clos du Vieux Château, labelling under Domaine Franc.çois Carillon.

François’ sons Paul and Mathis have recently branched out on their own as Carillon Frères, and are producing delicious wines.

To date, there is the village-level Noyer Bret, and a premier cru Cuvée Loulou blended from the family sites and named for their grandfather.

Pernot

Another winemaking dynasty in Puligny is the Pernot family. The older wines from Domaine Paul Pernot age gracefully, while young Alvina Pernot is among the most exciting new voices in the village.

The granddaughter of Paul Pernot, she and her husband Philippe Abadie began their own domaine in 2018.

Alvina’s style is beguilingly taut, slightly reductive, with a racy finesse that suits the character of the village.

She presses the grapes as whole bunches without sulphur under the press and ferments with native yeasts in mostly used barrels.

The grands crus from Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet, Bâtard-Montrachet and Chevalier-Montrachet are superb, but the entire range bears investigation, particularly the premiers crus Peux Bois, Champs Canet Clos de la Jaquelotte, Clos de la Garenne, Clos des Folatières, Caillerets and Pucelles, and the village-level Rue aux Vaches and the Clos des Noyers Brets.

Thomas-Collardot

I was seduced on my most recent visit by the wines from another relative newcomer, Domaine Thomas-Collardot, whose vineyards were leased out until 2010.

The mother-and-son team of Jacqueline and Matthieu Collardot began bottling the wines under their own label in 2015 and received organic certification in 2023.

The wines are fermented and matured partly in barrels (mostly used) and partly in glass globes.

They produce delicious village-level Puligny wines from Enseignères, Nosroyes, Derrières les Velles, Houlières, Au Paupillot and Rue aux Vaches, along with a blended wine called Les Climats.

The range is completed by the premiers crus Hameau de Blagny and Folatières Au Chaniot.

Change is in the air in Puligny, and the village’s unique combination of established domaines and a new generation of players augurs well for the future of great white Burgundy.

Eight wines to try

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It’s hard to say for sure, but recent data points to a gradual, if limited, challenge to reds’ fine wine market hegemony. Chardonnay, and specifically white Burgundy, is the spearhead.

Geraint Carter, of Bordeaux Index and the LiveTrade online trading platform, said: ‘The white Burgundy share of our [total] trading over the last decade has gone from about 2% to about 5%, by value.’

Liv-ex, a global marketplace for the trade, said trading by value on still white wine rose 650% from 2010 to 2025, when it reached 10.5% of total trade value. Sparkling wine also jumped 1,100% in that period, while reds dropped 15%.

Carter said the trend should be seen within a wider context of Burgundy, Champagne and other regions diluting red Bordeaux’s dominance. ‘It’s a much more heterogeneous [market] picture than it was 15 years ago.’

Tom Burchfield, head of decision intelligence at Liv-ex, told Decanter: ‘Collectors’ cellars have undoubtedly become more diverse, and that will be a factor. It is perhaps reflective of a broader change in taste and consumption habits, but I don’t think you can underestimate the impact Burgundy has had. Interest in Burgundy (both red and white) has soared over the past decade.’

How far can this go? Carter said trading was focused on icons (see table below), yet it’s necessarily a thin market due to relatively tiny production volumes on individual wines.

Prices are correspondingly high. While it has been affected by the broader recent market downturn, there is some evidence that top white Burgundy has been relatively resilient.

‘White Burgundy didn’t rise [in price] to the same degree as red Burgundy between 2021 and 2022, and subsequently didn’t fall as far,’ said Burchfield.

US auction house Hart Davis Hart highlighted white Burgundy’s allure after its June fine wine sale, noting: ‘White Burgundy continued its skyward trajectory, with everything from 1980s [Domaines] Leflaive and Ramonet to 2020s Bernard-Bonin and Paul Pillot setting new record prices.

The Bordeaux Index view

Fine wine & spirits specialist Bordeaux Index kindly sponsors this section of Decanter, and provides its view on the market here every issue. It can be found at bordeauxindex.com

Back to the future

The fine wine market is often described as fragmented and lacking direction.

In reality, today’s landscape looks less like disorder and more like a return to historical norms.

The true anomaly was surely the 15-20 years of boom, bust and boom again, when Asia exerted an extraordinary influence, elevating Bordeaux to an unprecedented position of dominance.

That era has passed. Bordeaux remains the cornerstone of the fine wine market, but its decline from overwhelming supremacy is the single biggest structural shift of the past decade.

The beneficiaries are well documented: red Burgundy, Champagne and, on the white side, white Burgundy have all captured a greater share of collectors’ attention.

Fragmentation extends beyond buying preferences. The days when one critic could make or break a vintage are over, and wine styles are less uniform.

Climate change is demanding new approaches in both vineyard and cellar.

And at the same time, outstanding wine is now being made almost everywhere. Even the most historic domaines increasingly face competition from ambitious terrea novea.

Perhaps the greatest change, however, is cultural.

Fine wine now behaves more like other luxury markets: trends emerge faster, information travels instantly and fashion exerts a greater influence than ever before.

Today’s market may feel fragmented, but it’s also broader, more transparent and, arguably, far more interesting.

Auction highlights: Italy & rare Sherry

Italian fine wines have been a highlight of the auction scene in recent weeks, but rarely sighted 19th-century Sherry also commanded bidders’ attention.

Giacomo Conterno, Monfortino is a hallowed name for Barolo lovers and, in late June, US-based Hart Davis Hart (HDH) brought forth what it described as ‘the most comprehensive offering of Monfortino ever to appear at auction’.

Highlights included the superstar Barolo 2010 vintage. Six bottles of Monfortino Barolo Riserva 2010 sold for $11,950 (high estimate: $9,500), including buyer’s premium, while a single magnum of the same wine fetched $4,183 (high e: $3,200).

From Tuscany, six bottles of Soldera, Case Basse, Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2004 sold for $17,925 (high e: $14,000). HDH’s June auction was 100% sold – its fifth consecutive ‘white glove’ result.

Elsewhere, Zachys offered Italian gems from New York’s legendary, now-shuttered Barbetta restaurant; the Rolling Stones and Al Pacino are listed among its past patrons.

A Delaware-based ‘live’ sale in late June featured several wines from the 1990s, including 12 bottles of Bruno Giacosa, Santo Stefano di Neive, Barbaresco 1995: sold for $3,750 (high e: $3,000), including buyer’s premium.

In a change of pace, a Christie’s online auction ending 19 June featured library wines direct from Sherry producer González Byass.

A lot containing a bottle each of Pio IX Moscatel 1846 and La Cuadrada Palo Cortado 1997 sold for £2,500, including buyer’s premium (e: £2,000 – £3,000).

LiveTrade and Wine Hub link up

Private collectors and merchants can benefit from a new partnership between the LiveTrade fine wine trading platform powered by Bordeaux Index and a leading business management system, Wine Hub, created by Wine Owners.

Both partners said their deal enhances access to global fine wine trading, such as by enabling businesses using Wine Hub to trade directly on LiveTrade, plus see real-time pricing and stock availability.

LiveTrade has nearly £50m of in-bond, pristine blue-chip stock readily available for trading at any one time.

On the benefit to collectors, Matthew O’Connell, co-CEO of Bordeaux Index, said: ‘Integrations such as Wine Hub make it easier for merchants to participate in the marketplace as part of their daily workflow.

‘Increased participation drives greater liquidity, and that means broader access to fine wine, improved pricing transparency and a stronger trading experience for private collectors using LiveTrade.’

Coming up

Burgundy charity sale

Christie’s will co-host a charity auction of rare Burgundy wines sourced directly from celebrated producers, plus exclusive experiences, from 4-19 September – in aid of restorations at the historic Cistercian Abbey of Cîteaux.

The sale’s conclusion will also coincide with a charity dinner at Chȃteau Clos du Vougeot.

Ex-Chȃteau Haut-Brion

August is broadly a quieter month for auctions, but autumn is hotting up. Sotheby’s announced in July that it will offer Château Haut-Brion wines sourced directly from the Bordeaux first growth’s cellars.

Bidding opens 17 September and concludes with a ‘live’ auction in Paris on 1 October. Stay tuned for more details.

The Golden Vines weekender

Philanthropy-focused fine wine and gastronomy event The Golden Vines returns to London in 2026, from 6-8 November, said organiser Liquid Icons in July.

Held in support of the Gérard Basset Foundation, the weekend includes The Golden Vines Awards Gala. Tickets are £10,000 per person. See liquidicons.com/london

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A topic such as this should write itself, yet I found the subject slippery while actually writing it.

Part of the reason is that it is necessarily a moving target, changing with the seasons and the weather, where one is located, and with whom one is dining.

The other difficulty is that one is spoiled for choice – how can the topic be narrowed to a reasonable scope if each day brings an exciting new possibility?

Below are my coups de cœur (heart throb) Burgundy producers, as the French would say; the vignerons I turn to for excellent mid-week drinking.

These personal choices are made on impulse rather than logic, and they are organised geographically for simplicity's sake.

The necessary criteria are quality, availability and price. To qualify for everyday drinking, it must be good, readily available in shops or restaurants, and at least reasonably affordable.

Chablis/Auxerrois

A quick look at my personal website reveals a profusion of Chablis. Once ridiculously undervalued, Chablis in recent years has taken off in renown, and in price, yet northern Burgundy still holds surprising value.

Domaine Jean-Hugues & Guilhem Goisot is not as well-known, particularly to anglophone drinkers, as the best Chablis producers, but it also sits at the top of the hierarchy.

It is based in the charmingly obscure town of St-Bris, where the appellation wines are Sauvignon de St-Bris, a close Kimmeridgian cousin of Sancerre.

The Goisot clan produces perhaps the most expressive versions available of this appellation (often on north-facing slopes, sometimes co-planted with Sauvignon Gris), but when the exposure or soils are better suited to Chardonnay (east-facing) or Pinot Noir (south-facing) these grapes are grown and bottled as Bourgogne Côtes d’Auxerre.

At an extraordinarily reasonable price point, they also produce a winning Aligoté that is widely available.

Côte de Nuits

The Côte de Nuits is the land of grand cru Pinot Noir and one might imagine a struggle to find everyday wines. Luckily, this is not the case at all.

Even top producers can still make wines here that are beautiful and affordable, and Domaine Trapet must surely be at the front rank.

Given the quality here, all the wines could qualify as reasonably priced, but the Passetoutgrain à Minima, a blend of Gamay and Pinot Noir from the ‘wrong side of the tracks’ in Gevrey, is a true bargain, as are the Gevrey village-level cuvées 1859 and Ostrea.

These are cuvées produced by Domaine Trapet Père & Fils, formerly directed by Jean-Louis Trapet, whose sons Pierre and Louis are now at the helm.

They have also launched their own label, Pierre & Louis Trapet, where they produce classic styles and some more experimental bottlings.

Worthy of note, the wines from Trapet’s cousin domaine, Domaine Rossignol-Trapet, are also of extraordinary value from superb terroirs.

For the summer months it may be useful to highlight Burgundy’s only ‘cru’ rosé from Marsannay. I often mark the beginning of summer by buying in a case of pink for hotter weather.

The classic producer is Domaine Bruno Clair, whose careful combination of direct press and maceration on the skins produces a delightfully elegant summer rosé.

Bruno’s cousins at Domaine Bart and his neighbour Sylvain Pataille also offer worthy renditions.

Côte de Beaune

The wines of Domaine Henri & Gilles Buisson are among the most frequent weekday visitors on my dinner table. The domaine is located in St-Romain, where they farm 19ha of certified organic vineyards.

Although the family has lived in the village since the 12th century and trace their work as vignerons to 1758, they have bottled wine under the family name only since 1947, the year in which the village received its own appellation.

Before 1947, St-Romain was considered part of the Hautes-Côtes, tucked away in a valley behind Meursault in the region’s upper slopes, which is why the village is less well-known to many.

The higher elevations meant that in the past the grapes ripened with difficulty, but with a changing climate, St-Romain has come into its own to produce wines with lush, forward fruit that still retain plenty of structure, making them excellent companions to food.

The vineyard-designated St-Romain wines are the star of the show at Buisson, but the red and white Bourgogne-level wines are delicious as well at an eminently affordable price.

Côte Chalonnaise

The Côte Chalonnaise is home to many diverse wine styles. One producer has mastered several: Bruno Lorenzon is producing some of the finest wines anywhere in the Côte Chalonnaise.

Although he is based in Mercurey, known for red wines, his 30 years at the family domaine have given him the experience to produce stunning wines in both colours.

He now produces wines from 9ha of vines, six in Mercurey and three in Montagny. As he noted: ‘I’m a white wine guy who makes Pinot Noir in a Chardonnay way.’

He sometimes delights in running counter to received wisdom, deriding the early-picked, reductive style currently in fashion for Chardonnay in very amusing terms, quoting Henri Jayer: ‘A wine must be good from the beginning’.

He presses whole bunches of Chardonnay delicately and vinifies in a minimalist way without chaptalising, acidifying, or adding sulphur, to sublime results.

In either colour or terroir, the master of Mercurey delivers beautiful wines of precision and impressive depth of flavour.

Mâconnais

The Mâconnais is a fertile hunting ground for the everyday value wines that often appear at my house.

The region is broad and varied, and numerous producers are making great wine at great prices.

Across the appellations of the Mâconnais, from Pouilly-Fuissé premier cru to Mâcon-Villages and beyond, however, the style pioneered by Jean-Marie Guffens and Julian Desplans at Maison Verget consistently delivers satisfaction.

They adapt the winemaking style to each cuvée across a broad range, but in general, the wines are concentrated and aromatic, with a slightly smoky, reductive edge imparted by the winemaking.

Despite picking fairly ripe fruit, the wines never lose their balance and retain a lively freshness that makes them refreshing even in a warm vintage.

Even in an era of skyrocketing prices, these producers show that Burgundy still offers abundant choices for everyday drinking.

Favourite Burgundy producers for everyday drinking

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They are talismanic rites of passage to a place distant from the putative truths of empirical analysis, or the shallow notion that a wine is only as good as what is in the glass.

In the brittle cold of Paris in early January, as I struggled with the ignition of my rental car, I reminded myself that I was on my way to experience one of those bottles: a Romanée-Conti 1899, believed to be the last remaining.

This sort of bottle is usually traded at considerable profit.

Indeed, Romanée-Conti 1945 holds the record for the highest price ever fetched at auction: US$812,500 at Acker’s La Paulée sale in March this year. But the 1899 was purchased by Soo Hoo Khoon Peng to drink, a belated celebration of his 50th birthday.

A collector, businessman and co-owner of renowned Australian Pinot Noir producer Bass Phillip, Soo Hoo believes that wine ‘isn’t about status, but learning and human connection’, and was adamant that the bottle be shared among friends. I was glad to be among them.

I arrived at Michelin one-star restaurant Auprès de Clocher in Pommard to glimpse the time capsule set on a mantle, replete with a gloriously tattered label and a relatively healthy fill.

Its heavy lead capsule was unblemished but for a chip here and there and a crease of rust.

The bottle augured well for the long lunch ahead, while photographers from major news networks dispersed and guests arrived.

‘Mercifully, the bottle wasn’t corked. Miraculously, it wasn’t volatile!’

Among those guests was Maison Pion fine wine director and Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC) specialist Régis Cimmati, who estimated the bottle’s worth at about US$118,000 based on provenance alone, going to great lengths to decipher the label’s nomenclature,

‘Seign…et’ indicating that the bottle had been sold to Bordeaux trader Seignouret, owned by the de Brou de Laurière family.

The guest of honour, however, was DRC co-owner Aubert de Villaine, who at 87 wove an array of anthologies with a historical loom, bringing the magical bottle to life with a glint in his eye and a spritely cadence to words that felt like an incantation.

He explained that the wine would have been bottled in Santenay back then, the barrels transported by horse and cart.

When the wine was made, Romanée-Conti was owned by families Guyot and Chambon, each surname visible on opposite sides of the label.

The Guyot clan later sold in 1912 to Jacques Chambon and Edmond Gaudin de Villaine and the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti was established.

Cimmati explained that the bottle was sold at a local auction in a six-pack, designated ‘19th Century Red Wines’, after the last member of the de Brou de Laurière family died, in 2011.

Due to label damage, the bottle went unrecognised and the entire lot sold for barely €50!

De Villaine celebrated this with a grin, inferring his displeasure with the secondary market and its extreme pricing, while admitting he had never tasted a pre-1900 bottle; the oldest in the domaine’s stock dates to 1911.

The 1899 was later salvaged by a discerning buyer and eventually sold to Soo Hoo.

Another guest, Wine Advocate editor in chief William Kelley, was nominated to draw the cork. I breathed a sigh of relief that the responsibility wasn’t mine.

Mercifully, the bottle wasn’t corked. Miraculously, it wasn’t volatile!

A shimmering tawny tinged with red, vital and poised, there were hints of dried quince and tea leaf, sure, but the wine transcended any obvious fruit flavours with an incandescent, ineffable beauty.

Monsieur de Villaine swooned over the lingering finish, while Kelley noted a ‘heady vinosity’, born of prephylloxera vines. Cimmati enthused: ‘These pre-war ungrafted bottles are the pinnacle of the craft.’

There were other great bottles served that day, with my hat tipped to the 1980 La Tâche. Yet as friendships were kindled, wine’s spellbinding capacity to bring people together in celebration of a moment, resolute and invigorating, was clear.

A memento mori amid a cast of stars, the 1899’s semiotic powers were unrivalled.

In my glass this month

Under the aegis of Federico Seghesio, Renzo Seghesio is a Barolo name on the rise, offering visceral joy across the range. However, it’s an outlier, Nebbiolo from the sandy turf of Roero – Roè 2023 – that sits in my glass most nights.

From a warm vintage, yet Nebbiolo’s perk and twirl are in full flight, as if the rose petal, kirsch and briar of Grenache has met the forestry accents of Pinot, all nicely compressed by Nebbiolo’s sinewy tannins.

One sip soon leads to a large draught and then an empty bottle. Best guzzled on the cooler side.

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Due south, across a rippling wave of vineyard-covered hills, the mounded form of the Côte de Brouilly towers over the landscape. Beyond it, a flat plain spills away towards the Saône river.

On a cloudless day you can often catch a glimpse of Mont Blanc in the far distance, its snow-capped shoulders marking the highest point of the Alps.

The sloping vineyards to the north of the col are punctuated by copses of trees and sunshine-yellow gorse bushes.

Even though you’re less than 3km from the village, it’s peaceful up here, the silence interrupted only by the loud song of blackbirds and the occasional quiet hum of a peloton of cyclists whooshing by.

It’s not just the view that takes your breath away. Even on a sunny spring day, you can feel the wind that blows over the col.

Its name, Durbize, is a portmanteau of bize, the moniker used in the Alps for a cold, dry mountain wind, and dur (meaning ‘hard’), a reference to just how biting that wind can feel when it really gets going.

The bize is often keenly felt by the producers working the steep vineyards that spread out over the slopes beneath and behind the col.

It’s worth bearing in mind that although the Col de Durbize, perched at 500m above sea level, is one of the highest points in the region, some of the Chiroubles vineyards are situated even higher.

Work your heart out

Furthermore, not only is Chiroubles the highest of the 10 crus of Beaujolais – its highest-quality sub-regions – it also features the region’s most vertiginous slopes.

Toiling up and down the sharp inclines in this hilly cru is not for the faint of heart or the weak of limb.

The growers’ task is made even harder by the nature of the vines they’re tending. The vineyards of Beaujolais’ crus are largely populated by ancient bush vines, almost entirely Gamay, many of them so low to the ground that they look like bonsai versions of the more vigorous plants seen elsewhere.

Bending and kneeling to prune these vines, and to harvest the low-hanging bunches, takes a physical toll on Chiroubles’ growers over time.

‘I love being up there in my vineyards. I love the landscape, and the feeling that I’m surrounded by nature, and I love the views,’ says Domaine de la Grosse Pierre’s Pauline Passot.

Then she sighs. ‘It’s incredibly hard work and I have to work my heart out. The vineyards are so steep they just can’t be mechanised – everything has to be done by hand.’

But although those steep slopes, buffeting winds and old vines may be a tribulation for grape-growers, they are a distinct advantage in the context of climate change.

While the Chiroubles cru may have struggled to ripen its grapes in past years, when chaptalisation (adding sugar to the fermenting must to increase potential alcohol) was the norm in the region, the freshness derived from elevation and wind is now a positive blessing in a changing climate, when those tending vines grown in riper sites sometimes struggle to keep alcohol levels under control.

Rocky descent

The final piece in the puzzle of the distinctive terroir of Chiroubles is geology. It’s the only one of the 10 crus to be composed exclusively of the pink granite soils for which the region is renowned.

Even Fleurie, the cru most strongly associated with pink granite in most people’s minds, has a fan of alluvial soils situated in the southeast of the appellation.

In some parts of the Chiroubles appellation, geology and topography combine to create incredibly shallow soils in which the bedrock lies exposed, while elsewhere these rocks have decomposed to create relatively deep, free-draining granitic sands.

It’s this combination of elevation, cooling influences and granite soils that gives the wines of Chiroubles a unique tension and energy, while vine age (many of these plants are well over 80 years old) lends concentration and focus.

Chiroubles is typically fine-boned and perfumed: the Beaujolais equivalent, perhaps, of Volnay or Chambolle-Musigny.

Unfortunately for the region’s growers, however, Chiroubles doesn’t command anywhere near the price of the wines of the Côte d’Or, despite their stylistic similarities.

As a result, it’s perhaps unsurprising that over the course of the two years I spent researching my book The Wines of Beaujolais (£35 Académie du Vin Library, September 2025), Chiroubles lost nearly 15% of its vineyard area – and a recent trip to the region suggests that a further 5%-10% of vineyards have been abandoned in the past 12 months.

All this in a cru that is already the second smallest of the 10 in terms of area.

Commercial realities

‘Lost’ is a euphemism in this particular context. What typically happens is that, when a grower retires, he struggles to find anyone to take over his vineyards. These are then left to lie fallow, the grasses growing wild between the tightly spaced vines.

For many growers, farming a hectare or two of Chiroubles is, it would appear, far more trouble than it’s worth.

As Passot points out: ‘Very few people want to take on these difficult vineyards, especially when it’s hard to make a return on the investment in the time and money it takes to farm them.’

She’s not wrong. A quick back-of-an-envelope calculation suggests that the steepest hillside vineyards in Beaujolais cost two or three times more to farm than those that lie on flatter land – possibly even more if you farm organically, as many of the best producers do.

The story of Jules Métras’ La Montagne, one of the finest wines made in Chiroubles, is a perfect illustration of the potential loss to the wine world.

The 2024 vintage of this wine – and of its stablemate, the Vieilles Vignes Chiroubles – is the last Métras will ever bottle.

When I visited him last year, he told me he was giving up his long-term lease on the vineyards with great regret, but with a pragmatic eye on both the commercial realities of the situation and his own physical limitations.

Métras’ father Yvon, one of the pioneers of the natural wine movement in Beaujolais, has recently retired from the viticultural fray, handing over the management of his Fleurie vineyards to his son.

Métras, having decided that he wanted to keep his production on a small enough scale to enable him to operate as a one-man band, was faced with a decision about whether to keep his father’s vineyards or the ones he’d been farming under his own label.

Ultimately, much as he felt an affinity for his plots in Chiroubles, Métras’ calculation was driven by the pragmatics.

‘It’s just far easier to sell Fleurie than it is to sell Chiroubles,’ he shrugged, adding that another factor that influenced him was having watched some of his relatives farm Chiroubles’ sloping vineyards until they reached their 60s.

‘All those years of climbing up and down those hills, tending those low-lying vines, simply wore them out,’ he told me.

And there’s a further issue that makes Chiroubles a challenge for any producer. The hailstorms that sweep through the region with increasing frequency seem to strike the cru with both monotonous regularity and devastating consequences.

Most of the growers in Chiroubles tell me that they count on losing a significant proportion of their crop at least one year in three.

Sometimes, when the hailstorms roll through, they’ll escape with relatively minor damage, but in the worst-case scenarios, 70% or 80% of a vineyard’s potential harvest can be lost in the space of half an hour or so.

For the love of it

And yet this troublesome, capricious cru has a way of working its way into the hearts and souls of those who take the trouble to get to know it.

‘The people who farm these vineyards are doing it for love,’ says Michele Smith of Domaine Chapel, who farms 3ha of vineyards spread across three of Chiroubles’ lieux-dits (‘named locations’).

‘They’re doing it because they believe in the cru. I think that eventually this will resonate with people. Chiroubles deserves the same amount of respect as the more prestigious appellations – maybe even more because of the challenges that it brings. These wines just have the most amazing energy and vibrancy.’

But if the wines of Chiroubles are so good, why are they so difficult to sell?

One of the cru’s greatest problems is that, unlike the larger, more famous crus of Morgon and Fleurie, Chiroubles doesn’t have a big winemaking name – either in its past or in its present – to drive its image.

Most of the grapes grown in the cru have been absorbed into big (and often rather bland) négociant blends, humdrum wines that aren’t likely to attract discerning palates or turn collectors’ heads.

Nevertheless, the wines recommended below are evidence that great winemakers – if not famous ones – are prepared to carry a torch for Chiroubles.

Another issue that may play its part in Chiroubles’ travails is that the distinctive identity of each of the 10 Beaujolais crus isn’t yet widely recognised.

One importer told me, off the record, that the typical response from retailers and restaurants (ones that happily list a couple of dozen wines from Burgundy or a generous handful of Piedmontese Nebbiolos) is: ‘Thanks, but we already have a Beaujolais’.

Given that, for an outlet that believes that listing Beaujolais is a box-ticking exercise, the first cab off the rank is usually either a Morgon or a Fleurie (or possibly a Moulin-à-Vent if they’re feeling really adventurous), poor little Chiroubles rarely gets a look in.

The exhortation to ‘use it or lose it’ is a familiar one to any gym-goer over the age of 40, but it’s less frequently heard in the context of wine.

Nevertheless, the clock is ticking for Chiroubles. It’s time we all realised that the hills of Beaujolais conceal a hidden treasure.

If we don’t, there’s a risk that this particular pot of elegant, perfumed vinous gold will disappear from our lives forever.

Gamay at the extreme: Natasha’s pick of 10 Chiroubles to try

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It wasn’t until a couple of weeks into living in Chalon-sur-Saône that I went to Beaune for the first time.

I soon realised that the key to enjoying Burgundy at its best was to think – and drink – like a local.

Burgundy is small enough, and its wine community close enough, that it doesn’t take long to notice how everyone is connected – winemakers, importers and friends-of-friends all circle back to the same handful of addresses.

Spend just a few evenings in Beaune’s wine bars and that web starts to reveal itself.

Get to the beating heart

The centre of that web is Beaune’s Saturday market – and more specifically, the Saint Romain Coffee cart in front of the giant panda statue.

Matt McClune, an artist from Boston, moved to France in 2004 with his wife, eventually landing in St-Romain, where he started a coffee roastery.

Saint Romain Coffee fuels the wine world in Burgundy and beyond. The coffees, which are all sourced from independent farms in Ethiopia, are carefully roasted in small batches at Matt’s shop, located in a cellar-like space on a steep hill just above a sea of vines.

The shop is open Mondays and Tuesdays, but it’s best to find Matt on Saturdays, pouring perfectly extracted espresso into ceramic mugs among a swarm of winemakers and market-goers.

It’s from this point that the world of Burgundy – its goings-on, its stories, its secrets – opens up.

Ease into local life

The market itself is one of the region’s best. Stalls of spices, cheese, fruit, bread, vegetables and cured meats roll into town before sunrise and take over every street, only to roll out again by midday.

Beaune’s narrow cobbled roads buzz with food and wine lovers.

Afterwards, with bags of Comté and produce in hand, locals retreat to Beaune’s brasseries for lunch. Crème Comptoir, an all-day café and wine bar on Rue Paradis, is a favourite – an easygoing spot, where bar seating wraps around an open kitchen.

Here Saturday afternoons reliably draw a crowd of local winemakers and wine professionals catching up over a bottle.

Listen in for long enough and you’ll pick up on the region’s rhythms. The Côte d’Or’s large expat community makes it an easy place to navigate without French, and postings for local wine and food fairs and concerts are usually pinned in the window.

In Burgundy, it’s nearly impossible to turn over every stone in a single visit – there is always another producer, another café, another thread to follow.

What remains constant is the promise of a region that opens itself up to those patient and curious enough to seek out its local community, not just its cellar doors.

Knowing where to begin is the hardest part – and that’s exactly what this guide, and the recommendations below, are designed to help with.

Many of the villages in Burgundy are accessible by train – the same line that carries you south to Lyon and north to Paris.

Having a car isn’t really necessary, but it’s helpful for organising vineyard visits and exploring the region beyond its towns.

Wineries to visit

The wineries listed here are a great start to discovering the wines of the region. Always try and book in advance, some wineries are open by appointment only.

Where to stay

Boutique hotels and guest houses are the perfect place to base yourself when travelling in Burgundy. Many of them marry historic touches and original features with contemporary decor and a sense of understated luxry.

Alfred Hotels, Beaune

A boutique hotel on the edge of Beaune that opened in early 2026, its 49 rooms are the perfect jumping off point for exploring the local town and the region beyond.

It seamlessly blends old and new, offering a comfortable stay while remaining enmeshed in Beaune’s historic landscape.

Maison du Colombier, Beaune

A historic guesthouse in Beaune’s city center with five independent apartments and a great wine bar that opens onto the iconic cobblestone streets.

Maison le Chevreuil, Meursault

Luxury 10-room inn and restaurant surrounded by the beautiful vineyards of Meursault.

Papotte, Bligny-sur-Ouche

A series of four design-forward homes and apartments located around a beautiful mill, offering longer-stay rentals. There is also a beautiful café.

Côté Park, Givry

An 18th-century château converted into four distinct guest rooms which overlook a quiet courtyard.

Ô Cœur de Chalon, Chalon-sur-Saône

There are some amazing homes for rent in downtown Chalon-Sur-Saône, and this is a great option for something central.

What to do

Where to eat and drink

Unsurprisingly good wine is not hard to come by in Burgundy, but the suggestions for restaurants and wine bars below offer something a cut above the rest; a well-measured combination of excellent wines, thoughtful and sensitive food and great atmosphere.

Crème Café, Beaune

All-day café and wine bar serving seasonal fare in a laid back setting.

La Dilettante, Beaune

Wine bar serving natural wine and French classics with a Japanese influence.

Caves Madeleine, Beaune

Often considered one of the best restaurants in Beaune for its hyper-local classic cuisine and amazing wine list. Make a reservation far in advance to get a seat.

The Publican, Beaune

Local evening haunt serving great local wine and beers on draft.

Le Soleil, Savigny-les-Beaune

A quaint inn and bistro set inside a gorgeous, sun-yellow home. Both the food and wine menus rotate daily – farm to table takes on a new meaning here, with deliveries being made by local farmers and winemakers at all hours of the day and night.

La Cave du Centre, Chagny

Opened in 2024 by wine writer Aaron Ayscough, it serves foremost as a wine shop offering unique and fan-favourite bottles alike, alongside a menu – written on the mirror of course – of classically French small bites.

Colette, Chassagne

Set among Chassagne’s beautiful vineyards, this is a wine bar, wine shop and coffee shop from Clément Colin-Morey – son of local legendary winemaker Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey – and his partner Emma.

Le Petit Chêne, Chassagne

One of the region’s best boulangeries and chocolate shops.

Le Soufflot, Meursault

Located in a former winegrower's house in one of Burgundy’s most iconic villages, the atmosphere here is relaxed and comfortable, but the food is refined and delicate, paired with an excellent wine list.

Haïka Coffee, Chalon-Sur-Saône

A great local roastery in the town center with a lovely terrace where you can catch the goings-on of the town while you sip.

La Maison Romane, Nuits-St-Georges

Restaurant, bakery, brewery and cellar, La Maison Romane is a true hub for community and connection in Burgundy, founded by Oronce de Beler, who decided to leave Paris in 2004 to learn winemaking.

Bruno, Dijon

An intimate wine bar helmed by Bruno himself, a local legend in Dijon, who has curated one of the most refined wine lists in Burgundy, serving charcuterie, cheese, anchovies and other great delicacies to regulars and tourists alike.

Cibo, Dijon

A new-wave bistrot serving refined seasonal fare inside of a stunning 17th-century stone building in downtown Dijon.

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It transpires that she was instrumental – alongside Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s Aubert de Villaine – in the successful bid to have Burgundy’s climats (its many long-established and specifically defined parcels of vines) inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2015, heading up the communications and engaging local stakeholders.

‘It was a truly transformative experience,’ she says. ‘Witnessing the collective effort to protect and recognise our land gave me a profound sense of purpose.’

But she has been deeply shaped by this land in other ways, too.

The Guyon family has 48ha of vineyard holdings in 25 appellations across the Côte d’Or – unusually extensive for a family-owned domaine in Burgundy. She reels them off fluently, from north to south.

Hombeline’s grandfather Antonin built his eponymous domaine in the 1960s. Over 10 years, he amassed impressive holdings, from Gevrey-Chambertin and Chambolle-Musigny down to Corton, Volnay, Meursault and Puligny-Montrachet.

When Dominique joined in the 1970s, he carried out his own remarkable feat – buying up 350 plots, from 80 different owners, to create a single, 22ha block of vines on a south-facing hillside in the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits.

This was the start of an additional domaine, Domaine Dominique Guyon, an early pioneer in what was once an overlooked sub-region.

An uncertain path

As an only child raised by her father, Hombeline spent much of her youth alone with him – at the domaine, out at restaurants, listening deeply and observing intently.

‘He spoke to me all the time, about everything,’ she says. ‘I knew everything about the domaine, everything about what he wanted to do.’

She absorbed it all. She knew that he wanted her to join the domaine eventually, but he didn’t lay down a path for her, or tell her how to go about it; it was never prescriptive. ‘I had to figure it out on my own, and I feel stronger for that,’ she says.

She travelled to Japan, China and the US, working across different areas of the wine business, before returning to Burgundy and eventually joining the domaine in 2014.

Although it was far from easy at the beginning – ‘My father is very smart, elegant, charismatic, with a strong personality, but he didn’t show me how to do things’ – there is now a mutual recognition of each other’s talents and strengths.

Alongside her father and long-time cellar master Vincent Nicot, who retired last year, Hombeline began to draw a more open exchange out of these two smart, sensible, but traditional men.

She says that they began to take much more time for tasting – more frequently and for longer periods – and she feels that the three of them learning (or re-learning) how to taste together, and to listen to each other, made them a stronger team.

Hombeline also feels that she has brought a lightness of touch to the wines, with less extraction (fewer pumpovers and more rack and return).

They’ve reduced the percentage of new oak and are being less formulaic in their vinification and maturation, and more reactive and precise.

Supporting creativity

Despite her entry into the domaine not being completely laid out for her, and despite being a woman in a male-dominated sphere, Hombeline feels that no one should have to fight to find their place.

She says it’s more about recognising each individual’s talents, and that ultimately people want to feel secure and recognised.

She’s also conscious, as a mother of three herself now, of what it meant for her father to raise a daughter alone while running an estate.

She carries her inherited responsibilities lightly, but there might have been another path: being a journalist, drawn from her love of people and sense of justice.

But running the domaine offers something equally enriching, allowing her creative side to bloom, ‘which is good for the wines and the domaine, but also for me – as a woman, a mother and a daughter’.

She feels that this is a job that requires much humanity and humility.

‘You have to be humble with nature; you have to think with your heart,’ she says, embracing and embodying the multifaceted role of daughter, mother, woman – and child of Burgundy.

One Guyon to try

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The Hautes-Côtes region of Burgundy oozes charm, with its rolling hillsides populated by more cows than people and tiny villages strung together by country roads that weave through dramatic hillsides most visitors never see.

The wines, too, are easy to love: crisp, clean whites, and structured, sometimes slightly rustic reds that recall the Burgundy of an earlier era.

The Hautes-Côtes has long been a dreamy country idyll, a respite from the excitement of the mainline Burgundy villages.

Today, however, with its ‘Horizon Hautes-Côtes’ initiative, the Burgundy wine establishment is trying to make the Hautes-Côtes the next big thing.

A recent press conference about the initiative highlighted some surprising facts: more than 1,800 hectares are currently planted here, and another 2,600 hectares that are classified for AOC wine have not yet been planted.

These cooler, high-altitude sites offer an increasingly attractive profile as global warming accelerates.

With the weight of the BIVB behind it, this appellation may be the wave of the future.

Where are the Hautes-Côtes?

The term Hautes-Côtes refers to the high-altitude slopes west of the main Côte d’Or, mainly at elevations between 300-460 metres, a region that had far more vines in the early 19^th century than it does today.

When the vineyards were replanted after the phylloxera epidemic, however, many growers planted grapes for making inexpensive wines, where yield, not quality, was the objective.

The effect was that wine production was at a nadir from the end of the 19th century until after WWII.

Although the regional appellation Bourgogne was codified in 1937, the distinction of a separate appellation for the Hautes-Côtes did not occur until 1961.

The region is large, spread across 47 villages that produce an average of nearly 9 million bottles of red, white, and rosé wine.

The Hautes-Côtes de Beaune are stretches across the hills from Corton down to Maranges, south of Santenay.

The Hautes-Côtes de Nuits is more compact, confined to the hills above the southern portion of the Côte de Nuits from Chambolle-Musigny to Nuits-Saint-Georges. One village, Magny-lès-Villers, is split between the two appellations.

Coming to grips with this vast expanse can be daunting. The first exposure for many are the delicious cuvées made by well-known growers in the mainline Côte d’Or, such as Anne Gros, Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey, Thibault Liger-Belair, Emmanuel Rouget, Sylvain Cathiard, and Etienne Sauzet.

Domaine Leflaive has planted vines in the Hautes-Côtes, and even Domaine de la Romanée-Conti tried their hand at it, vinifying several vintages of grapes grown at the Abbaye Saint-Vivant de Vergy before the vines were pulled up.

Building an identity

As the region grows collectively, however, there is with relatively little name recognition for individual villages.

As head of the Hautes-Côtes growers union, Nicolas Thévenot, points out, there are important differences.

He says: 'Every valley is a separate terroir; there are sites that a very steep and others that are on a plateau.

'Many vines are planted on clay and limestone soils similar to those found at lower elevations in the Côte d'Or, although it is also possible to have granite soils in the south near Maranges. The one common element is the elevation.’

Despite the distinctiveness, however, there is still work to be done to gain recognition, particularly in export markets, where négociant houses will often buy grapes that qualify as Hautes-Côtes but sell them as a simple Bourgogne.

Others, however, are highlighting the advantages of the Hautes-Côtes, including Laurent Delaunay, co-president of the BIVB and head of Maison Edouard Delaunay, based at the Château de Chaumont in l'Étang-Vergy above Nuits-Saint-Georges.

Fickel fame

Most village names in the Hautes-Côtes elicit a blank stare from wine lovers.

One that broke the mould was Saint-Romain, which was once classified with the Hautes-Côtes and is now a stand-alone cru in its own right.

Perhaps the village with the most potential to pull forward is Meloisey, an ancient village with an exciting mix of winemakers, including Denis Carré, Agnès Paquet, Alexandre Parigot, and others.

The current crop of winemakers in this village includes both those at historic domaines and passionate young people starting new properties, something that is still possible in the Hautes-Côtes.

Although few highlight Meloisey per se, many use vineyard names on the label, such as La Perrière.

Other nearby sites include Les Dames Huguettes and En Bully, both located within Nuits-Saint-Georges but classified as Bourgogne Hautes-Côtes de Nuits.

High and wide

One of the most distinctive characteristics of the region is the training system 'haute et large' (high and wide).

The Hautes-Côtes was among the first regions to experiment with this low-density planting system.

The most apparent advantage of the ‘haute et large’ training system is that the vines are less exposed to the danger of frost, which will settle near the base of the vines.

The system also enables a more complete usage of cover crops, is easier to work, and facilitates the use of mechanical harvesters.

It is also thought that if conditions remain dry and hot, the vines will be better able to resist drought stress at lower densities.

Exact statistics on the use of this system are not available, but Nicolas Thévenot, president of the union of Hautes-Côtes winegrowers, estimates that approximately 40-50% of the vines in the Hautes-Côtes are trained in this fashion.

Biodiversity and business

The purpose of the Project Horizon Hautes-Côtes initiative is to manage growth while respecting the region's traditions and biodiversity.

More than 85% of the surface in the wine-producing portions of the Hautes-Côtes is also protected under European law as a Natura 2000 nature preserve, which were established by Brussels to protect endangered species of birds, animals, and plants.

The project is mapping the region from multiple perspectives to ensure sensitive development.

Renowned geologist Françoise Vannier will map the underlying geology and environmental consultant Marc Ouvrié is mapping the climate risks including frost and hail.

The information will be used with Natura 2000 data to protect the environment and target 'smart' development.

The combination of cool, high-elevation sites, room to grow, and an exciting crop of young talent combine to make the Hautes-Côtes one of the premier destinations for top-quality yet still-affordable Burgundy wines.

Wines from Burgundy's Hautes-Côtes

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Although the category offers incredible diversity in style, quality, and price, we provide a roadmap that gives you a shortcut for deciding which wine is perfect for you on every occasion.

The best way to begin is to ask yourself the questions below.

Who will you be with?

Family, friends, and work clients each require a different solution to finding the perfect white Burgundy.

Choosing a wine to share with your family should be easy, but often it isn't. Hopefully, they will not judge you, but one wants top quality for those who are close.

Ideally, your house white Burgundy will be an everyday wine, so find a producer working in a style that you like and anchor your wine fridge with one of their entry-level offerings.

I delight in finding a solid sub-£25 Mâcon-Villages and laying down a case for frequent drinking, such as the Domaine Frantz Chagnoleau Mâcon-Villages Clos Saint-Pancras.

You may wish to surprise your friends, so explore something new among the region's rising stars.

The wines with the most buzz will not be the least expensive, but they will still cost less than top names.

Guillaume Lafon, son of renowned winemaker Dominique Lafon, has just founded his own domaine and is producing tremendously exciting wines.

Clients need to be impressed with a classic wine that is reliable in every vintage, so choose a well-known name from a classic region.

Bosses, however, will be impressed by smart choices, so let the size of your expense account determine whether you are picking a regional Bourgogne, a village-level wine, or a ravishing premier cru.

What is your style?

At the risk of oversimplifying, it may help to think of three main styles of white Burgundy: crisp and refreshing, richly exuberant, and polished and elegant.

The good news is that you can find bargains among all three types. The classic example of ‘crisp and refreshing’ is Chablis.

The wines have aromas of citrus and green apple, and the better ones have a pronounced flinty, mineral note.

Although it’s fine to start with an inexpensive Petit Chablis, but for a surprisingly small increase in price, you will find a village-level Chablis like the 2024 Domaine Billaud-Simon that will give you the full range of minerally, lemony fruit.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are richly exuberant white Burgundies, like those from the southern districts of Burgundy (the Mâconnais).

This region offers some of the most reasonably priced wines, yet also delivers great quality, particularly in crus whose names appear alone on the label.

The single vineyard Saint-Véran Les Crèches from talented grower Domaine Saumaise-Michelin is a perfect place to start.

Wines from all over Burgundy could fit into our ‘polished and elegant’ category, but to simplify, focus on finding values from the rarified 'golden triangle' of white Burgundy villages: Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet, and Chassagne-Montrachet.

These villages are renowned for the quality and complexity of their wines, but they can often be expensive; some, however, will fit into your Starter Pack.

One example is the Bourgogne Côte d'Or from Meursault producer Michel Bouzereau.

Although they are grown outside the area for village-level wines, they still show some of their noble character.

Where and when are you drinking?

A final consideration is time and place. White Burgundy is incredibly versatile, so don't be afraid to mix it up.

In a restaurant, the tried-and-true pairings could be Chablis with shellfish or lighter fish such as sole.

The wines of the Côte d’Or can accompany more substantial dishes such as roast chicken, pork, or duck, and the exuberantly fruity wines of the Mâconnais are well suited to spicier food such as Indian or Chinese.

To answer the perennial question ‘when to drink?’, one must leave it to personal preference, and many inexpensive white Burgundies drink well on release.

The best of the premier cru wines, however, need some time to digest the oak used in their ageing, and warrant up to a decade of cellaring, while the top grand cru whites can easily age for 50 years.

Once you know the ‘who, what, where, and when’ of Burgundy, you won’t need any help deciding ‘why’, since these wines are among the most enjoyable whites produced anywhere.

Your White Burgundy starter pack

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Burgundy vineyard prices continued to increase in 2025. A hectare of premier cru Chardonnay vines in Burgundy’s Côte-d’Or cost an average €2.7 million (£2.3m) last year, according to transaction data from France’s rural land agency Safer.

That same amount that could also buy a luxury apartment in central Paris, a collection of vintage sports cars or high-end Rolex watches.

With vineyard prices in Côte-d’Or extending a nearly three-decade-long climb, top Burgundy appellations now resemble scarce luxury assets more than ordinary agricultural property.

Value has risen even as much of France’s wine sector struggles with a slump in red wine demand.

'That’s where the land market gets complicated to analyse, because among people who have money, some are going to want to buy a Ferrari, while others will prefer to buy a Burgundy vineyard,' Nicolas Agresti, director of studies at Safer, told Decanter at press conference in Paris.

The average price for a hectare of premier cru white wine vines in Burgundy climbed 6% last year, according to Safer. Prices for premier cru Pinot Noir vineyards rose 11% to €1.15m per hectare.

That compares to an average 6.8% drop in the price of wine property across France, excluding Champagne.

The value of the French wine property that changed hands last year rose 16% to €1.65bn, according to Safer.

Out of 10,930 vineyard transactions, just four accounted for a quarter of that total value, and most of the handful of biggest deals were in Côte-d’Or, said Safer president Thierry Bussy.

Burgundy wines and land in-demand

Vineyard prices in Burgundy continue to have a degree of correlation with bottle prices, according to Agresti, who cited a 2023 analysis by researchers at French agricultural research institute INRAE.

Wines from Burgundy’s Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits areas consistently dominate Wine-Searcher’s list of the world’s top 50 most expensive wines, and have done so for years.

Despite a downturn on the fine wine secondary market in recent years, Burgundy continues to be renowned worldwide and manages to sell bottles at very high prices.

Loïc Jégouzo, in charge of studies at Safer, told Decanter. 'There is a niche market for certain investors who don't want to own the bottle, but rather the vineyard that produces it.'

Agresti noted the limited size of the Burgundy growing area as a factor driving up prices, with all grand cru areas fully planted 'and that’s that'.

The focus on terroir and very small plots linked to specific wines 'is unique and a system that’s probably quite different from other wine markets', he said.

The Côte d’Or vineyards cover about 9,500 hectares, around a tenth of the Bordeaux area, where winemakers have been ripping up vines in response to falling demand and prices.

Champagne up as Bordeaux's elite feel the heat

Champagne property also resisted the overall slump for France, with the price of a hectare of vines in the top-tier Côte des blancs appellation rising 3.5% to €1.69m.

Meanwhile, vineyard prices in Bordeaux fell for a fourth consecutive year amid weakening red wine demand and financial pressure on growers. Average prices slid 24% to €85,595 per hectare.

Even the most prestigious Bordeaux appellations succumbed to pressure in 2025, having previously resisted, Jégouzo said.

In Pauillac, the average price for a hectare of vines fell 32% to €1.7 million, while Margaux vineyard prices slumped 43% to €800,000 per hectare.

Burgundy in 'its own bubble'

Can Burgundy continue to remain immune to a global trend of lower wine consumption, particularly affecting reds?

'One might wonder whether, given what’s happening in Bordeaux, the same thing could happen in Burgundy,' Jégouzo said.

'Burgundy is really in a league of its own, because both the whites and reds are in their own little bubble.'

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Something catches my eye: a 2007 Bourgogne Passetoutgrains. It had almost 10 years on it.

But Bourgogne Passetoutgrains is a simple wine, I had been taught, the sort that didn’t age – it would be tired, surely?

Well, it wasn’t. That delicious bottle, from Domaine Michel Lafarge – one of Volnay’s leading names, has been lingering in my mind ever since.

Disloyal Gameez

Pinot Noir is the grape we associate with Burgundy today, but Gamay was once widely planted too.

It was famously banned in the region by Philip the Bold in the 14th century. The Duke issued a decree in 1395 ordering the ‘evil and disloyal plant’ to be torn from the ground.

But Gamay didn’t entirely disappear. While Pinot Noir would dominate the region’s vineyards, pockets of Gamay survived long beyond the 14th century – with a little over 2,000ha spread around the region today.

The Burgundians tend to look down their noses at Gamay – a grape they argue doesn’t have the finesse of Pinot Noir.

Gamay is the journeyman, Pinot Noir the champion fighter. When the INAO created Burgundy’s appellation system in 1937, they permitted Gamay to be used under just two appellations: Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire (replaced in 2011 by Coteaux Bourguignons, which can be a varietal Gamay or a blend) and Bourgogne Passetoutgrains.

Passetoutgrains (sometimes hyphenated as Passe-tout-grains, and sometimes spelt with a singular ‘grain’) translates roughly as ‘pass all grapes’ – a bung-it-all-in wine, traditionally from vineyards where different varieties were co-planted and harvested together.

At the bottom of the quality pyramid, with vines generally sitting on less desirable, lower-lying, clay-rich land, these were modest wines of little repute.

At a time when much Burgundy sits beyond the average wine-lover’s budget, however, Passetoutgrains deserves a re-appraisal.

Old wines reborn

Today, Passetoutgrains must legally contain a minimum of 30% Pinot Noir and 15% Gamay, although most wines are a 50-50 blend.

Older vineyards tend to be traditional field blends, with the Gamay and Pinot Noir interplanted, but modern plantings often separate the two varieties.

‘I am very keen on Passetoutgrains,’ says Guillaume d’Angerville – the aristocratic head of Domaine Marquis d’Angerville.

His father stopped producing the wine, but Guillaume re-introduced it and recently purchased an additional parcel to expand his holdings in the appellation.

This property may be best known for its monopole premier cru Clos des Ducs, but a glint in his eye appears when I ask him about its entry-level offering.

It is, he tells me, ‘unassuming’, ‘a wine for thirst’ – and one that he feels is important for the region. ‘Gamay brings the joy, the liveliness, to the seriousness of Pinot Noir,’ he says.

For Clothilde Lafarge (of Domaine Lafarge), the wine has a special place in her family’s history as the vineyard planted by her great-grandfather Henri Lafarge in 1928 and one of the first wines he bottled (alongside Clos des Chênes).

A traditional field blend, the vines are now approaching 100 years old – something Clothilde feels is key to the quality of their L’Exception bottling.

This vine age, alongside 18 months in barrel, lends more complexity and structure than you’d expect for such a simple appellation.

Similarly, for Jean-Louis Trapet, of Domaine Trapet, Passetoutgrains is an important part of their heritage: ‘It remains a living testimony of what Burgundy once was,’ he says.

A wine of the future?

With climate change, however, Gamay is not just part of Burgundy’s past – it could be key to its future.

It ripens more slowly and is more stable in the face of extreme conditions.

Romain Taupenot (of Domaine Taupenot-Merme) notes how lowly appellations have benefitted from global warming, now consistently ripening in a way that simply wasn’t the case 20-25 years ago.

‘I’m a big, big lover of Gamay,’ says Benoît Stehly, who is at the helm of Domaine Georges Lignier.

He explains how well-adapted the grape is to Burgundy’s modern climate – creating wines of freshness and energy.

Most importantly, he adds, Passetoutgrains offers ‘a friendly bottle at a friendly price’.

Beyond Burgundy

Producers beyond Burgundy are even echoing the style. In Hokkaido, Japan, cult winemaker Takahiko Soga (Domaine Takahiko) makes a Passetoutgrains that blends Pinot Noir and Zweigelt, while in Oregon and California, Sashi Moorman has experimented with Gamay for years.

For the entry-level Pinot Noir at Evening Land, he blends in around 10% Gamay – inspired in part by the tradition in Piedmont of blending a little Barbera with Nebbiolo.

It adds, he says, ‘a little playfulness,’ making the wine more charming – perfect for a style designed for everyday consumption.

Low yields are key, however, to producing high quality, he argues – especially in the naturally more generous Gamay.

I’m not here to tell you that Passetoutgrains can rival Echézeaux, Musigny or Chambertin: these wines will not offer the complexity of the grands crus.

But Passetoutgrains doesn’t come with that price tag, either. These are affordable, juicy wines – irresistible and moreish.

More than that, they offer a great introduction to a producer’s style – before you plump for something more special.

Don’t dismiss their deliciousness either, for when they’re made by a top producer – they’ve got a capacity to evolve that you might not expect.

Passetoutgrains

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In doing so, however, they miss several of Burgundy's most charming villages and their delicious wines.

To correct this mistake, follow the N73 south of Beaune, which leads to the hills of the higher elevations of the Hautes-Côtes, where you will pass through Monthélie, Auxey-Duresses and St-Romain.

This triumvirate forms a section of the Côte de Beaune I think of as ‘behind the hill’ – since they are tucked away, their pleasures hidden from those who do not stray from the mainline villages.

Monthélie

Monthélie lies south of its border with (the much larger) Volnay, its vines spilling over from the slopes of the Côte de Volnay and nestled into the hollow called the Combe Danay.

The steep, vine-covered slopes seem to undulate behind the picturesque village, which includes two areas of premiers crus.

The first is on the border with Volnay, facing southeast, where the climats Sur la Velle and Champs Fuillots border Clos des Chênes in Volnay.

The other section is on the far side of the Combe Danay, where the premiers crus Les Clous and Les Duresses face east as the slope turns toward Auxey-Duresses.

Auxey-Duresses

The village of Auxey (pronounced oh-say) appended the vineyard name Les Duresses (which it shares with Monthélie) to its own in 1924.

All of Auxey’s premier cru vineyards are in the sector closest to Monthélie, but the vines stretch over three hamlets: Auxey-le-Grand, Petit Auxey and Melin.

The heart of the village lies at the base of Mont Milan, where the north-facing slopes are home to Le Châtelet du Mont-Milan, a site that has been inhabited since Neolithic times. The slopes surrounding Auxey have been planted to vines since at least the Gallo-Roman era.

This is prime white wine territory, and here’s why: this southern part of Auxey borders Meursault.

The climat Les Boutonnières borders Meursault’s Meix Chavaux; La Macabrée adjoins Meursault Les Luchets; and Les Hautés and Les Vireux border Meursault Les Vireuils.

St-Romain

In St-Romain, one has a sense of being a world apart. For years, its greatest claim to fame was the renowned cooper François Frères rather than a wine producer, at least until Mme Leroy established Domaine d’Auvenay.

Vineyards here are planted between 280m-400m elevation, beginning where others leave off.

The elevation is so high that originally the vines were classified as Bourgogne Hautes-Côtes de Beaune before receiving their own appellation in 1947.

The vines east and north of the village line the valley called La Combe Bazin, with the lieux-dits Combe Bazin and Sous Roche facing southwest and Sous la Velle and Sous le Château on the opposite side facing east.

En Poilange and La Périère are south of the village, facing northeast.

Although there are no premiers crus in St-Romain, the village bubbles with excitement.

How do they taste?

The vines ‘behind the hill’ long had a rustic reputation, deservedly or not.

All three villages produce both red and white wine. Red wine dominates in Monthélie, accounting for 85% of production.

In Auxey, due to its proximity to Meursault, white wines make up one-third of the production, while St-Romain produces two-thirds white wine because of the elevation.

In previous decades, the reds across these villages were often tannic and lacking generosity; the whites could be tart and slightly thin.

Global warming, however, has helped change this – the texture of the Monthélie reds now is often supple and silky, with notes of ripe cherry and pomegranate. Those from Auxey have a rich, plummy fruit and dense but approachable structure.

And while the whites from St-Romain are still taut and lemony, they now show substance and persistence on the palate, making the villages ‘behind the hill’ a great destination for value Burgundy.

Wines from 'behind the hill'

Being a wine lover, much of this idle time is spent shopping for wine to have at home, since at the end of a long day writing about wine, I love to unwind with a glass of the same.

Each wine that I drink at home is bought with a different audience in mind. The most important audience is my wife, and I cook for her most evenings.

Home comforts

It's not always elaborate, and at least once a week, it is a simple roast chicken and salad. It's important to have a workhorse wine to pair with a frequent meal.

This week, it has been a delicious white Burgundy for which I paid the princely sum of $15. The wine was Domaine Thevenet Mâcon-Pierreclos 2023, made from grapes grown at an elevation of 350 metres, and vinified without oak.

The site and the winemaking deliver a wine of almost shocking purity. Even in the warm 2023 vintage, there was an abundance of lemony fruit, a hint of minerality, and no heaviness at all.

This uncomplicated, everyday wine is delicious on its own but also stands up to food.

Host with the most

When friends come over, an côte de boeuf is another favourite – a double-thick, bone-in rib of beef, roasted in the oven with root vegetables and served with haricots verts.

If my friends are knowledgeable about wine, I will reach for something from a ‘name’ producer. A recent success was the Passetoutgrain ‘l’Exception’ from Domaine Michel Lafarge.

The grapes are from Gamay and Pinot Noir vines planted together in the same plot, nearly 100 years ago, between Volnay and Meursault, which the Lafarge family farms biodynamically.

The extraction is gentle, and the wine is aged in well-used casks, yet they coax a wine of resonance and depth from the old vines that goes beyond its regional appellation and makes for a memorable meal, all for $32.

On the town

As a New Yorker, I also love dining out. One of my favourite venues with wine friends is a Cantonese restaurant in Chinatown called Wu's Wonton King.

Proprietor Derek Wu has made a specialty of wonton soup and fresh seafood, much of which comes from the meticulously clean tanks lining the walls.

Live king crab, sea eels, lobster, and steamed whole fish all make an appearance, along with the occasional roast suckling pig.

Cuisine this varied demands a versatile wine, and I will often choose a dry Riesling.

Recently, I have been regaling my friends with magnums of J.B. Becker Wallufer Walkenberg Auslese Trocken 2015, which is just beginning to hit its stride, redolent of apricots, lemon peel, and floral notes, and something deeper as well – a hint of earth and iodine, a suggestion of petrol and funk.

With Auslese-level ripeness fermented to dryness before long ageing in neutral casks, this Rheingau beauty shows both power and finesse, transforming a trip to Chinatown into a festive meal.

See what other bottles Charles is drinking at home each week on his website here.

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Although their style is different from what one finds further north, lovers of white Burgundy who appreciate value absolutely need to know the Mâconnais well.

However, the confusing nature of the appellations in the Mâconnais holds some back. Chablis and the Côte d'Or are richly endowed with village, premier cru and grand cru appellations.

The situation is different, however, in the Mâconanais, where there is an ocean of regional-level wine, relatively few village-level appellations, scarce premiers crus, and no grands crus.

A brief history of a southern star

This structure reflects the region's low ebb at the creation of the appellation system in the 1930s, yet the fame of the Mâconnais reaches back to the 10th century and the monks of the Cluny Abbey, and many sites warrant rediscovery.

As recently as the late 19th century, the region was more highly regarded. In 1893, the politician and winegrower Victor Vermorel wrote a book classifying the region's vineyards.

One can begin to discover the Mâconnais in the famous villages lauded by Vermorel.

The famous crus: Pouilly-Fuissé and neighbours

The most renowned cru of the Mâconnais is Pouilly-Fuissé; four villages have the right to this appellation: Fuissé, Solutré-Pouilly, Vergisson and Chaintré.

Parts of these villages are village-level, parts are premier cru, and other portions are classified as regional appellation.

In the same way, nearby Pouilly-Vinzelles and Pouilly Loché also have sites in all three tiers of the appellation, as do those around the St-Véran cru in Solutré-Pouilly, Davayé and Prissé, an area that can produce surprisingly good regional-level wines.

The next step after tasting the wines of the areas surrounding the crus is to become familiar with the vineyards on the next chain of hills to the west.

These follow the line south to north along the Saône, beginning with Pierreclos in the south, west of Vergisson, and continue north through Bussières, Milly-Lamartine, La Roche-Vineuse, Verzé, Igé, to Azé and Peronne.

This section is west of Viré-Clessé. Vineyards continue to the north, with Cruzille, Chardonnay, and Uchizy all located not far from Tournus.

These villages are home to several extremely talented vignerons whose renown is hampered by the system of classification that lumps all the wines together as regional appellations.

If you start your journey of discovery with the best of the Mâcon + village name category, however, you are certain to discover a wealth of hidden gems.

Here are 10 of my favourites, organised roughly from north to south.

My 10 favourite Macon + village name appellations

Mâcon-Chardonnay

‘Chardonnay’ here is a place, named for a village just outside of Tornus. The vines are planted on east-facing slopes between 240m-350m elevation in limestone soils, and the appellation includes portions of the villages of Chardonnay as well as Ozenay, Plottes and Tournus.

The best wines are from the tops of the slope, where the vines can deliver a lively, vivacious wine even in warmer years.

Les Héritiers du Comte Lafon, Bret Brothers and Domaine des Crêts all produce interesting and fairly available versions from this village.

Mâcon-Lugny

Mâcon-Lugny is among the larger appellations, spread across parts of four villages, making it more than twice the size of Mâcon-Chardonnay.

Inevitably, there is some variation of style and quality. The best wines are lively and fresh, with lemony fruit and a hint of mineral.

A particular favourite is the single-vineyard Mâcon-Lugny Les Crays vers Vaux from Domaine Rijkaert (sometimes sold as Domaine Florent Rouve in the UK).

Another solid source is Domaine Thevenard in Uchizy, run by two young brothers who are rising stars in the area.

Mâcon-Verzé

Compared to some appellations, Verzé is tiny, with only 60ha under vine. The vines face west and north, looking into the central valley west of the hills.

These cooler sites ripen grapes more slowly, making them well-suited to retaining structure in warm years. Verzé is the home base of the Mâconnais arm of Domaine Leflaive.

Brice de la Morandière, managing director of the domaine, is particularly fond of the southwest-facing old-vine plot in Le Monté. It is, he says, ‘the favourite child.’

Other top sources include the iconoclastic Domaine Jules Desjourneys and classic Pouilly-Fuissé house Domaine Thibert.

Mâcon-La Roche Vineuse

‘The winey rock’ is a beguiling name for a town in Burgundy. It begins in the west as a southern continuation of Mâcon-Verzé, with vines facing west, and a south-facing amphitheatre on the back of that gentle slope above Saint-Véran.

Continuing to the east, the hills of the appellation face east in the communes of Chevagny-les-Chevrières and Hurigny.

Domaine Merlin makes a superb single-vineyard wine from lieu-dit Les Cras. Many talented producers are working here – Florent Rouve at Domaine Rijkaert makes an old-vine cuvée, as do his partners at Deux Roches.

The best of these wines has a rich floral character and a suggestion of stone fruit.

Macon-Bussières

Bussières is an intriguing terroir with two steep slopes that face each other across the Petite Grosne.

The portion on the right bank looks south; the vines on the left bank looking north are on the back side of the Roche de Vergisson and touch Pouilly-Fuissé.

The soils here are a blend of limestone scree, sandy clay and limestone. The left bank example from Maison Verget is from the lieu-dit Monbrison, which touches Vergisson, gives a tense, structured wine, while a right bank version from Héritiers des Comtes Lafon in Le Monsard gives a denser, riper style.

Mâcon-Pierreclos

Pierreclos lies just west of Bussières, but here the lay of the land is different – instead of north and south, the vines face east and west.

The most well-known terroirs are those farmed by Jean-Marie Guffens and his team, Chavigné and En Crazy.

Not far from En Crazy lies the Clos des Charmes, a monopole of Domaine Eric Forest, rising-star winemakers Franz Chagnoleau and his wife Caroline Gon, also produce an admirable blended Vieilles Vignes.

These wines are more mineral with a flinty edge and lively tropical fruit.

Mâcon-Vergisson

Most of the vines in the commune of Vergisson are classified as Pouilly-Fuissé, with one important exception.

There is a lieu-dit called Sur la Roche; the lower portion of Sur la Roche is Pouilly-Fuissé premier cru, but the higher elevations are regional-level Mâcon-Vergisson.

This site (more than 10ha) gives what is perhaps some of the finest ‘regional-level’ wine anywhere in France.

There are thrilling versions made by many domaines, including Guffens-Heynen, Eric Forest, Domaine Barraud and the Saumaize family.

Macon-Fuissé

Fuissé, like Vergisson, produces both Pouilly-Fuissé and regional-level wines. Many of the regional-level plots are located on the same limestone and clay soil as the best Pouilly-Fuissé but at higher elevations.

There are marvellous versions from Domaine Robert-Denogent, Domaine Thibert and Domaine Sophie Cinier, who makes a single-vineyard Perrières and a blended cuvée from across the appellation.

The best of these wines share some of the creamy, rich texture of Pouilly-Fuissé from the same village.

Mâcon-Vinzelles

Pouilly-Vinzelles is the next appellation north of the village of Chaintré. These are lower-elevation vineyards closer to the Saône, and the wines are rich and dense, with a lush character that stretches out to a long finish.

The village was given the right to label some of its wines as premier cru in 2024.

One of these is Les Quarts, surrounded by regional-level vines, not far from the Clos de Grandpère monopole of Domaine de la Soufrandière which is classed as Mâcon-Vinzelles.

Mâcon-Loché

Loché lies just north of Vinzelles and, like its neighbour, was awarded a premier cru in 2024. Local vigneron Marcel Couturier and his son Auxence farm 14ha.

The eponymous domaine is certified biodynamic and is located mostly in Loché. Their parcel Les Longues Terres is on the other side of town from premier cru Les Mures, yet shares some of its lush, exotic richness; older bottles opened at the estate demonstrate that it can age for years in a proper cellar.

The diversity in the terroir and in the style of the wines in the appellations of the Mâconnais should convince anyone who tastes with an open mind that this is among the most exciting – and best value – regions of Burgundy.

Wines from the Mâconnais: 10 to try

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This annual tradition is always a pleasure, yet it is not without surprises. While there were no disappointing wines in the tasting, some shone more brilliantly than they had when tasted from barrel, while others were perhaps less lustrous.

My initial impression of the 2023 vintage was one of exuberant, lush, forward fruit. We knew (or thought we did) that it was a sunny, high-yielding vintage; we expected the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti to manage nature's generosity and deliver sumptuous yet balanced wines, which they did.

Now that the wines are in bottle, the results appear more nuanced than they seemed out of barrel.

It's not just the vineyard that needs to adapt

In her description of the vintage, co-director of the domaine Perrine Fenal emphasised the vicissitudes of the vintage, which ended on a sunny, heat-wave note but was much more varied throughout the season than many remember.

The key to success at the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti is not as simple as a well-timed harvest or a strict selection, but it is seeing each wine as an individual and adapting as needed to create the finest wine possible.

This level of attention to detail meant that each wine showed a distinctive character despite the sultry weather during harvest.

As Bertrand de Villaine notes: ‘The vineyard is ready for anything [despite global warming], but the challenge is for us to adapt ourselves – the green harvest we completed during the growing season was a perfect example.’

Traditionally the domaine has preferred managing the number of bunches to green harvesting.

Picking logistics

In 2023, the first day of harvest began with Montrachet and Grands-Echézeaux, and the second finished with Grands-Echézeaux and started with Corton-Charlemagne.

This schedule represents a departure for the domaine, since historically it has picked the white grapes late.

Due to its greatly increased holdings in the Côte de Beaune, it now has a much more extensive logistical structure in this area, which allows greater focus.

After much of the Corton-Charlemagne had been picked, the teams began with the Richebourg, La Tâche and Romanée-Conti, then returned to pick the Corton-Charlemagne from the top of the slope before continuing to finish the rest of the harvest.

The work in the cellar also started and stopped – Fenal says that while most of the malolactic conversions were finished quickly, Corton and Echézeaux did not finish until the following spring.

The bottling was drawn out from January to May of 2025 according to the needs of the wine, with some spending less time in barrel and more time ‘en masse’ (racked back into tank after an initial period in barrel).

How do they taste?

Corton

The first divergence that I noted was the rustic character of the Corton. I had this impression in the autumn of 2024, but it didn’t dominate the wine as it did this spring. I thought the wine was fairly marked by the oak ageing, but Bertrand de Villaine disagreed. For him, the aroma was ‘bois de ronce' – 'brambly' or 'briary'. He went on to say that the wines from 2023 have been racked and that was not always done. ‘The lees were very rich, [but] not always very fine. This racking should have “deconcentrated” the wine, but that wasn't the case.’

Vosne-Romanée, Duvault-Blochet

The Duvault-Blochet is produced from declassified young vines from the grands crus and some premier cru holdings. It is never tasted out of barrel, since the blend is completed at the end of ageing, so it is always a surprise. I was particularly struck by the impressive structure and length, even at this early age as it outperformed the Corton that had gone before.

Echézeaux, Grands-Echézeaux, Romanée-St-Vivant, Richebourg

The Echézeaux seemed more elegantly reserved than it had been in 2024, but this finesse stood it in good stead, since it mostly displayed exuberant fruit out of barrel, but is now more substantial. The wines from Grands-Echézeaux, Romanée-St-Vivant and Richebourg remained true to their character and had changed little.

Romanée-Conti & La Tâche

Perhaps the biggest change that I noted was the ascendancy of the Romanée-Conti. It was more reserved out of barrel but now showed the exquisite depth and range of aromas and flavours for which it is known, eclipsing even the showy La Tâche.

Corton-Charlemagne

The white wines have continued to evolve. We did not taste the Corton-Charlemagne in the autumn, so to discover it here was an unalloyed pleasure.

Montrachet

In November, the Montrachet seemed very rich, a luxurious indulgence, almost bordering on heavy. After bottling, it seemed more balanced and lively. There was a lemony edge to the wine, making it, if anything, even more ravishing than it had been. Both whites were vibrant and deep, with an unexpected freshness, particularly for this vintage.

Beware easy answers

The facile take on 2023 is that it was a sunny vintage with high yields, high bunch weight, and big grapes, conditions that can be a recipe for early-drinking, somewhat dilute wines.

This tasting showed, however, that it was possible to avoid these pitfalls and craft age-worthy wines that will go the distance.

The combination of green harvesting, careful picking dates, severe selection, and wisdom and restraint in the cellar has delivered wines that will last for decades to come.

DRC 2023 in bottle: Tasted and rated

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But in Burgundy, they’re heavy with meaning. Let's keep things simple...

The crucial thing to understand is this: climat is linked to wine. Lieu-dit is linked to land.

Now for the long version...

What is a climat?

The Burgundian term climat refers to a precisely defined vineyard site whose grapes produce wines that have shown a consistent, distinct character over time.

The defining elements include all of the characteristics of the site: topsoil, subsoil and bedrock; the aspect (which way the vineyard faces), the elevation, and the slope.

In Burgundy, even the way cold air drains down valleys carved by retreating glaciers is crucial, as it can impact ripening.

Over centuries, grape growers noticed the differences in the wines, and gave the sites names. Many of these climats have now been known by these names for centuries.

In 2015, UNESCO recognised the importance of climats and inscribed the landscape of Burgundy on its World Heritage Convention.

It recognised 1,247 climats in the Côte d'Or, although there are of course climats in Chablis, the Côte Chalonnaise and the Mâconnais as well.

This rich patchwork of vineyards helps explain the diversity of wine styles and qualities.

UNESCO points out that it is the interaction of people and grapevines with this landscape that produces the unique result of Burgundy wine.

This is the essence of terroir.

What is a lieu-dit?

A lieu-dit simply means a ‘named placed’.

It comes from the French land registry – the cadastre – introduced under Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807 to better organise taxation by having a register of places divided up by crop type.

The divisions in the land registry are known as lieux-dits.

This doesn't just refer to vineyards. The whole of France is divided into lieux-dits.

And this is where it gets confusing.

In many places in Burgundy, sometimes the name of the climat and the lieu-dit are the same.

Sometimes one climat contains several lieux-dits (for example the Echézeaux climat contains 11 lieux-dits).

Other times, only part of a lieu-dit qualifies as a climat (the Clos de la Roche climat includes several lieux-dits, but excludes parts of others).

While lieux-dits can refer to any land in France, the concept of the climat is uniquely Burgundian.

Simply put, lieux-dits are for the tax man, while climats are for the vigneron.

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In their lee, rows of vineyards wrap around fairytale villages whose views fall gently towards the slow waters of the River Rhine.

Graubünden feels like a closely guarded secret, far from city sprawl, yet it lies little more than an hour’s journey from Zürich.

At the warm northern gateway to the canton sits the Bündner Herrschaft, centred on the villages of Maienfeld, Malans, Jenins and Fläsch.

With roughly 400 hectares under vine, it’s compact in scale yet concentrated in rare talent.

The scenery is inseparable from mythology: the region has long been a corridor of commerce and ideas moving along the Rhine, and it was here that Johanna Spyri found inspiration for her tale of the mountain girl, Heidi.

The same luminous slopes that shape ‘Heidiland’ now frame a patchwork of vineyard estates growing 50 different grape varieties.

Viticulture dates back more than a millennium, though the mood today is decidedly contemporary.

Here, Pinot Noir dominates, accounting for more than 70% of production.

Known locally as Blauburgunder, it has become the region’s most articulate voice, capable of remarkable character and graceful ageing.

Altitude plays a defining role: vineyards are typically between 500 and 600 metres above sea level. Here, consistently warm summers meet cool alpine nights, preserving tension and freshness.

‘Burgundy of Switzerland’

A mosaic of schist, gravel and lime-rich soils adds further refinement. The moniker ‘Burgundy of Switzerland’ is often evoked, though the connection is philosophical rather than imitative.

As Mathilde Hug Pédeutour of Weingut Wegelin explains: ‘It’s not the climate that creates the link, but the small winemaking villages and the way we work the parcels, often less than three hectares.’

It brings Burgundian respect for precision and place.

While altitude preserves structure, the Föhn wind brings a unique signature.

Known locally as traubenkocher, or ‘grape cooker’, it funnels warm, dry air down from the Alps, clearing the skies and accelerating ripening.

It dries the bunches, curbs disease, extends harvest windows and intensifies fruit character while leaving the wines with a distinctly mineral backbone.

A contemplative glass

Pinot may be the queen of Herrschaft but its king is Completer. First recorded in Malans in 1321, the name derives from completorium (compline), the monks' final prayer of the day, after which a silent glass of wine was permitted.

By the late 20th century, the variety had all but vanished, its story saved only through a handful of tenacious local growers.

Today it covers approximately 10 hectares and is widely believed to descend from a single surviving vine in Malans.

In the glass, Completer is textured with notes of quince, green apple and mirabelle, with a gentle, savoury edge. Its racy acidity promises long ageing, held together by mountain freshness.

The producers redefining Swiss wine

Modern Graubünden wine owes much to the restless vision of Thomas Donatsch.

A pioneer who challenged convention, he helped redefine Swiss wine through bold experimentation, new plantings such as Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc and an uncompromising pursuit of quality.

Following his death in 2024, the estate continued under his son, Martin, the wines still balancing tradition with forward momentum.

Tastings at the family’s historic Zum Ochsen tavern offer insights into the Herrschaft’s past and future combined.

Elsewhere in Malans, Weingut Fromm reflects a story that stretches across continents.

The family helped shape modern New Zealand wine before returning to Graubünden, bringing global perspective back to alpine roots.

Today Marco Fromm crafts elegant Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from steep village slopes.

Their restored 17th-century guesthouse allows visitors to linger longer.

Weingut Wegelin, meanwhile, marks a younger chapter in the Herrschaft. Since 2019, Rafael and Mathilde Hug have farmed the estate’s 10 hectares biodynamically, focusing on single-vineyard expression.

Their Chardonnays – particularly from the Bothmarhalde site, the canton’s highest at over 700 metres – are precise, personal and quietly progressive.

In Jenins, Christian and Francisca Obrecht, Demeter-certified since 2017, pursue a bold yet harmonious approach aligned closely with terroir.

Their on-site bottle dispenser allows for an efficient snapshot of their craft. The Adank family and Daniel and Martha of Weingut Gantenbein deepen the picture, each offering distinct readings of Pinot shaped by the same narrow valley.

In such a small landscape, nuance is everything.

Walking the Bündner Herrschaft

To appreciate the Bündner Herrschaft fully, it helps to move at walking pace.

Gentle wine trails link the four villages, threading through vines and orchards with constant views of the Rhine’s ‘golden valley’.

Every May, the Weinpromenade (‘wine walk’) transforms this quiet landscape into revelry, with dozens of producers exhibiting their wines along an easy path before the day closes with a communal dinner, music and generous pours.

Food and wine remain inseparable companions. Alter Torkel in Jenins commands sweeping Alpine views while championing a fiercely local wine list.

For something more rustic, Stall 247 in Maienfeld turns a former cow shed into a welcoming bar where regional bottles meet simple plates and easy conversation.

Nearby, the Grand Resort Bad Ragaz offers five-star comfort alongside serious cellar selections.

Wine has been a constant thread through Graubünden’s long history, yet only recently has its reputation begun to travel beyond its borders.

Here, mountains and light collide, and the daily negotiation between man and nature leaves a signature that feels distinctly regal yet subtly audacious.

Six wines from the 'Burgundy of Switzerland'

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Understanding the true value of Chassagne is more complex, however, given the diverse range of delicious wines in both red and white.

Scroll down for 12 delicious Chassagne-Montrachet 1er cru wines to seek out

The reds are not as well-known as the whites today, but not so long ago, there was much more red wine produced here than white.

In the 1855 vineyard classification work by Dr Jules Lavalle, the fame of the village rested firmly on its red wine, and when the appellation was created in 1936, just 25% of the wine produced was white.

By 1982, that proportion had risen to 48%. Today, it is 74% overall and 84% for wines classified as premier cru.

What you need to know

Chassagne, like Chablis, makes use of porte-drapeau (standard bearer) appellations – a premier cru can be labelled with the name of its lieu-dit or can be grouped with one of the eight umbrella appellations, which include several different lieux-dits. Some have further subdivisions, producing a confusing welter of 55 potential premiers crus in total.

My 10 favourite premiers crus

Blanchot Dessus

Blanchot Dessus is one of four small premiers crus that surround the grands crus, producing wines that can be rich and buttery, with some of the density of their grand cru neighbours; all lie north of the Route Nationale, near Puligny.

Blanchot Dessus is located to the south of its illustrious neighbour Montrachet, up the slope from Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet. This well-located premier cru should not be confused with the village-level Blanchot Dessous, which lies just downslope in heavier soils and also borders grand cru Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet.

Dent de Chien

Dent de Chien (meaning ‘dog’s tooth’ in French) is a patchy appellation – much of it is scrub land with soils too thin to plant. What is planted, however, can be superb (part of it touches Montrachet).

Nearly a half-hectare of Dent de Chien was reclassified as Montrachet in a 1921 court case, and the wines are undeniably lush and dense. Don’t confuse this appellation with the St Aubin premier cru Les Murgers des Dents de Chien (‘stone walls made of dog’s teeth’), which is above the unplanted part of Montrachet.

Dent de Chien is further up the slope than Blanchot Dessus, and the wine is a bit edgier, with more tension but less richness.

Les Chaumées

At the northern edge of the village, the premiers crus face east and north; they have more in common with St Aubin than with the rest of Chassagne. At the top of the slope lies Les Chaumées (not to be confused with Les Chaumes, which is at the other end of the village in the Boudriottes subdivision of Morgeot).

These are wines that can be lemony, mineral and bright with elegance and finesse. Of particular note is a clos called Clos de la Truffière, planted with very old vines.

It is farmed by Domaine Michel Niellon and Domaine Jouard; Domaine Jean-Noël Gagnard has also resumed farming a small parcel here that will go to the new domaine of Philippe Lestimé, son of owner Caroline Lestimé.

Les Chenevottes

The vineyards below Les Chaumées are given over to the lieux-dits Les Chenevottes and its umbrella, mostly sold as Chenevottes, and the stand-alone Les Macherelles. This section of Chassagne is less steep than Les Chaumées, and the wines are typically softer, more floral, and often lighter.

As with Les Chaumées, the vineyard is planted exclusively with Chardonnay. At more than 10ha, it is a large vineyard producing a range of styles and qualities.

I was seduced recently by a Chenevottes from Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey with a few years of bottle age that was sublime.

Clos Saint-Jean

Clos Saint-Jean owes its name to its original owner, the abbey of Saint-Jean-le-Grand in Autun founded in the 6th century. The vines of the clos are located just above the village of Chassagne itself. They are planted with a mix of red and white varieties.

The red wines can be very elegant and balanced. They are often not as powerful or full-bodied as those from Maltroie, which is down the slope from the village and do not display the rustic tannins that Chassagne is sometimes accused of producing. The whites here can strike a deft balance between richness, finesse and tension.

Champs Gains

The climat Les Champs Gain (as it appears in the cadastre, or land registry; many variant spellings exist) is located at the base of the premier cru slope just south of Maltroie and the village of Chassagne proper.

It is mostly planted to Chardonnay today, although Caroline Morey produces a delicious version in red, as do several other members of her extended family.

Given the clay-rich soils at the base of the slope, it is a logical choice, but the whites are also very fine. A version from Armand Heitz is rich and Meursault-like, while the one produced by Marc-Antonin Blain (from vines that are at the foot of the Caillerets premier cru just bordering Champs Gains up the slope) drinks more like a Puligny.

La Romanée

La Romanée is among the most spectacular vineyards at the top of the slope. It is a part of the umbrella climat of La Grande Montagne. Here, the thin limestone soils and high elevation combine to make a perfect place to produce electric, lemony white wines.

At 3.35ha, La Romanée is the largest lieu-dit in La Grande Montagne; several producers use this latter name, although many prefer La Romanée. Both are worth exploring, along with the other lieux-dits here, including Grandes Ruchottes, En Virondot, and two small patches that can be called Tonton Marcel.

These lively, vivacious wines are almost pungent with citrus aromas, even in hot years, and can potentially live for decades.

En Cailleret

En Cailleret is a lieu-dit and a climat of its own, distinct from neighbouring Cailleret (without the ‘En’), which is an umbrella composed of Vigne Derrière, Les Combards and Chassagne.

You will often find the appellation spelt in the plural as Les Caillerets. Located at the southern end of the village, this is an exceptional sector for white wine, with the vines stretching to the top of the slope in thin, rocky soils rich with white marl.

The wines, like those of nearby La Grande Montagne, are tense, linear and packed with exciting freshness.

La Boudriotte

Lieu-dit La Boudriotte itself is fairly small – 2.2ha. There are, however, many vineyards that can be labelled as La Boudriotte: six lieux-dits totalling 15.6ha.

Boudriotte itself lies at the centre, with the other lieux-dits stretching up and down the slope, running from thin, rocky Grande Montagne down to the richer, heavier soils of the village-level band at its base.

This diversity means there are both superb whites and reds to be found here, though sorting them out can be daunting. One example is Domaine Ramonet, which produces a delicious, finely chiselled white labelled La Boudriotte from vines in lieu-dit Les Fairendes, and an equally delicious but hearty, tannic red from lieu-dit Boudriotte itself, which the domaine labels as Clos de la Boudriotte.

Les Brussonnes

Located at the base of the slope at the southern end of the village, Brussonnes (like La Boudriotte) forms part of the larger Morgeot and is itself composed of seven lieux-dits. Red and white wines are both produced here with remarkable success.

Some feel the fairly dense clay soils are better suited to growing Pinot Noir. The enchanting white produced by Céline Fontaine at Domaine Fontaine-Gagnard, however, gives the lie to those who would exclude Chardonnay here, although note that she labels her version simply as Morgeot blanc.

The impressive range of white wines from Chassagne accounts for the village’s renown in today’s market, but the red wines, particularly from Clos Saint-Jean, La Maltroie and greater Morgeot, are among the region’s finest.

Although they fly under the radar, they keenly merit your attention.

Chassagne-Montrachet: 12 top premier cru wines

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The domaine’s co-directors Perrine Fenal and Bertrand de Villaine were present in London last week to reveal them to the trade and press, alongside UK agent Corney & Barrow’s managing director Adam Brett-Smith.

Tasting notes and scores for DRC’s 2023 from Burgundy correspondent Charles Curtis MW available next month

Like its predecessor, it is no secret that 2023 is considered a ‘solar’ vintage in Burgundy. For the second year in a row, the domaine saw a particularly large crop of grapes with high levels of ripeness hurtle into the winery.

Yet this is perhaps where the similarities between 2023 and 2022 end.

‘As always with Burgundy,’ reinforces Fenal, ‘it is essential to look closely at the details and to avoid hasty conclusions.’

Because the wines themselves are extraordinarily different.

Discarding the most expensive fruit in the world – Why green harvesting was essential this vintage

Spring frosts were narrowly avoided at the domaine, and disease pressure built up following a cool and wet period. Yet flowering was successful, after the rain let up.

Humidity and moderate temperatures in July and August meant ‘the berries continued to increase in size without making significant progress in ripening,’ says Fenal, and botrytis developed in some areas.

Spurred on by the humidity, a high crop load and large berries, the viticultural team, led by new vineyard manager Sylvain Pellegrinelli who started in March 2023, decided to green harvest, removing large, compact, unripe bunches and those affected by disease.

Vines were still showing incomplete veraison before two heat waves struck, causing sugar levels to rise rapidly.

‘The heat was intense and in the afternoon became almost unbearable,’ says Fenal, ‘The grapes were heavy and became hot, just like us.’

There was another rigorous selection of bunches at harvest, as those exposed to the sun or beginning to rot were discarded.

‘Only the clusters best able to retain freshness and acidity were kept,’ says Fenal.

What does this mean for the wines?

High levels of natural maturity in the grapes – ‘much higher than we ever had,’ says de Villaine – means that, for the first time, all of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti wines come in over 14% ABV.

Yet the wines are far from overripe. Instead, they are extraordinarily balanced and fine tuned. There’s a concentration of fruit, but also a concentration of minerals, bringing things into balance.

De Villaine stresses that there were no drastic differences or changes to winemaking, just adapting their logistics to cope with a large volume of must coming into the winery at the same time.

‘There’s no big revolution,’ says De Villaine, ‘we tried, a little bit, some other ways of vinification – stainless steel for some quantities, to see how it worked.’

But otherwise, it’s just about paying attention.

What is striking about the 2023s is their structure: mighty, statuesque, with quite imposing architecture. This implies that, with their gorgeous fruit and mineral tension, these wines will go the distance.

Prices and stock

‘2023 and 2022 were the two most important vintages [in terms of quantity] we have ever received in the winery at the domaine,’ says de Villaine.

This is reflected in the total production of bottles for each wine. In fact, there’s even more Romanée-St-Vivant, Richebourg, La Tâche and Montrachet than the bumper 2022, but there’s a little less Corton, Echézeaux, Grand Echézeaux, Romanée-Conti and Corton-Charlemagne.

Prices are approximately 6% more than the 2022s were on release.

If you can get an allocation, one bottle of Echézeaux will set you back £570 (in bond); La Tâche £1560 (in bond); and Romanée-Conti £4,485 (in bond).

The wines are sold on allocation in the UK by Corney & Barrow.

Look out for Charles Curtis MW’s tasting notes and scores of the DRC 2023 wines next month.

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• DRC 2022 in bottle: 12 wines tasted and rated
• DRC 2021 in bottle: Seven wines and two library vintages tasted
• Composition: A Willamette Valley project from DRC’s Bertrand de Villaine and Katrina Rank

Vineyard climats in the famous Côte d’Or, including many premier and grand cru sites, were recognised by UNESCO in 2015, but the wider region spans around 28,841 hectares – making up 3% of France’s vineyard area, according to the Bourgogne wine board (BIVB).

As many Burgundy 2024-vintage en primeur wines make their debut, we’ve compiled a short introductory quiz to the region. Can you score 10 out of 10?

Please Note: Question 9. has been updated after wrongly suggesting only Aligoté is believed to be the result of a cross between Gouais Blanc and Pinot Noir. Chardonnay, for example, shares this lineage. Source: Bourgogne Wine Board (BIVB).

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Domaine Marcel Couturier, Mâcon

I tasted the exciting wines of Domaine Marcel Couturier at the winery for the first time in autumn 2025. The domaine has been around for some time, but Marcel is now transitioning the bulk of the winemaking to his son, Auxence.

They work 14ha, which are certified organic and biodynamic. Many of the vineyards are in Pouilly-Loché, which recently received its first premiers crus. Others are in Pouilly-Fuissé, St-Véran, and various Mâcon appellations.

At present, the wines are matured for 18 months, but they are moving towards a full 24 months maturation (12 in barrel, 12 in tank). The wines are silky, with abundant fresh acidity in 2024, making this an exciting domaine to watch.

Domaine Henri & Gilles Buisson, St-Romain

Domaine Henri & Gilles Buisson is now run by Henri’s grandsons Franck and Frédérick. The domaine is based in St-Romain and covers almost 20ha. The farming is certified organic, and the wines are made with great care.

The St-Romain wines are compelling, including whites and reds from a series of named vineyards in the village. They also produce cuvées from Pommard, Volnay and Auxey-Duresses, and some spectacularly good Corton and Corton-Charlemagne.

The brothers are also restless innovators – they have experimented with wines made without sulphur as well as orange wines, making interesting wines at the top of their game.

Domaine Georges Chicotot, Nuits-St-Georges

Domaine Georges Chicotot is another domaine being steered by the new generation, in particular Clément Chicotot. He’s a passionate advocate of organic viticulture and gentle extraction in the winery, and has a deep knowledge of the terroirs in Nuits-St-Georges.

In the vineyards, he is moving the canopy higher and gradually converting to weaving the vine tips (tressage). He sorts rigorously before fermenting, usually as 100% whole bunch, and extracts very gently.

There is a range of five village-level wines from Nuits and five premiers crus from the same village, in addition to other wines, all worth exploring. The wines are structured but balanced, with good purity of fruit.

Domaine Alvina Pernot, Puligny-Montrachet

Alvina Pernot is the granddaughter of Puligny icon Paul Pernot. She founded her eponymous winery with her husband, Philippe Abadie, in 2018 and is making absolutely brilliant wines.

They started with a tiny production of domaine-owned Puligny-Montrachet Rue aux Vaches, Puligny-Montrachet Noyers Bret and Bourgogne Rue de Bois, supplemented with grapes purchased from Alvina’s family and exchanges with other young vignerons.

As of 2025, they have taken over more of the Pernot family vines, and (hopefully) production will continue to expand. The style is fresh, crisp and slightly reductive. There is enough substance to reward extended ageing, but the wines are delicious and it is a challenge not to drink them.

Domaine de la Commaraine, Pommard

Although I have been following the wines for several years, I tasted for the first time at the Château de la Commaraine with technical director Paul Krug at the estate itself in autumn 2025.

The wine estate dates to the 12th century, and is owned today by Denise Dupré and Mark Nunelly. They are developing the château as a luxury hotel, but the vineyard is serious work as well. The opening consultant was Louis-Michel Liger-Belair, who hired Paul Krug (yes, of that Krug family) to be estate manager.

Krug formerly worked with vineyard whiz Pedro Para, who analysed soils in order to fine-tune vineyard work. The owners have been expanding the property slowly, and have acquired interesting parcels in St-Aubin, Monthélie and elsewhere.

Top picks from five stars of Burgundy 2024:

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The vintage is notable for its small size, and low prices seldom coincide with limited availability. However, there are several approaches to finding delightful wines that will not break the bank.

Scroll down for great value picks from Burgundy 2024

Ideas for finding value in Burgundy 2024

The logical place to begin would be with regional appellations, although many of these wines come from vineyards with heavy, deep soils in the plain, where often mildew was at its worst.

Having blind tasted several hundred wines from regional appellations, I found that those from the Hautes-Côtes (Nuits and Beaune) often came out on top.

The top performers were the Bourgogne Hautes-Côtes de Nuits Les Dames Huguette from Domaine Guy & Yvan Dufouleur, and the Bourgogne Haute- Côtes de Beaune blanc from Domaine Jean Guiton, both interesting possibilities.

It will also be rewarding to search in the southern reaches of Burgundy. As I tasted, the further south I travelled, the better the wines became.

The Côte Chalonnaise is a collection of five villages to the south of the Côte d’Or: Bouzeron, Rully, Mercurey, Givry and Montagny. Each of them produced some interesting wines this year.

Top names include Maison Chanzy in Bouzeron, Domaine Belleville in Rully, Château de Chamirey in Mercurey, Domaine du Cellier aux Moines in Givry, and Domaine Stéphane Aladame in Montagny (along with the Montagny wines also made by Domaine du Cellier aux Moines.

Another key tip is to search the diverse range of Chardonnay produced in the Mâconnais. The best of this sector is superb in 2024, with racy acidity, fresh fruit and plenty of structure.

Pouilly-Fuissé had a banner year, but top wines were produced throughout the area.

Domaines with value picks:

• Brett Brothers (and the Domaine de la Soufrandière wines that they also make)
• Domaine Deux Roches
• Domaine Frantz Chagnoleau
• Domaine Jacques Saumaize
• Domaine Merlin
• Domaine Rijckaert (known as Domaine Florent Rouve in the UK)
• Domaine Roc de Boutires
• Domaine Saumaize-Michelin
• Maison Verget (and the Domaine Guffens-Heynen wines made at the same address)

Top value picks from the 2024 vintage:

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The result is an exceptional balance of finesse, structure and fruit that makes the wines irresistible.

Scroll down for Charles Curtis MW’s 20 top-scoring Chassagne & Puligny-Montrachet 2024 wines

‘The wines in 2024 are more electric than the 2023s,’ says Pierre-Yves Colin, of his eponymous domaine, ‘they are clear and precise and remind me of 2017 and 2014. The great 2024s will age very well.’

‘The wine feels more confident before bottling, and we need much less sulphur than we did before,’ he says.

At Domaine Michel Niellon, winemaker Lucie Coutoux says: ‘The wines have finesse and freshness; they are subtle, discreet and harmonious. They averaged 11%-11.5% potential alcohol at harvest and chaptalised up to 12%-12.45% with a classic pH of 3.1-3.2; but the two grands crus both ripened to more than 12%’.

In Puligny, conditions were similar. At Domaine Jean Chartron, although they lost 15%-20% of their crop, they felt lucky because they caught the mildew problem early and treated it as the second leaf emerged on the new shoots.

Alvina Pernot, of her eponymous domaine, was very pleased with the outcome: ‘This vintage suits our style perfectly. People can go anywhere in the world for Chardonnay at 14%-14.5%, but they come to Burgundy because of this balance.’

Discerning enthusiasts can happily buy many high-scoring wines from these villages in 2024, defined by remarkable balance and fine structures.

Top picks from Chassagne & Puligny:

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The success is due to the dominance of Chardonnay, which had a more successful flowering and was less affected by mildew than the Pinot Noir.

Scroll down for Charles Curtis MW’s 20 top-scoring Meursault 2024 wines

The vintage still required ceaseless work in the vineyard, but the wines from top producers have a combination of seductive fruit aromas on the nose and the structure to age.

Pierre Lafon of Domaine des Comtes Lafon says: ‘2024 was really hard in the vineyard but really easy in the cellar’.

‘For white wines, we “only” lost 25% of the crop and managed to make all of the cuvées,’ he says.

Brian Sieve, winemaker at Domaine de Montille, says that much of the vineyard work was done earlier to preserve freshness in the wine and combat the effects of global warming. ‘The whole cycle is earlier – we plough earlier to open up soils, we pick earlier than we used to, but we still prune late,’ he says.

Benjamin Leroux is a negociant with growing holdings in Meursault, which expanded this year. He had enough grapes in 2024 to produce seven different bottlings of Meursault.

This includes: a blended Meursault village; village-level single-vineyard wines from Vireuils and Narvaux; and premiers crus from Genevrières and Charmes. There are also two separate cuvées of the Meursault Blagny premier cru La Pièce Sous le Bois, separating the old vine fruit for individual bottling in magnum.

Wines from these producers and others tasted blind indicate that 2024 will be a delicious year for Meursault and that the best wines will warrant laying down for a decade or more.

Top picks from Meursault in 2024:

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The best reds from the northern Côte de Beaune have much of the hallmarks of lush, supple fruit for which good Burgundian Pinot is so renowned.

Scroll down for Charles Curtis MW’s 20 top-scoring Pommard & Volnay 2024 wines

Wines from Pommard range from tannic and firm to more supple and approachable, while in Volnay the best producers have given us silky, expressive wines.

Paul Zinetti, winemaker at Domaine du Comte Armand, notes that the yields of this famous Pommard producer were the lowest ever, at 15hl/ha. ‘Although there was more rain in 2013, the yields were higher than in 2024,’ he says.

Paul Négrerie, cellarmaster at the nearby Château de Pommard, had a similar experience in 2024: ‘Yields overall were 14hl/ha. Normally we make 200 barrels, this year there were just 80. We didn’t have rot in September but there were dry berries from the mildew. It was important to extract carefully, since you want to extract as much as possible without too much bitterness or green tannin. Compared to other years, there is less ripeness and more elegance.’

According to Frédéric Lafarge in Volnay: ‘This is a vintage of purity, where you can see the differences between all of the terroirs.’ He says that the cold weather in April made the vines fragile, and when the flowering came there were no grapes, just empty tendrils.

Lafarge says that 2024 and 2021 are similar vintages in the glass, but their evolution was very different: 2024 showed more finesse and complexity due to the longer vegetative cycle, while the sudden frost of 2021 was more brutal. He feels that, given vintage conditions, the wines will need a bit longer in barrel (16 months instead of 14).

In general, 2024 is a lighter vintage suited to earlier drinking, but top producers have been able to deliver wines that will be a pleasure to drink when young and suited to at least mid-term ageing of five to 10 years.

Top Pommard & Volnay picks:

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Many wines struggled to deliver the combination of structure and sumptuous fruit that some years promise. Both yields and quality varied by estate.

Scroll down for Charles Curtis MW’s 20 top-scoring Vosne-Romanée & Nuits-St-Georges 2024 wines

Unless stringent measures were taken throughout the year, from treating the vines to sorting the fruit meticulously and extracting colour and tannin with great care, the wines can be light, lacking in fruit expression and somewhat astringent.

Tristan Méo of Méo-Camuzet describes the season: ‘2024 was a constant fight in the vineyard and a constant lookout in the winery. Total acidity is relatively low, and pH is somewhat elevated. Oenologists fear analyses like these, but in the end, they are much better than we expected. We feel that the wines of 2024 have enough concentration to age in barrel normally.

He adds: ‘We are “only” down 40%. Baseline quality was better than 2021. We needed to leave the grapes in the tank for a very long time (21 days) but in the end, we feel it paid off.’

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti farms biodynamically, but despite the challenges of this system in 2024, it managed its losses efficiently. Co-director Bertrand de Villaine says: ‘We noticed disparities between plots, but also between vines in the same row.’

The domaine began to pick on 18 September. They picked 2.2ha of Corton in one morning (with a yield of 4hl/ha) and finished six days later with Romanée-Conti, although Aubert de Villaine was not keen on having people picking on a Sunday.

Montrachet and Bâtard-Montrachet were also picked that same day. Rain had just begun to fall as they completed these important vineyards.

Despite the challenges, they continued to use 100% whole bunches in their tanks. ‘We clean up the bunches so they look good, but we still use 100% whole bunches for the fermentation since we don’t know how to vinify completely destemmed grapes,’ says De Villaine.

Herculean efforts

Some producers had even more difficulty. Yves Confuron picked the grapes from his family domaine, Domaine Confuron-Coteditot, between 28 September and 8 October. He saw yields of 2-4hl/ha on average.

In his opinion, ‘those who say they harvested 20-40 hl/ha, there is a problem: either it isn’t ripe, they bought in grapes, or they’re lying.’

He produced a regional Bourgogne blended from grapes from Clos Vougeot, Charmes-Chambertin and Mazis-Chambertin because even if the grapes are all grand cru, if you blend grapes from different villages, the highest appellation you can obtain is a regional Bourgogne.

In these appellations, the very best producers and great terroirs were able to produce lovely wines through Herculean efforts, but the wines from this sector should be approached with caution.

Top-scoring Vosne-Romanée & Nuits-St-Georges 2024 wines:

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• Regional profile: Nuits-St-Georges & 22 wines tasted
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The southern portion, in Musigny, was particularly hard hit, while the northern part of the village, nearer to Morey-St-Denis, had less trouble.

Scroll down for Charles Curtis MW’s 20 top-scoring Chambolle-Musigny 2024 wines

The quality and style of the wines is variable, and producers with vines at the southern end of the village often despaired of the conditions of the grapes they harvested

Jean Lupatelli, director of Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé, describes the variations within the same village: ‘We did one third of a normal crop after sorting. We didn’t do much whole bunch, except for a bit in Bonnes-Mares. Our yields were 7-8hl/ha in Musigny and 12-13hl/ha in Bonnes-Mares.

‘The “eye of the storm” was in Flagey-Echézeaux, just north of Vosne, where we had two storms with 50mm of rain each time, while in Bonnes-Mares we only had 2mm. The upper portion of Clos Vougeot was terrible, and the southern part of Musigny was hit very hard.’

At Domaine Georges Roumier, I tasted with Alexis Aubin, Christophe Roumier’s nephew, who agrees about the difficulties in Musigny – in fact, the domaine didn’t produce any at all this year.

‘We made 100 barrels in 2024,’ says Aubin, ‘In 2022, it was a “normal” year and we made 200; in 2023 we made 250.’

He says they used a bit more whole bunch than usual for logistical reasons, since they need a certain volume to fill the tank.

A tale of two halves

Wines from this part of the village can be light, astringent and lacking in fruit expression, although some producers, such as Domaine de Comte Georges de Vogüé, overcame innumerable obstacles to produce delightful wines.

Wines from the opposite end of the village in and around Bonnes-Mares were often more robust, with deeper colour, more substance and the expressive floral-scented fruit characteristic of the best of Chambolle.

Antoine Amiot-Servelle of Domaine Amiot-Servelle says: ‘2024 is not the easiest vintage, but I am an old-time optimist. What I will remember is that we stayed organic up until the end.’

‘We are lucky to be in Chambolle and to have [organic producers] all around us. The biggest problem was [to be compelled to do] so much work for so little yield.’

Top-scoring Chambolle-Musigny 2024 wines:

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• Chambolle’s Bonnes Mares & Musigny: Two grands crus compared
• One to watch: Burgundy’s Solène Panigai

It was fascinating to see many talented winemakers tackling similar problems yet arriving at different conclusions and solutions after much soul-searching.

Scroll down for Charles Curtis MW’s 20 top-scoring Morey-St-Denis 2024 wines

The best wines have a fairly deep colour, forward, lush fruit aromas, and balance and tension on the palate.

Although the wines are lighter, leaner and more tannic than they are in sunnier times, top growers here produced good results through rigorous sorting and careful extraction.

At Clos de Tart, Alessandro Noli described the yields (13.5hl/ha) as ‘catastrophic,’ and decided to use no whole bunches in the fermentation.

At Domaine des Lambrays they made no changes, and winemaker Jacques Devauges describes his process: ‘We sorted like madmen, with three sorting tables, but we didn’t change the proportions of whole bunches: 40% for the premiers crus and 80% for the Clos des Lambrays.

‘We stayed in organic cultivation; it’s a guessing game. If you wait past the end of June, you won’t see much improvement from forsaking organic. In the end, we produced 45% less than a normal vintage.’

Old school charm

The most interesting commentary came from Jeremy Seysses at Domaine Dujac, who felt that the 18hl/ha they achieved was respectable, given that they also maintained their certified organic status. But some changes had to be made.

‘I ran out of small tanks, so there were some that got no punch downs,’ says Seysses, ‘only pump overs or rack-and-return; but we did produce every cuvée.’

‘My father had serious health troubles before harvest,’ he continues, ‘and since Dad wasn’t around, I was the lead decision maker. Normally my father would say “Are you sure you want to destem this?” but since he wasn’t around this year, I hardly destemmed anything. Also, it helps to fill the tanks with something.’

At Domaine Ponsot, winemaker Alexandre Abel says that he lost half of his crop to mildew in one week, since the domaine was unable to spray due to rain. As is the domaine’s custom, the harvest was completely destemmed.

Abel says: ‘The weather at the end of August was finally better; the grapes had a chance to ripen, and botrytis was fortunately limited. In the end, we produced only 15 barrels of Clos de la Roche, while in 2023 there were 53.’

This remains a vintage mostly for early drinking, but wine lovers may be delighted with the ‘old school’ charms of some of their favourite wines here.

Top-scoring Morey-St-Denis 2024 wines:

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• Decanter’s 100-point wines of 2025
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Decanter's Burgundy correspondent, Charles Curtis MW, provides his expert analysis of the Burgundy 2024 vintage.

Charles Curtis MW is an author and journalist with over 20 years experience in the wine trade. He was the 22nd Master of Wine in the US and was previously head of wine for Christie’s.

• Burgundy 2024 en primeur: White wines shine amid a small and challenging harvestCare to be taken to find greatness in tiny yields...

• Burgundy 2024: Five producers that stood out in a fickle vintageFive essential names to know...Charles Curtis MW

• Best value Burgundy 2024 wines en primeurFine picks down south...Charles Curtis MW

• Chassagne & Puligny-Montrachet 2024: The ‘irresistible’ wines to have in your cellarWines with lasting appeal for Chardonnay lovers...Charles Curtis MW

• Meursault 2024: Top picks from a host of ageworthy winesCharles Curtis MW

• Pommard & Volnay 2024: Pick of the bunch from an early-drinking set of winesA drinking vintage...Charles Curtis MW

• Vosne-Romanée & Nuits-St-Georges 2024: Top buys from a lively and fruity bunchApproach with caution and do your research...Charles Curtis MW

• Chambolle-Musigny 2024: Our expert's picks from a tiny offeringThe wines to buy en primeur from a miniscule bunch...Charles Curtis MW

• Morey-St-Denis 2024: Winemaking talent shines amid challengesRapid adaptations and creative thinking in a tumultuous year...Charles Curtis MW

• Gevrey-Chambertin 2024: The best of the year's ‘crisp and fresh’ winesDo your research before buying...Charles Curtis MW

• Burgundy 2024: What to expect from a topsy-turvy vintageHigh rainfall and low sunshine make for a very different year...Charles Curtis MW

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If you have any questions please click here to visit our FAQs page or contact support@decanter.com

The best wines have a pure, perfumed expression of high-toned red fruit character underlined by firm tannins and a bright mineral edge on the palate.

Scroll down for Charles Curtis MW’s 20 top-scoring Gevrey-Chambertin 2024 wines

The most heart-wrenching summary of the vintage in Gevrey came from Cyrielle Rousseau of Domaine Armand Rousseau. ‘When I saw what was going on in the vineyards, I felt sick to my stomach,’ she says, ‘we produced half of what we did in 2021, and the total amount was less than 10hl/ha.’

In the end, the yield was so low that the domaine had to blend together its premiers crus Lavaux St-Jacques and Cazetiers to make a Gevrey premier cru.

For the same reason, it will blend together the Mazis-Chambertin and Ruchottes-Chambertin grands crus, which will have to be declassified to premier cru since it blends two different appellations. The domaine will also blend its grapes from the grands crus of Chambertin and Clos de Bèze, which may be sold simply as Chambertin.

At Domaine Fourrier, cellar master François Orisé says that the domaine lost 70% of its crop to mildew. In order to control the effects, it resorted to using an optical sorter, which Orisé says gives an effect more of concentration than one of dilution.

Take your medicine

The variable quality across the village was also confirmed by winemaker Pierre Duroché of Domaine Duroché: ‘In the northern section above the Combe de Lavaux [known as the Côte St-Jacques], we required 14 treatments since the site is very windy and the mildew was not as bad, but our vineyards at the base of the slope required 21 treatments to keep them healthy.’

In the end, the yield was so low that he also had to blend premier cru (Cazetiers and Estournelles) and village appellations (Aux Etelois and Jeunes Rois), which he will call Cuvée 26, after the number of the tank where it was blended.

Although the wines from Gevrey this year are generally fresh, crisp and light- to medium-bodied, the vintage offers ‘classic’ Gevrey quality and style.

Too often this adjective is a euphemism for ‘light, tart and astringent,’ but that is far from universally true, and wine lovers will still find charming wines to drink now and for mid-term ageing.

Top-scoring Gevrey-Chambertin 2024 wines

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• Exploring the grands crus of Gevrey-Chambertin
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Despite concerns raised in some quarters over quality in general as a result of the year’s severe weather conditions, Burgundy lovers may be surprised how many enjoyable wines they will find.

According to Frédéric Drouhin, CEO of Maison Joseph Drouhin, ‘2024 is a vintage of delicacy, sobriety and precision. It is a pleasant vintage in red, and a precise and salty vintage for the whites.’

His wife, Claude de Nicolay, directs her own domaine, Chandon de Briailles, with her brother François. Her view was slightly different: ‘2024 will be a “virtual” vintage – you will almost not see it at all.

‘We lost 90% of the crop and had an average yield of 8hl/ha. There was nothing at all to pick at the base of the slope. But in the end, it is a classic vintage “à l’ancienne”, a character not extinguished by the excesses of the weather.’

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for Charles Curtis MW’s Burgundy 2024 selection

Burgundy 2024 vintage rating and overview:

Whites: 4/5

2024 is a good to very good vintage that has produced whites of elegance and finesse with the structure and the substance for mid- to long-term ageing, comparable to the 2014 vintage.

Reds: 3/5

2024 is a challenging vintage for red wine. The best examples will be found in the Côte de Beaune, although outstanding producers further north have exceeded expectations.

First impressions

After tasting more than 1,400 wines from this vintage, I can say that it is a good vintage for white wines, which have firm acidity, wonderful balance and moderate alcohol.

It was generally a modest vintage for red wine, which could be light, thin and lacking concentration and fruit.

It is above all a highly variable vintage from village to village, however, and surprises abound.

Chablis was hit hardest by the climate in 2024, and the Côte de Beaune fared better than the Côte de Nuits. It seems that the further south one ventures, the better the wines become, and 2024 is a vintage where the Côte Chalonnaise and the Mâconnais really came into their own.

Drouhin describes the challenges: ‘We did not produce any wine at all in the grands crus of Clos de Vougeot, Clos de Bèze, or Les Clos in Chablis, and it was difficult for the staff since the pressure was simply too intense.’

Numerous winemakers spoke of the psychological challenge of the 2024 vintage, explaining that they felt they should have been able to do more, somehow, to counter the weather’s excesses – that they might have changed the outcome had they done so.

But on the ground at the time it was happening, that wasn’t realistic, given the very difficult conditions they faced. The best, however, did what they could to deliver delicious wines.

According to the BIVB, total volume produced in 2024 was 1.21 million hectolitres, just over 161 million bottles. This figure was a drop of more than a third from the generous 2023 harvest, although it was more than 20% above 2021, which was decimated by frost.

Read the full report on the Chablis 2024 vintage

Weather Conditions

2024 began with mild temperatures and notably some of the warmest February temperatures ever recorded. March was also warmer than usual, setting the vines ahead of schedule. April, however, saw temperatures plummet, with two episodes of frost at the end of the month damaging some vineyards.

The real challenge began in May, however, as temperatures remained low and rain fell incessantly across the region. Jérôme Flous is the technical director of Domaine Faiveley.

He explains the difficulties: ‘I started at Faiveley in 2007, and 2024 was my most challenging vintage – there were 38 days of rain in May and June. The problem was the flowering; in a rainy year, it is disrupted, the stem is in contact with the air, and mildew can easily destroy the bunch.’

The rain lessened somewhat in July and August, but there were occasional storms, including hailstorms, throughout this period. Another difficulty was the lack of sun: 2024 saw the fewest hours of sunshine since the beginning of the century.

Grapes ripened with difficulty, and most growers used a relatively dry period from 13-22 September to harvest their tiny crop.

Charles’ wines of the vintage:

White: Domaine Jean Chartron, Clos des Chevaliers, Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru – 98 points

Red: Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé, Vieilles Vignes, Musigny Grand Cru – 97 points

Previous vintage ratings:

2023: Whites 4/5 Reds 4.5/5

2022: Whites 4/5 Reds 4.5/5

2021: Whites 4/5 Reds 3.5/5

2020: Whites 4.5/5 Reds 4/5

2019: Whites 4/5 Reds 5/5

Around the appellations

Côte de Nuits

In a reversal of recent trends, conditions in the Côte de Nuits were more difficult than those in the Côte de Beaune. This reversal is mainly due to localised differences in rainfall, which was much higher there, and to the dominance of Pinot Noir, which was more affected by poor flowering and mildew.

Even within the Côte de Nuits, conditions varied, and the southern portion, from the Clos de Vougeot to Nuits-St-Georges, suffered more than the section from Morey to Marsannay.

Top Côte de Nuits producers in 2024:

• Domaine Armand Rousseau
• Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé
• Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
• Domaine des Lambrays
• Domaine Dugat-Py
• Domaine Dujac
• Domaine Duroché
• Domaine Rossignol-Trapet
• Domaine Georges Roumier
• Domaine Jacques-Frédéric Mugnier

Côte de Beaune

Conditions in the Côte de Beaune were generally better than in the Côte de Nuits, though there was variation here as well. The hill of Corton to the north was extremely hard hit by the weather.

To the south of Beaune, however, conditions improved. The ‘golden triangle’ of Meursault, Puligny and Chassagne had quality and yields much closer to the norm, mainly because Chardonnay (on which these appellations are focused) had a more successful flowering and was less affected by mildew than Pinot Noir.

In the south, Santenay and Maranges produced some lovely wines.

Top Côte de Beaune producers in 2024:

• Domaine de Montille
• Domaine des Comtes Lafon
• Domaine des Croix
• Domaine Henri et Gilles Buisson
• Domaine Jean Chartron
• Domaine Michel Lafarge
• Domaine Michel Niellon
• Domaine Pierre Vincent
• Domaine Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey
• Domaine Rapet

Côte Chalonnaise

Further south, in the Côte Chalonnaise, conditions continued to improve. There were marvellous examples of Chardonnay from Montagny, Mercurey and Rully, as well as some particularly good Aligoté.

Although conditions limited yields for Pinot Noir, conscientious growers were able to produce lovely wines here that should provide solid value and current drinking pleasure, and some that have the substance for ageing.

Top Côte Chalonnaise producers in 2024:

• Château de Chamirey
• Domaine Baron Thénard
• Domaine Belleville
• Domaine Chanzy
• Domaine du Cellier aux Moines

Mâconnais

The Mâconnais is among the brightest spots in Burgundy for the 2024 vintage. Conditions produced some superb examples of Pouilly-Fuissé (particularly among the new-ish premiers crus).

Throughout the Mâconnais, the top growers produced white Burgundy that wine lovers should not miss in this vintage.

Top Mâconnais producers in 2024:

• Bret Brothers & Domaine de la Soufrandière
• Domaine Merlin
• Domaine Deux Roches
• Domaine du Roc des Boutires
• Domaine Frantz Chagnoleau
• Domaine Jacques Saumaize
• Domaine Rijckaert
• Domaine Saumaize-Michelin
• Maison Verget & Domaine Guffens-Heynen

Concluding thoughts

The 2024 vintage will remain a vintage apart, if only because of the exceptional climatic conditions. Judging the wines, however, is another matter. As Frédéric Mugnier of Domaine Jacques-Frédéric Mugnier put it: ‘Don’t take the word of a winemaker when it comes to [assessing] a vintage, since their opinion reflects their lived experience, and there was no amusement involved in making the 2024 vintage.’

In red wine, the closest parallels would be 2001 or 2013. For whites, the nearest comparison would be 2014, suggesting that it is a vintage to buy reds for current drinking and whites to lay down.

If money is no object, invest in the Montrachet from Domaine des Comtes Lafon or the Chevalier-Montrachet from Domaine Jean Chartron or Domaine Michel Niellon. Among the reds, an obvious splurge would be the Musigny from Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé or the Bonnes Mares from Domaine Georges Roumier.

Most wine lovers would also be delighted with mid-range bottles such as the Clos du Château des Ducs from Domaine Michel Lafarge, or the Gevrey-Chambertin Premier Cru Aux Combottes from Domaine Arlaud. Given the limited availability of top wines, it would be advisable to buy en primeur to secure an allocation.

There are also lovely wines further south that will be much less expensive. For whites, don’t miss the Mâcon-Pierreclos from Maison Verget, or the Pouilly-Fuissé Premier Cru Sur la Roche from Domaine Rijckaert.

Côte Chalonnaise reds such as the Givry Premier Cru Clos du Cellier aux Moines from Domaine du Cellier aux Moines, or the Mercurey Premier Cru Clos l’Eveque from Domaine Belleville will be perfect for current drinking.

COMING SOON

Further analysis and top-scoring wines of the following areas:

Morey-St-Denis | Meursault | Chambolle-Musigny | Gevrey-Chambertin | Pommard and Volnay | Vosne-Romanée & Nuits-St-Georges | Chassagne & Puligny-Montrachet | Best value

A taste of the top Burgundy 2024 wines

Wines were tasted non-blind. Wines are listed in order of white then red, then by scores, and then alphabetically by producer. The 2024s are bottled from January 2026, hence prices, stockists and alcohols are not yet finalised. Contact specialist merchant for allocations or to enquire about en primeur tastings. The following wines were Charles Curtis MW’s selection for particularly notable quality and value among the 650 wines he reviewed from the 2024 Burgundy vintage.

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• Why Echézeaux is the grand cru to have in your cellar
• Wines of the Year 2025: Bordeaux & Burgundy

Likewise in Burgundy, you’re unlikely to treat the grands crus of Romanée-Conti, Corton and Montrachet as casual purchases for mid-week quaffing.

But as with most wine regions, you can still find value-for-money bottles and enjoy something truly special without breaking the bank.

To back up this claim, we’ve pulled together a number of wines from across Burgundy and Bordeaux, all on the shelf at under £30 per bottle* – and some below £20.

There’s something for everyone here; sparkling, white, red and sweet, and several offerings from well-known areas including St-Julien, St-Estèphe, Beaujolais, Chablis and Sauternes.

Alongside individual producers, our selection also showcases some great-value supermarket own-brand labels.

*The Sauternes listed is available in half bottle format

Best value Burgundy and Bordeaux: 14 top picks

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Having surged prior to 2023, a number of top-tier Burgundies have undergone relatively big price corrections in a subsequent secondary market downturn. Have prices bottomed-out?

Price performance varied between wines in 2025, with rises and falls, said Bordeaux Index’s Geraint Carter (see table). He highlighted growing positive sentiment around a few blue-chip producers, including Domaine de la Romanee-Conti (DRC), Domaine Armand Rousseau and Domaine Leflaive. They have a track record of trading and some top wines have dropped 25%-40% in price in about three years.

‘Having that market correction is important in making a case for a sale,’ Carter said. Some wines were still double their price 10 years ago, noting ‘longterm holders of these wines are sitting on big paper profits at current levels’.

Liv-ex, a global marketplace for the trade, reported a rising bid-to-offer ratio for wines in its Burgundy 150 index, which also increased 1.1% in value in November. The index was still down 4.4% year-to-date, but Liv-ex said: ‘At the very top end of the market, price stability does appear to be returning.’

In November, Miles Davis, market expert at Vinum Fine Wines, which has offices in the UK and Asia, reported relatively good demand for vaunted names such as Domaines Roumier, Coche-Dury, DRC, Rousseau and Leflaive, as well as opportunities – having recently offered a super-rare, 12-bottle case of Roumier, Bonnes Mares 1995.

On the auction scene, recent results have fostered confidence. ‘There’s still huge global demand for Burgundy,’ said Tim Triptree MW, international director for wines and spirits at Christie’s, noting a well-established secondary market driven by scarcity and thirsty collectors.

Still, there was a feeling among some merchants that patient bidders hold a strong hand. Bordeaux Index’s Carter said that, beyond a small group of blue-chip producers, Burgundy ‘remains a very fragile market’.

Fine wine & spirits specialist Bordeaux Index kindly sponsors this section of Decanter, and provides its view on the market here every issue. It can be found at bordeauxindex.com.

The story in Burgundy, much like the broader market, has become one of recovery; however, it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that prices remain materially down for the year to date. The modest rebound since the mid-summer lows is real but so far concentrated on a narrow set of wines with proven trading histories and, crucially, dramatic multi-year price corrections.

Outside these areas, liquidity remains worryingly thin. Large segments of the market are effectively un-bid, with offer prices that are frequently optimistic to the point of delusional.

Until pricing adjusts, particularly among mid-tier producers, the market will struggle to find broad-based momentum. A little context is essential when considering Burgundy.

Yes, the market is down more than 30% since 2022, but it has still more than doubled over the past decade. Many long-term holders are sitting on substantial paper profits and, in theory, should be willing future sellers.

Yet, on the other hand, the fact that they haven’t sold during three years of declines suggests that their attachment is strong. More broadly, Burgundy is often portrayed as a home for the passionate aficionado, in contrast to Bordeaux or Champagne, where cynical investors tend to predominate.

This characterisation is being tested more than ever, and the outcome will do much to determine the direction of prices in the months ahead.

Coming up

Taste Burgundy en primeur

Various UK-based merchants have scheduled Burgundy 2024 en primeur tasting events for January 2026, open to collectors who wish to taste the young vintage for themselves. Berry Bros & Rudd, Jeroboams, Corney & Barrow and wine club Honest Grapes were among those listing Burgundy en primeur tastings in London. Decanter’s full Burgundy report will be published in the week commencing Monday 19th January.

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 2023 release

Not all Burgundy estates follow the same timetable, and the region’s fabled Domaine de la Romanée-Conti tends to release new vintages once bottled. Its class of 2023 is next up and merchant Corney & Barrow, UK agent for DRC, said it planned to offer the wines from early February 2026 onwards.

Brunello di Montalcino 2021

January 2026 marks the official starting point for the first Brunello di Montalcino 2021-vintage releases, though winery schedules will vary. This is a top-rated year for Tuscany more broadly. A full Brunello di Montalcino report by expert Michaela Morris is coming soon to Decanter Premium online.

An ‘incredible auction moment’

Eye-catching prices for historic French-origin wines lit up the festive auction scene in early December, bringing down the gavel on 2025 in style. All lots found buyers when Christie’s auctioned historic wines from the cellars of Burgundy’s prestigious producer-merchant Bouchard Père & Fils in early December.

Total sales hit almost £2.38m, and the star lot was a single bottle of Bouchard Père & Fils, La Tâche 1886. It fetched £325,000, including buyer’s premium, eclipsing a pre-sale high estimate of £19,000. It’s an example of what can happen when bidders set their sights on a particular opportunity.

‘There was a round of applause when the hammer came down,’ said Tim Triptree MW, international director of Christie’s wine and spirits department. ‘There was spirited bidding,’ he said, adding provenance, rarity and Bouchard’s high-quality reputation combined to create this ‘incredible auction moment’.

Among other highlights, a bottle of Bouchard Père & Fils, Clos Vougeot 1857 sold for £47,500 (high e: £14,000). Individual bottles of Bonnes Mares 1865 and Romanée-St-Vivant 1861 each sold for £68,750 (high e: £15,000 and £14,000 respectively).

Triptree said results were another encouraging sign for the fine wine market in general. Fellow auction house Sotheby’s also hosted a major sale of Lafite Rothschild wines in Paris, including bottles sourced from the Bordeaux first growth’s cellars.

A bottle of Lafite 1870, a lauded vintage, sold for €100,000 (£87,335), including buyer’s premium (high e: €60,000).

Disclaimer: Decanter’s Market Watch pages are published for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment advice. Wine prices may vary and they can go down as well as up. Seek independent advice where necessary and be aware that wine investment is unregulated in several markets, including the UK.

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It’s not every year that a vintage like 2022 rolls around. Despite the year’s unprecedented hot, dry conditions – including three extreme-heat events that occurred during June, July and August – it ultimately delivered some fabulous wines with freshness, charm and mass appeal.

Sure, Bordeaux has had some excellent vintages in recent years, but not since 2016 has a vintage captivated as 2022 has, with the in-bottle tastings in 2025 reaffirming what an incredible selection of wines are on offer.

From the nine wines rated 100 points during 2025 (six of which were from 2022), three have made this list, with two of the eight 99pt wines (seven of them from 2022) joining them.

I’ve bypassed the perennial first-growth giants and Right Bank titans (Petrus, Lafleur) to spotlight estates that, in this vintage, touched perfection while staying (just) within reach of collectors.

In my view, these wines not only showcase the high quality across appellations, with both sides of the river covered, but they’re all among the best I’ve ever tasted from their respective estates.

They may not be wines for immediate consumption, but they will certainly reward patience and would make fine additions to any cellar. Other top-performers during 2025 came from the lauded 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019 vintages, with a few 1985s among the stars showcasing the power of Bordeaux’s best vintages.

In total, 247 wines – red, white and sweet – scored 95pts or above from 26 vintages from 2024 back to 1945 across all major and lesser-known appellations, showing Bordeaux’s universal appeal.

Georgie Hindle, Regional Editor

Burgundy

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti represented five of the six highest-scoring Burgundy wines in 2025. A fantastic achievement, but not necessarily a surprising one.

Likewise, the highest-scorer in this quintet may not shock you, dear reader, as Domaine Armand Rousseau is one of Burgundy’s greatest. In our correspondent Charles Curtis MW’s en primeur reporting, he called its Chambertin-Clos de Bèze Grand Cru ‘one of the greatest Burgundy wines of the 2023 vintage’.

The elegance and finesse of the wines from Domaine Anne Gros became apparent in Curtis’ profile published on Decanter Premium online in October, and her Richebourg Grand Cru 2009 is showing beautifully.

A fairly new project, Domaine Alvina Pernot has shot to star status, and Curtis finds her Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru to be one of the jewels of the hill of Corton, while the ‘wizard of Chablis’ Vincent Dauvissat unveiled a ‘stupendous’ Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos in the 2023 vintage.

The three judges in our Cru Beaujolais 2022 panel tasting (March 2025 issue) were floored by the quality on show, and among the 13 wines rated Outstanding, the tiny estate of Antoine Sunier really knocked their socks off, with two wines scoring 95 points.

The inclusion of Sunier’s Régnié in this selection speaks volumes about the ability of the Beaujolais crus to offer superb terroir focus, complexity and charm.

Natalie Earl, Regional Editor

Wines of the year 2025: Bordeaux & Burgundy

Wines are listed Bordeaux first, then Burgundy

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Many own parcels in more than one section, and thus the wines are often blends. Officially, all the wines are Echézeaux, full stop – it is prohibited to indicate the origin more specifically.

Even if some domaines have done so in the past, the authorities are now forbidding this practice.

The key to understanding the wines is more about knowing the individual producers than memorising the particularities of each terroir. Here are a few of my personal favourites:

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti

It is impossible to discuss Echézeaux without an appreciation of the wines of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.

It is by far the largest owner, with 4.67 ha (12.2% of the total). Nearly all of this is located in Les Poulaillères.

The wine is usually among the first from the Domaine to hit maturity, and there is a fleshy, forward exuberance to it that I find particularly charming.

Domaine Emmanuel Rouget

In contrast to other producers, I have often found Rouget’s Echézeaux to be savoury, mineral and tannic, with a structured and muscular approach.

Emmanuel’s son, Guillaume Rouget, is now farming his family’s 1.43 ha in Echézeaux. The family is the third-largest proprietor of the appellation, and the vines are grouped in the southern part of the appellation, in Cruots, Les Treux, and Clos Saint-Denis.

Guillaume blends the parcels together to make a singular, delicious wine.

Domaine Mugneret-Gibourg

I have been a fan for many years of the Echézeaux produced by Domaine Mugneret-Gibourg.

The domaine has owned since the 1930s nearly a hectare of vines in two parcels: Rouges du Bas and Quartiers de Nuits.

Since 2016, they farm the entire parcel in Rouges du Bas, but the vines in Quartier de Nuits are sharecropped by their cousin Pascal Mugneret.

Because of the sharecropping arrangement the blend is often dominated by grape from the old vines on the steep slopes of Rouges du Bas, which have been vinified in recent years with a proportion of whole clusters.

The wine often seems the most approachable of the three grand crus produced by the domaine.

Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair

From the earliest vintages of Liger-Belair’s Echézeaux my notes describe it as lush and forward with an emphasis on the explosive nature of the fruit as opposed to the more cerebral wines from La Romanée and Aux Reignots.

The cuvée represents an elegant balance of several different parts of the vineyard since his 0.86ha holding comes from parcels ranging from Champs Traversins to Cruots or Vignes Blanches, Clos-St-Denis, and a recently added parcel of Echézeaux du Dessus.

Domaine Faiveley

Faiveley owns 0.83 ha of Echézeaux located on the south-facing slope of lieu-dit En Orveaux in white marl soil.

This is a cooler, late-ripening spot that delivers wines with freshness and structure. Because it sits right on the border with Chambolle-Musigny premier cru Combe d’Orveau – where the family also owns vines – the style of the wine can resemble the wines of Chambolle in its purity of fruit and exquisite perfume.

Domaine d’Eugenie

François Pinault’s Artemis Domaines is in the process of refashioning its presence in the Côte de Nuits.

The group purchased the historic, highly-regarded Domaine René Engel in 2006 and renamed it Domaine d’Eugenie. Winemaking was modernised at the new estate by talented Technical Director Michel Mallard, who departed after the 2022 vintage to focus on his domaine in Ladoix.

Jaeok Cramette, late of Château Grillet, has been given the reins – and some marvellous new vineyards. Artemis has detached several choice parcels, notably 0.40 ha of Echézeaux, from the portfolio of Bouchard Père et Fils.

This complements the 0.50 ha of Echézeaux owned by René Engel since all of the vines are in lieu-dit En Orveaux. To judge from my initial tasting of these wines, she is off to a fantastic start.

Domaine des Perdrix

Domaine des Perdrix farms 1.15ha of Echézeaux; 0.85ha in Echézeaux du Dessus, and the balance in Quartiers de Nuits.

It produces a cuvée that is a barrel selection from Echézeaux du Dessus and another that is a blend of Echézeaux du Dessus and Quartiers de Nuits. Some of the grapes from the latter are declassified into their village-level Vosne bottling.

The grapes are fermented with 30% whole clusters and are aged in cask (50% new) for 15 months.

Domaine Mongeard-Mugneret

Rich, dark, and powerful, the Echézeaux that I have tasted from Mongeard-Mugneret are often structured and dense.

The grapes, sometimes picked on the later side, come from parcels scattered throughout the climat.

The fruit is destemmed or vinified with some whole bunches according to the demands of the year, and aged with a generous proportion of new oak.

The domaine owns three parcels in Echézeaux du Dessus, balanced by another in En Orveaux and another in Les Treux which total 2.60 hectares, second only to Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in size.

Domaine Hoffmann-Jayer

Domaine Hoffmann-Jayer is managed today by energetic young winemaker Alexandre Vernet, who farms 0.54 ha of Echézeaux du Dessus located just above Grands Echézeaux – the plot used to belong to Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.

The vines are more than 60 years old, and Vernet ferments them with up to 40% whole clusters depending on the vintage before ageing in cask (30% new) and bottling unfiltered.

The result is elegant and forward with complex fruit character and understated oak aromas.

Domaine Berthaut-Gerbet

Amelie Berthaut farms 0.21 ha of Echézeaux split between parcels in Quartiers de Nuits, Les Treux, and Champs Traversins.

She describes the differences : ‘Les Treux has the deepest soils and gives a plump wine – I only have one row, but it’s 80 years old. Quartiers de Nuits has lots of little stones, and Champs Traversins is located at the top of the slope next to the wood, which is a cooler site with slightly sandy soils.’

It’s the combination of the soil, the vine stock, and the winegrower – each is important in the mix. She often uses 70–80% whole clusters and ages the wine without any new casks. The result is positively delicious.

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Searching for value seems a safe proposition, but value as a sole proposition can lead a wine lover to overlook wines of compelling beauty, and the sweet spot is the intersection of terroir, winemaking savvy, and price.

Over the past year I have been thrilled with wines that cover the broad spectrum of Echézeaux, an appellation that is often misunderstood.

Misunderstandings (and underestimations) occur because Echézeaux is a complicated appellation and the history is not exactly straightforward.

A splintered history

The vineyard was originally the property of the monks of Cîteaux Abbey. The Abbey’s 1718 Grand Atlas showing its holdings refers to a ‘Vigne des Echézeaux’.

This included Les Echézeaux Hauts (today’s Echézeaux du Dessus), Les Echézeaux Bas (our Grands Echézeaux), and several other vineyards in the vicinity, including parts of the Combe d’Orveaux that are today included in Echézeaux.

Other vines in the area were not yet planted or did not belong to the Abbey.

Historian Jean-François Bazin tells us that the monks did not work these vines themselves (unlike the Clos de Vougeot and Richebourg), and at the time of the French Revolution, much of this land was rented to the growers tending the vines. For this reason, the Vignes des Echézeaux was not confiscated as other holdings were.

In the early years of the 19th century, Napoleon’s government drew up the cadastre, or land registry, and each of these areas was given a different name or lieu-dit, but the growers continued to sell their produce as ‘Echézeaux’.

The practice was challenged in court in 1925 by Etienne Camuzet and Eugène Mongeard-Mugneret. The pair lost their case, however, and when the appellation was created in 1936, the surrounding vines were all included in Echézeaux.

Today Echézeaux includes some or all of no fewer than 11 lieux-dits (see below).

The central kernel of the Echézeaux Hauts had expanded from 2.63ha to 3.55ha by 1855, and following the decision of the judges in Beaune, a total of 36.27ha was included in the appellation, according to the BIVB.

A close reading of the regulations gives an even higher total, however, and local expert Laurent Gotti places the figure at 38.14ha.

Location and aspect

Echézeaux is at the centre of the stretch of contiguous grand cru slope that begins with Musigny and includes the Clos de Vougeot.

The vineyard is located entirely within the village of Flagey-Echézeaux, although Flagey itself seldom appears on a wine label since the wines are sold as Vosne-Romanée.

Echézeaux du Dessus is the historic heart of the appellation, located in the middle of the slope and surrounded by other grands crus.

It is sheltered from the cooling influence of the Combe d’Orveaux and located at the base of the slope on a healthy depth of Jurassic marls. The ownership here is split between eight domaines.

Immediately north of Echézeaux du Dessus is Les Poulaillères. This lieu-dit is located more directly on the rocky alluvial cone of the Combe. It is almost exclusively the property of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.

Bordering Echézeaux du Dessus is Les Loächausses, a monopole of the Gros family, with holdings from Anne Gros, AF Gros, and Gros Frère et Sœur.

Bordering Les Loächausses to the south is Les Cruots ou Vignes Blanches, made famous by Henri Jayer, who said it was the best terroir of the appellation.

Further up the slope lies the 3ha Rouges du Bas, planted on steeper slopes with a thinner layer of marl atop the limestone. The most famous Echézeaux produced here was that of Domaine Méo-Camuzet, whose label until 2021 featured the name of the lieu-dit.

Les Beaux Monts Bas borders Rouges du Bas to the south, but only a small portion of the bottom of this appellation is included in Echézeaux; the rest of the climat is classified in premier cru.

North of Rouges de Bas one finds Les Champs Traversins, whose vines are planted north-south across the slope to limit erosion.

South of Grands Echézeaux and further down the slope lie three lieux-dits that were regarded in the 19th century classification of Dr Lavalle as a step lower in quality than the rest of today’s appellation.

These include Les Treux, immediately south of Grands Echézeaux, the Clos-St-Denis (not to be confused with the grand cru of the same name in Morey-Saint-Denis), and Les Quartiers de Nuits, located between the southern end of the Clos de Vougeot and the village-level Vosne vineyard of Mazières-Hautes.

At the northern extremity of the appellation lies an 8ha section of the vineyard called En Orveaux. These vines formed part of the estate of the monks of Cîteaux.

This lieu-dit lies squarely in the Combe d’Orveaux. The combe makes it a very cool terroir, but even if the northern portion faces due south and the alluvial soils here are very well-drained, it ripens late.

Terroir

The terroir of the appellation is far from consistent. At the base of the slope, the vineyard is nearly flat (as are the nearby Grands Echézeaux and Clos de Vougeot), but the grade is nearly 15% at the top in Les Beax Monts Bas.

The soil is Jurassic-era marl mixed with clay, but it varies from 80 cm deep at the bottom and less than half of that at the top.

The soil sits over a limestone bedrock that also varies, from oolitic limestone at the top to Prémeaux and Comblanchien, with notable quantities of pebbles, stones and larger rocks in the valley called the Combe d’Orveaux.

Much of the vineyard faces east, but the sections in the Combe d’Orveaux are more varied.

The lieux-dits

Echézeaux du Dessus 4.48ha

Les Poulaillères 5.24ha

Les Loächausses 2.22ha

Les Cruots ou Vignes Blanches 3.16ha

Les Rouges du Bas 3.09ha

Les Beaux Monts Bas 0.77ha

Les Champs Traversins 3.58ha

Les Treux 4.76ha

Clos-St-Denis 1.66ha

Les Quartiers de Nuits 1.15ha

En Orveaux 8.03ha

Ten wines from Echézeaux:

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This year, in fact, a mere 30 wines (tasted between 1 October 2024 and 30 September 2025) gained that coveted triple-digit score. In the immortal words of Cilla Black, let’s look at what they are and where they come from.

Top-scorers by country

As two countries that feature heavily both online and in print, the bulk of this year’s top-scoring wines came from France and the US.

France had the higher number of 100-point scores by far – 15 wines (50%) versus 12 (40%) from the US – while Italy with two 100-point wines and Australia with just one made up the difference.

Top-scorers by region

Drilling down into the regions things get a little more interesting. We can see that the French wines are split among several regions, with Bordeaux taking the largest share of 100-point wines (nine wines overall or 30% of the total).

However, the largest single region for top scores was California, with 11 wines (36.7%) that received a 100-point score.

The Rhône Valley was the third most-awarded region with five (16.7%) of the top scores, while Western Australia, Burgundy, Oregon, Tuscany and Piedmont all picked up one perfect score apiece.

Top-scorers by appellation

The most-awarded appellation overall was the Napa Valley, which had 10 wines with a 100-point score (mostly from one standout vintage, which was also the case with many of the Bordeaux wines as we’ll explore below).

There were three wines from Châteauneuf-du-Pape as the second highly rated appellation – though probably not wines you would expect – followed by Cornas, Pauillac, Pessac-Léognan, Pomerol and St-Emilion which all had two 100-point scores this past year.

The remaining appellations were Barolo, La Tâche, Margaret River, Margaux, Sonoma County, Toscana, and Willamette Valley with one 100-point wine apiece.

And now let’s briefly look at those wines.

France

Bordeaux

Many of the vintage reports published this year have focused on the very difficult 2024 vintage, which has not yielded many exceptional wines overall.

However, Bordeaux editor Georgie Hindle also reviewed the recently bottled and shipped 2022 vintage from Bordeaux which was a different story altogether.

In her report published in March, she said of the vintage: ‘The 2022s have emerged as wines out to please. As a group they are highly charged and powerful with an impressive amount of fruit, tannins and alcohol, yet they are refined and balanced with a sense of classicism.’

She gave six wines a score of 100-points – three each from the left and right banks.

She also gave a perfect score to the ‘monumental’ 2016 vintage of Château Latour, finally released from the estate’s cellars this spring.

Two wines from the 2015 vintage, Château Margaux and Château Lafleur confirmed in their majesty 10 years on.

Rhône Valley

Matt Walls covers the Rhône extensively for Decanter and this February he wrote about an especially memorable tasting at Château de Beaucastel in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, which yielded three 100-point wines.

These were not the estate’s reds though – but rather its ‘masterpiece’ of a white wine, the Roussanne Vieilles Vignes.

Tasted while scenes from Netflix’s Drops of God adaptation were filmed in the background, Walls was thoroughly seduced by what he calls ‘one of France’s greatest Mediterranean whites’, with many high scores given including three digits for three vintages: 2020, 2014 and 1988.

There was room for a couple of top-scoring reds though, notably two 2010 Cornas from Domaine Clape and Vincent Paris, which are among Walls’s favourite vintages from that appellation to drink now.

Burgundy

For a region with such a sterling reputation, there was just one wine that claimed a ‘perfect’ score in 2025. Maybe the standards of expectation from the Côte d’Or are that much higher?

Nonetheless, the unsurprising top-scorer was from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, with the domaine’s La Tâche 2022 getting the seal of approval from Charles Curtis MW during his in-bottle tasting this spring.

US

Napa Valley

Like Bordeaux, the bulk of top scores for Napa Valley this year came from the 2022 vintage, which was also not necessarily a straightforward growing season but from which some true gems have emerged.

Jonathan Cristaldi wrote in his report: ‘Compared to more structured, long-ageing vintages such as 2021 or 2019, the 2022s are approachable, plush and opulent.

‘Tannin structure varies, with some wines showcasing excellent granular grip and ageing potential while others exhibit a smoother, more fruit-driven profile that leans toward early drinking.’

Cristaldi ultimately gave six wines from the 2022 vintage 100 points, alongside another four from the 2021 – giving Napa its rather awesome tally of 10 top-scores this year.

Sonoma and Willamette Valley

The only US wines breaking Napa’s stranglehold on the crown were a Pinot Noir and Chardonnay duo.

In her report on the wines from the Sonoma Coast in 2022 (there’s that vintage again), Ana Carolina Quintela gave 100-points to the Cuvée Elizabeth Pinot Noir from Occidental. A true ‘wow-moment wine’ she noted.

And our North America editor, Clive Pursehouse, awarded his very first 100-point wine to the ‘captivating’ Bethel Heights’ The High Wire Chardonnay 2023 from Willamette Valley in Oregon.

Best of the rest

Italy

A rather diplomatic split of one 100-point score each for Italy’s premier regions of Piedmont and Tuscany this year.

Michaela Morris dished out a top-score to Giacomo Conterno’s Montfortino Riserva 2019 in her review of that newly-released batch of wines.

And Italy editor, James Button, couldn’t help but give 100-points to the ‘impeccably harmonious and long-lived’ 2006 Masseto during a vertical of the Super Tuscan at the start of the year.

Australia

And to wrap things up, while reviewing the wines being released through La Place de Bordeaux this autumn, Hindle gave top marks to the Cloudburst Chardonnay from Margaret River.

She wrote: ‘Round, utterly moreish from the first sip – this is engaging, mouthwatering, alive and so utterly enjoyable. I’d never tire of drinking this wine.’

Decanter’s 100-point wines of 2025:

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‘This is my first 100-point wine after nearly 4,000 in my three years at Decanter’

In searching for white Burgundy under £25, I was pleased to discover that great value still exists without any compromise in quality.

Scroll down for three white Burgundies under £25

Northern Burgundy

Chablis, the northernmost region of Burgundy, has long been fertile ground for good value white wine.

When even the price of Petit Chablis is stretching the budget, however, it may be time to look further afield.

The second grape of Burgundy is Aligoté, which can provide refreshing, vibrant wines.

The Goisot family, from St-Bris, just west of Chablis, is one of the most accomplished producers of the grape.

Its venerable vines (some a century old), in the Kimmeridgian clay soils studded with oyster shells, consistently produce a riveting version of Aligoté.

Aromas run from grapefruit to tarragon, and the wine is superb paired with seafood or simply on its own

Jean Hugues & Guilhem Goisot, Bourgogne Aligoté 2023

Goisot’s textbook Aligoté boasts pungent aromas of grapefruit, gooseberry and lime peel, with hints of chalky minerals and tarragon. The texture is lively and fresh, and the tangy, salty flavours linger on the finish. The grapes come from 4.5ha of ancient vines (up to 100 years old) in St-Bris, planted in Kimmeridgian soil with red clay and oyster shells; they are gently pressed and fermented entirely in tank. This will drink on release but would gain interest with a few years in the cellar. 93 points

Bourgogne

The Côte d’Or is the heart of Burgundy and is home to its most well-known villages.

Unfortunately, for those on a budget, it also produces its most expensive wines. To succeed in the under £25 category here, we will look for a regional-level Bourgogne.

Regional Bourgogne can be a minefield, and to discover the hidden gems, one needs to know the producers and their wines.

Puligny-Montrachet-based Olivier Leflaive is justly renowned as a master of his craft.

His Bourgogne Les Setilles is named after his garden, and the heart of the cuvée comes from the areas around Puligny and Meursault, blended with grapes from the Côte Chalonnaise and the Hautes-Côtes.

Olivier Leflaive, Les Sétilles, Bourgogne 2023

There’s an appealing Granny Smith apple and nectarine fruit aroma with a hint of white blossom on the initial attack. The texture is surprisingly fresh for the vintage, and the finish is elegantly lovely – astonishing quality given the volume of production. 90 points

Mâcon

No survey of bargain white Burgundy would be complete without a look at the Mâconnais. The most well-known corner of the southernmost Burgundy sub-region is Pouilly-Fuissé, but to unearth top wines at value prices, it helps to look further afield.

Jean-Marie Guffens is one of the legends of the Mâconnais and proprietor of the négociant firm Maison Verget as well as his eponymous domaine.

Verget’s able winemaker, Julien Desplantes, consistently turns out some of the area’s finest wines, comparable to top wines anywhere in Burgundy.

Mâcon-Pierreclos, near their headquarters in Sologny, is one of their specialities, and the entry-level version here, fermented in stainless steel tanks, is a marvel.

Maison Verget, Mâconnais, Mâcon-Pierreclos 2023

The entry-level Mâcon-Pierreclos is a superb example of what the Mâconnais can offer – ripe aromas of apricot and Williams pear touched with a flinty mineral note and a suggestion of Parmesan from the lees ageing. The texture is layered and fine, but not heavy, although the finish lingers pleasantly on the palate. The grapes are from three east-facing parcels of old vines opposite the slope used for the top-level Chavigné cuvée. This latter wine begs for ageing, but this tank-fermented introduction to Pierreclos is perfect for early drinking. 93 points

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The weather during the 2024 growing season defied current global warming trends. Most of the past six years have been unrelentingly hot and dry, with only 2021 offering some respite.

The tables turned in 2024, when nature surprised us with unprecedented amounts of rain and some of the lowest levels of sunshine in recent memory.

As a consequence, the wines harken back to earlier Burgundy, with a return to its roots and an emphasis on finesse and elegance at the expense of power.

Tough conditions

Because of the heat of February and August, the average temperature for the year was not particularly cold, but during the critical months of May, June and July temperatures struggled to reach the norm.

Total rainfall was the third-highest of the century (after 2013 and 2001), and there were fewer hours of sunshine than in any other year in the 21st century.

Disruption of flowering from cold and near-constant rain favoured mildew and made ripening difficult. Warmth and sunshine in August lessened some of the damage, however, and picking began in mid-September and continued in some cases into October.

The impact of these conditions on the wines was dramatic. In general, the wines are light in body, low in alcohol, and moderate to high in acidity, with red wines that are notably light in colour, with tannins that can be astringent.

These generalities, however, mask great regional diversity.

Chablis – hard hit

The area most gravely affected by the 2024 weather was Chablis, with three hailstorms, incessant rain, and more pressure from mildew than most growers have ever seen.

Estimates of crop losses vary from 60% to 90%, and some organic producers did not harvest any grapes at all in 2024. Those who did were required to sort very stringently.

Top growers, however, managed through Herculean effort to produce lovely wines.

Vincent Dauvissat says: ‘Except for the low degree [of potential alcohol], the balance is surprisingly similar to 2014.’

High praise indeed, since wines from 2014 are showing extremely well today.

The golden slope – one step from disaster

The Côte de Nuits was also gravely impacted by the weather. In an odd turnabout, the damage was more severe here than in the Côte de Beaune.

According to Yves Confuron, who makes wines in both regions, there was twice as much rain in the Côte de Nuits as in the Côte de Beaune. The constant rain made work in the vineyards difficult, and the mood among winemakers was morose.

But as Frédéric Mugnier notes: ‘You can never trust a winemaker, since [their comments] reflect their lived experience,’ as opposed to an objective evaluation of quality. Results here are mixed, but some have shone, particularly his.

Further south in the Côte de Beaune, results also varied. The hill of Corton suffered as much as the growers of the Côte de Nuits – organic-certified Domaine Chandon de Briailles blended all of its Corton lieux-dits into one wine, for example.

However, from Beaune south to Maranges, the outlook was more favourable. Yield was still low here, but less catastrophic than in the Côte de Nuits.

At Domaine Comte Armand in Pommard, general manager and winemaker Paul Zinetti says that yields were generally between 15-24 hl/ha, depending on the appellation.

Results were even more positive for Chardonnay producers. The vine flowers earlier and was thus less affected by poor weather at this point.

The skin of Chardonnay is also thicker, and therefore more resistant to mildew. Many growers here agree with the comparison between 2014 and 2024, which is positive news for growers.

Although yields are disappointingly low, the quality of the grapes can be superb, with a lemony fruit, impressive concentration and abundant fresh acidity.

The southern appellations – surprise results

Throughout my tastings of the 2024 vintage, the wines continued to improve the further south I ventured.

The red wines of the Côte Chalonnaise were among the most successful in the region, with marvellous examples from Givry and Mercurey.

The Côte Chalonnaise is a region known for value, and Burgundy lovers who taste these wines with an open mind are in for a delightful surprise. The best of them have abundant, ripe fruit balanced by firm tannic grip and a fresh, lively acidity, making them attractive for current drinking or mid-term cellaring.

Further delights await in the Mâconnais, almost exclusively devoted to Chardonnay. Here, the vintage must be considered very good to excellent.

There was less pressure from disease (particularly in the southern reaches around Pouilly-Fuissé), and the wines show ripe fruit but enough vibrant lemony notes to keep them lively on the palate. The best of these are wines that will age for a decade or more.

Throughout Burgundy, the quantity of wine available will be limited. To find excitement, Burgundy lovers will need to be very careful with their choices for regional appellations and entry-level wines, particularly in Chablis and the Côte de Nuits.

However, top producers will make wines worthy of interest. There will be some surprising value in the Côte Chalonnaise and the Mâconnais for those who seek them out, and the best of the whites should have a long life in the cellar.

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The press release of the BIVB, the region’s normally up-beat trade commission, admits: ‘Floods, excess rains, frost, hail…nothing saved the vines’.

And yet, there are glimmers of hope. The appeal is the return to the fresh, racy acidity, light body and low alcohol of previous decades.

Romain Chevrolat, winemaker at Domaine Laroche, describes the vintage as ‘old school’.

Guillaume Michaut at Domaine 47°N 3°E agrees: ‘This is a vintage our grandfathers could have made’.

Although overall quality is decidedly mixed, with little consistency between grand and premier cru to village level, lovers of vibrant, acid- and mineral-driven wines will find wines to age, since the best 2024 Chablis will improve for years to come with cellaring.

Charles’s favourite wines from Chablis 2024 listed below

Chablis 2024 vintage rating: 3.5/5

A catastrophically small harvest with problems at every turn, 2024 nonetheless produced some vibrant, ageworthy examples in the hands of the best producers. Cool, rainy conditions produced wines that are light in alcohol and body. Yet, the best wines, sustained by dynamic acidity and classic Chablis minerality, will delight fans of the Chablis of former times.

Wine of the vintage: Domaine Vincent Dauvissat, Chablis Grand Cru Les Preuses

Top Petit Chablis: Domaine 47°N 3°E, Petit Chablis

Top Chablis: Domaine Jean-Paul & Benoît Droin, Chablis

Top Chablis 1er Cru: Domaine William Fèvre, Chablis 1er Cru Vaulorent

Top Chablis Grand Cru: Domaine François Raveneau, Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos

Disaster strikes early

The catastrophically poor weather of 2024 began the winter before the growing season.

According to the cooperative La Chablisienne, the five months before budbreak from 15 October 2023 saw 50% more rain than usual (531mm versus the average 335mm).

Warm temperatures in March led to early budbreak, exposing the vines to damage from the frost that arrived between 18-25 April.

The vines sustained more significant damage, however, in the massive hailstorm that ravaged the region on 1 May, destroying or severely damaging more than one-third of Chablis’ vineyards.

Heavy rain continued through May and June, accompanied by an abrupt drop in temperature that interrupted flowering.

This interruption drew the process out to more than three weeks, causing coulure and devastating the yield.

The difficult flowering was capped by a second significant hailstorm on 29 June.

The mildew continued its invasion throughout July as the rain continued, and the month finished with another hailstorm on 31 July.

The weather was warm and dry in the first half of August, but rain reappeared in the second half of the month and periodically during the harvest.

A harvest you never want to see

Although some growers picked earlier to capitalise on the beneficent warmth of August, most waited until the middle of the third week of September.

Ripening was so uneven that the larger producers took two to three weeks to finish the task.

In the end, alcohol levels were low and acidity levels were moderate to high.

Yields varied by producer, but most reported losses of between 60% and 90% of a normal crop.

It is likely the case that, where more generous yields were reported, winemakers benefited from legally blending up to 15% of wine from the abundant 2023 vintage, as allowed under the VCI system (Volume Complémentaire Individuel).

Ten best-value wines of 2024

Domaine Jean-Paul & Benoît Droin, Chablis

Domaine Bessin-Tremblay, Chablis Vieilles Vignes

Domaine Besson, Chablis

Domaine Christian Moreau, Chablis

Domaine de l’Enclos, Chablis

Domaine William Fèvre, Chablis Domaine

Famille Gueguen, Petit Chablis

La Chablisienne, Chablis 1er cru La Grande Cuvée

Domaine 47°N 3°E, Petit Chablis

Domaine Laurent Tribut, Chablis

A diversity of problems

Although the effects of the weather were severe for everyone, various sectors were afflicted by different problems.

The hail devastated primarily the northern part of Chablis, particularly the premier cru Fourchaume on the right bank of the Serein and the area surrounding the village of La Chapelle-Vaupelteigne.

In contrast, the grand cru slopes immediately south of La Chapelle were less affected by hail but suffered more from mildew.

The same is true for the villages across the Serein on the left bank: less hail damage in the premier cru climats of Vaillons and Montmains, but more losses from mildew.

Isabelle Raveneau, of Domaine François Raveneau, describes the varied nature of the destruction: ‘We began to pick on 23 September and finished in a bit over five days. In some parcels, we were able to harvest less than 10hl/ha, and in Montmains, we did not harvest at all.

‘In Vaillons, the harvest was very small, but in Montée de Tonnerre, we managed 50% of a normal crop, and approximately one-third in Petit Chablis. The few grapes that were left were in a correct state of health, because the warm weather dried them before the harvest.

She concludes: ‘The impact on us was more due to the frost and hail than to the mildew. The sectors that were least affected included Les Forets and Montée de Tonnerre.’

Even within the contiguous seven climats on the grand cru slope, there was significant variation.

Vincent Dauvissat did not harvest any grapes in his Les Clos vineyard, but his vines in Les Preuses, less affected by mildew, yielded one of the delights of the vintage.

Didier Séguier from Domaine William Fèvre, which also has vines in Les Clos, says: ‘Normally we employ 160 pickers for 9-10 days of picking. In 2024, we hired 210 pickers for 3.5 days. We were only able to harvest 4hl/ha in Les Clos.’

However, he adapted his methods to the vintage and ultimately he notes: ‘In terms of quality, I am more or less in the camp of the optimists for this vintage.’

Producers to know

Domaine Eleni et Edouard Vocoret

Château de Béru

Domaine de l’Enclos

Domaine Laurent Tribut

Domaine 47°N 3°E

Domaine Alain et Cyril Gautheron

Domaine Bessin-Tremblay

Domaine Les Pétioles

Domaine Goisot (Saint Bris)

Domaine Colinot (Irancy)

Five tips before you buy 2024 Chablis

Chablis 2024 is a vintage that is worth buying for fans of the traditional style of taut, mineral-inflected Chablis.

Interested collectors should act quickly since quantities will be limited, but the top wines will age for years to come.

If money is no object, seek out Les Clos from Raveneau or Les Preuses from Dauvissat, both among the best wines of the vintage.

The 2024s will have more structure and punch than the wines from 2023. They are less substantial than those from 2022 but there is more minerality, and the wines will be more complete and well-rounded than those from 2021.

With a bit of luck, this is an opportunity to restock the delicious twin of the 2014 vintage which is just coming into maturity now.

Click here to see all notes on Chablis 2024

Chablis: Know your vintages

2023: A large harvest with a hot, sunny conclusion. The growing season was up and down, with abundant rain and cool temperatures, but the success of the year was decided by the hot, dry conditions that in the end delivered healthy grapes with moderate alcohol but slightly lower acidity. 4/5

2022: In retrospect, the warm, sunny conditions of 2022 edge out those of 2023. This is odd because August was too hot, causing the vines to shut down and preserve more acidity than 2023. This slightly superior freshness means the wines of 2022 will have a seductive balance and might well age better. 4.5/5

2021: The low yields and the difficult growing conditions were a constant challenge for growers. In the end, however, the lower yields and resulting concentration meant the top wines were thrillingly crisp, concentrated and powerful and will undoubtedly enjoy a long life in the cellar. 4/5

2020: A warm, easy year, the antithesis of the year that followed: the vines had everything – heat, sunshine, enough rain. The result is an approachable vintage with easy, moreish fruit aromas that will drink well young but may drop off sooner than the wines from 2019. 4/5

2019: Several heatwaves during this sunny year meant many initially felt that the wines lacked freshness. But time has shown that the wines’ intensity means they should hold well and have the structure to support their weight. 4.5/5

2018: A large harvest in a hot year produced wines with lots of body and warmth, but sometimes without the structure for long ageing. A very rewarding vintage to drink now, but few wines will survive decades in the cellar. 3/5

Charles’s top picks from Chablis 2024

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And while the folk from Beaujolais are the undeniable overlords of the nouveau party, they aren’t the only players out there dabbling in this vinous fountain of youth.

When you pull back the curtain, you realise there are people all over Europe, and even in the UK, that make their own versions of these new harvest wines.

A long history

Beaujolais Nouveau is merely the best known (modern) example of a much wider tradition of drinking brand new wines soon after harvest.

Nouveau wine, in its simplest terms, is a young wine that is bottled and released almost immediately after harvest. At times they are little more than fermenting must – such as Federweisser in Germany (known as Sturm in Austria).

In Beaujolais it is made with Gamay, which is low in tannins, using carbonic maceration – where the grape begins to ferment within the berry itself, promoting fragrant, perfumed fruit aromas. It is meant to be light in alcohol, juicy and easy going.

As Beaujolais producer Christophe Pacalet says, nouveau is ultimately an unpretentious wine that you can drink while you play pétanque.

Around France

As an inhabitant of southern France, I was intrigued to see whether this area, more famed for its heady reds, was getting on board with the style.

Jean-Philippe Padié of Domaine Padié in Roussillon has been making a nouveau wine since 2019. It was a bit of an accident; he had a plot of Syrah that went through fermentation quickly and cleanly, offering him a delicious rendition of a nouveau style.

Padié now works predominantly with the indigenous variety Lledoner Pelut, which he says gives an even lighter, crunchier wine, with a hint of something maritime from the vineyard’s coastal location.

Similarly, in the cooler northern reaches of the Loire, Joseph Mosse of Domaine Mosse makes a fuschia-coloured wine called Bang Nouveau from a blend of the pink-skinned Grolleau Gris and Gamay.

And while there is an argument that nouveau wines are best made with lighter-skinned varieties, Romain Le Bars in the Rhône Valley proves that this isn’t always the case. His dangerously drinkable Nouveau Nez cuvée is made from Cinsault, Grenache and Carignan.

Traditions old and new

Nouveau wines are popping up across France. However, there are other countries that have a deep-rooted history with this style of wine – Spain, for example.

Specifically in Rioja, where the wines are called cosecheros. Last year saw the launch of the first cosecheros tasting in London, hosted by Ben Llewelyn of UK importer Carte Blanche and writer Tim Atkin MW.

Here producers work with Tempranillo, foot crushing the grapes and using carbonic maceration. Like in Beaujolais, it is a style that is embedded in the culture, despite also falling prey to the tools of mass production such as thermovinification and commercial yeasts.

And while the Spanish perhaps don’t partake in the annual country-wide festivities, the Italians certainly do. Also released in early November, Italy’s answer is vino novello, also made with carbonic maceration and with a host of different grape varieties depending on the region.

Perhaps the most iconic in this mix is the Bardolino Novello from Veneto, which brings much joyous celebration to the shores of Lake Garda.

Sandridge Barton in Devon, UK, has been making its own nouveau wine since 1995. Spurred on by a disruption in Beaujolais supply during the outbreak of mad cow disease, they decided to try their hand at making one themselves.

Intriguingly, their nouveau was – and still is – a white made from the grape Madeleine Angevine (affectionately known as Mad Ange), chosen because it’s their earliest-ripening variety, going from vine to glass in just six weeks. This year spells their first release of a red nouveau made with Pinot Noir and carbonic maceration.

Balfour Winery has also adopted this new wave British tradition with its Essex-grown Pinot Noir Nouveau. Following the stellar conditions of the 2025 vintage, the estate’s head of wine Fergus Elias was keen to show that ‘English Pinot Noir has the ripeness, the fruit and the finesse to stand on its own’.

This is only the second vintage of nouveau, but with such excellent fruit to hand, they’ve made a wine that is ‘playful and purposeful’.

Down with the kill-joys

There are pessimists who want to put down nouveau wines simply as a marketing stunt or something to bolster cash flow. If that is indeed the case, then good on them. Hopefully everyone getting involved is making some much needed cash and shining a light on their region.

But I think it is so much more than that. As Llewelyn says, nouveau wines have historical relevance and value. In Rioja, they show the diversity of their grapes and region, they regulate supply – especially important in a place like Rioja where ageing requirements can extend up to five years – and they give affordable access to quality wines.

Isabel Fernández of Rioja’s Bodega Abeica says that these wines have been part of Rioja’s culture ‘since time immemorial’. Traditionally, they were made to be consumed within 18 months of harvest.

Her family has been making a cosechero wine for four generations, and she believes they can have good longevity and weight, so she uses a parcel of 100-year-old Tempranillo for her cuvée.

Echoing the sentiments of others I spoke to, she says that the crux of making a quality nouveau wine comes down to the quality of the fruit and the stems, especially when working with carbonic maceration and with low intervention cellar methods.

The biggest challenge facing nouveau producers? Poor quality fruit. Because in the end, the joy of nouveau – wherever it’s made – lies in its immediacy. It is a snapshot of a harvest that ultimately takes no prisoners.

Playful frivolity

From conversations with winemakers, it’s clear that these wines are moving into a realm of quality and artisanship. Climate change has brought riper grapes and earlier harvests, and as a result we’re seeing more of these wines made without manipulation – a gradual phasing out of what Jon Bonné, in The New French Wine, calls ‘industrial pop wine’.

For years, the market had grown used to nouveau wines tasting of candied banana and bubblegum – flavours I once assumed were a natural byproduct of carbonic maceration, but which in fact come from a specific yeast strain, 71B, which is no longer used to the same extent as it was in the 1980s and 1990s.

While I am a lover of Beaujolais Nouveau – especially in its newer, more natural iteration – there is even more scope for playful frivolity and experimentation in other regions and countries.

In an industry that can err on the side of stuffy and get bogged down in rules and labels, nouveau is a perfectly imperfect antidote for us to share abundantly and joyously.

Like my friends Greg Lane and Sarah Adamson of Scout Wines in New Zealand said of their Pinot x Pinot (a blend of Noir and Gris) take on a nouveau, they made it for no other reason than enjoyment, ‘to keep the house happy’.

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The year has produced wines of rare balance and elegance. It is a vintage to buy both for current drinking and to lay down for the future. The top wines from 2023 will stand the test of time, but there is also enough hedonistic fruit to ensure immediate pleasure.

Beaujolais’ top producers are today turning out ageworthy gems that are well worth discovering at prices that make even the top wines an affordable splurge.

Our expert’s picks of 2023 Beaujolais listed below

So why 2023?

Compared with the preceding year, 2023 was a cooler vintage and the grapes kept a bit more acidity.

Picking in 2023 began in the last week of August (as it did in 2022), but there was plenty of rain during the season so the wines have more freshness, even though both harvests were picked at a moderate 13.5% alcohol.

Despite tremendous heat during harvest in 2023, the phenolic maturity was not as great, and winemakers tended to use a slightly shorter time in tank.

‘One could make great wine in 2023 if the yields didn’t get ahead of you,’ says Philippe Pascal of Domaine Mont Bessay in Juliénas.

Frédéric Jametton, the partner of Côte de Nuits superstar Guillaume Rouget at the Domaine de Vernus in Régnié, says: ‘I’d drink the 2023s before the 2022s, but it will be a great vintage’.

Maxime-Henri Lafarge, Michel Lafarge’s grandson, splits his time between Volnay and the family estate in Fleurie.

‘You can enjoy these wines now, or lay them down for the future,’ he says, ‘it’s always a good moment to open them, since they do not seem to be shutting down as some hotter vintages will do.’

The 2023 growing season

A warm winter in 2023 was followed by cooler, rainy weather, but flowering took place under ideal conditions, guaranteeing a generous yield.

July and August saw alternating periods of hot and dry balanced by cool and wet. This contrasted sharply with 2022 and other ‘global warming’ vintages that had more heat spikes and less water, ensuring moderate accumulation of sugar.

The first two weeks of August were rainy, with hail on 13 August, but the sun came out to finish ripening the grapes.

The making of a classic Beaujolais

In addition to Morgon, Fleurie and Juliénas, the most successful Beaujolais crus in 2023 include Brouilly, Côte de Brouilly, St-Amour and Moulin-à-Vent, all of which produced wines that we can enjoy today and for years to come.

Many of the most complex and compelling wines come from the single-village Beaujolais crus in the northern part of Beaujolais, near the border with the southern reaches of Burgundy.

Wines here are made principally with two techniques, either semi-carbonic maceration or destemming.

In semi-carbonic maceration, winemakers who use a short maceration are looking for a fruity, forward style for easy drinking, but prolonging the maceration can deliver wines worthy of ageing in bottle.

Domaine Marcel Lapierre, for example, has macerations that last anywhere from nine to 35 days according to the desired style.

Jean-Marc Burgaud, macerates his grapes for about two weeks – depending on the vintage – before finishing the fermentation and ageing in tank to preserve a bit of reduction.

Burgaud is a great believer in the capacity of his wines to age, and believes that reduction lets them open slowly in bottle.

Burgundian influence

A very different style of wine is made by destemming some or all of the grapes prior to fermentation.

Destemming commonly gives wines that are more deeply coloured, with more prominent tannins and notable purity of fruit. This technique is often used by winemakers from Burgundy’s Côte d’Or, where the practice is common.

This is the case at Domaine Lafarge-Vial in Fleurie, founded by Frédéric Lafarge and his wife Chantal (née Vial) of Volnay. The grapes here are completely destemmed, either by hand or machine.

The fruit is given a maceration of two weeks before pressing in a vertical press and ageing in large oak uprights and used barrels of 228L and 350L for 14 months before bottling.

A hybrid technique is used by Guillaume Marko, technical director of Domaine du Cellier aux Moines in Givry and partner (with Philippe Pascal) in Domaine Mont Bessay in Juliénas.

At Domaine Mont Bessay the grapes from old vines are fermented largely as whole bunches and those from the younger vines are partially destemmed.

Pascal also believes in the ageability of Beaujolais: ‘Great Gamay needs long ageing, just like great Burgundy’.

Savvy wine lovers should without doubt snap up some of the top Beaujolais from 2023. The wines are delicious now and will hold for the future, too.

What’s more, much less wine was produced in 2024, so now’s your chance to stock up while the 2023s are still on the market.

Three Beaujolais 2023 drinking well now

Domaine des Pierres Roses, Vieilles Vignes, Moulin à Vent 2023 – 92 points

Pierre Roses is the Beaujolais project of Nuits-St-Georges superstar Thibault Liger-Belair. His ‘entry-level’ bottling is truly superb, boasting ripe, fleshy black plum and fig fruit enlivened by hints of earth and a salty minerality. The texture is dense but approachable. The wine is produced from old vines from the north-facing slopes, giving a wine with structure and freshness, with enough bright fruit to reward immediate drinking.

Domaine Laurent Gauthier, Beaujolais Villages 2023 – 91 points

Morgon-based Laurent Gauthier produces a beguiling Beaujolais Villages by blending fruit from two Beaujolais crus: 80% Morgon and 20% Chiroubles. The result has a lovely, lilting raspberry fruit aroma with a floral edge and a hint of spice. The texture is approachable and fresh but not overly fruity. This is a perfect wine to pair with traditional French bistrot classics, any night of the week.

Bret Brothers, Poncié, Fleurie 2023 – 92 points

The approachable, plummy fruit aromas of this single-vineyard Fleurie are accented with notes of fresh flowers and liquorice. The texture has a plump density but there is enough finesse to give this a moreish balance that calls for a second glass. The grapes are from the steep, southwest-facing slopes and pink granite soils of Poncié; they are fermented as whole bunches and given a fairly short maceration before ageing in used barrels.

Top picks from Beaujolais 2023:

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Instead, wine tourism in Beaujolais is, to say the least, underdeveloped. Despite the willingness of many of the region’s best domaines to fling their doors open wide and welcome visitors, tasting rooms remain relatively quiet.

Having spent substantial periods in Beaujolais researching my recently published book, The Wines of Beaujolais, I have to say that I think you’re all missing a trick. Leaving aside the warm welcome extended by producers in Beaujolais, there are plenty of other reasons to tempt wine lovers to visit the area.

To begin with, there’s the sheer natural beauty of the vineyards. The location of Beaujolais, lying between the Massif Central on its western side and the Alps over to the east, has given rise to an undulating landscape that affords new views every time you turn a corner.

Perching on slopes or nestling in valleys, small villages are built out of local stone – pink granite and blue diorite in the crus in the region’s northern section, and orange-tinged limestone in the south.

In addition to aesthetic pleasures, you’ll find hedonistic ones, too. The region’s wines are on the up: quality is high and the range of styles made from Gamay, the hallmark Beaujolais grape, is surprisingly diverse. Even so, prices remain resolutely affordable.

Good wine goes hand in hand with great gastronomy, of course, and the restaurant scene in Beaujolais has recently rediscovered its mojo.

Visitors can look forward to tucking into Michelin-starred meals, as well as hearty country cuisine. All of this bounty is packed into a tiny region that measures just over 70km in length, and – at most – 20km from east to west.

Most of the visitable wineries are located in the crus and it’s rare to have to drive more than 15 minutes from one tasting to the next. Some wineries are even within easy walking distance of each other.

The 10 Beaujolais crus

Some better known than others, there are 10 individual, named appellations in the Beaujolais region where the highest-quality wines are produced. Running in a roughly contiguous line north to south, between the villages of Chânes and St-Etienne-la-Varenne, they are:

St-Amour | Juliénas | Chénas | Moulin-à-Vent | Fleurie | Chiroubles | Morgon | Régnié | Brouilly | Côte de Brouilly

Jump to: Beaujolais map | Where to eat and drink | Wineries to visit

Where to stay in Beaujolais

One of the key reasons that Beaujolais has remained off most travellers’ radars is perhaps that, until recently, high-quality accommodation was in fairly short supply.

The region has gîtes, but most are targeted at large groups celebrating weddings or family reunions, with the emphasis placed on modest pricing rather than modern comforts. But there’s a new(ish) generation of boutique hotels and chambres d’hôtes opening that cater to a more discriminating clientele.

The Auberge de Clochemerle, named after a popular comic novel that celebrates life in a small French village, is one of the region’s more established hotels. Situated in the southern reaches of the Beaujolais Villages zone, a little southwest of St-Etienne-la-Varenne, it makes a great base from which to explore both the crus and the southern Beaujolais AP region.

If your focus is largely on exploring the crus, you may be best off based at Auberge du Paradis, situated at the northern tip of Beaujolais in the pretty village of St-Amour-Bellevue, just over the border from the Mâconnais in southern Burgundy.

It’s slightly more modern in decor than Clochemerle, but equally old-fashioned when it comes to extending a warm welcome to guests, and the sumptuous breakfast certainly gets a day’s tasting off to a good start.

If you want to be further south, though, you might want to book a night or two at the Maison de Pagneux, one of the new breed of luxury chambres d’hôtes springing up in the region.

This splendid stone-built house is situated on the outskirts of the village of Lachassagne, whose ochre-hued pierre dorée limestone buildings are characteristic of southern Beaujolais. The house boasts three well-appointed guest bedrooms, each with an en-suite bathroom. The young couple who run this B&B are both talented cooks, so the table d’hôte (a seasonally changing set menu) comes highly recommended.

A final option for anyone planning a longer stay is to rent a gîte. Steer clear of the old-school, party-focused accommodation and book one of the five self-catering suites at La Maison du Village in Romanèche-Thorins.

The comfortable apartments are housed in a building above the wine bar La Mine, and although the village itself lacks much in the way of nightlife, it makes a good central base from which to explore Beaujolais’ charms.

Getting around Beaujolais

It’s worth noting that, wherever you choose to stay, nothing is very far away in Beaujolais. The driving time from the Auberge du Paradis, which overlooks some of the region’s most northerly vineyards, to the Maison de Pagneux in the far south is around 40 minutes – and from there it’s only another 40 minutes’ drive to the heart of Lyon, France’s third-most populous city.

Where to eat and drink in Beaujolais

When it comes to finding great places to eat and drink in Beaujolais, gourmands and gourmets alike are spoiled for choice.

Maison du Cru

If you just fancy a glass of Chiroubles and a bird’s-eye view, stop off at the appellation’s high-altitude Maison du Cru, whose terrace perched at 740m affords spectacular panoramas of vineyards and wooded hillsides, and whose wine shop offers a range of some of the cru’s best bottlings.

XVIII sur Vins

You get less of a view at XVIII sur Vins (Instagram: @xviii_sur_vins), a wine bar in Belleville-en-Beaujolais, but you do get a broader selection of wines to drink sur place or to take away, along with good-sized portions of charcuterie, cheese and salads.

Epicerie Saint-Etienne des Oullières

The equally informal Epicerie Saint-Etienne des Oullières (Instagram: @epiceriedubojo) is a small village shop on the main drag in St-Etienne-des-Oullières that sells groceries and locally produced wines, and doubles up as a bistro at lunchtime and on Friday evenings. The menu changes with the seasons and there’s always something on offer for vegetarians (not always the case in rural France).

La Mine

La Mine, a lively wine bar, is located on the ground floor beneath Romanèche-Thorin’s Maison du Village gîte. It’s only open Thursdays to Saturdays, but is always buzzing, with plenty to do thanks to an evolving program of live music, tutored tastings and other activities.

Auberge du Paradis

The Auberge du Paradis in St-Amour-Bellevue has two restaurants. The fancier one, Lucienne Fait des Siennes (named in honour of the chef’s dog), has to be one of the world’s most idiosyncratically named establishments. I favour the more relaxed Joséphine à Table, the Platonic ideal of a French village bistro, complete with a stunning – and copious – dish of poulet au vin jaune with morels, my regular order.

Les Moblots

The wine list is particularly notable – and great value, too. I’m also extremely fond of Les Moblots in St-Julien, northwest of Villefranche-sur-Saône, a bustling village bistro that serves as a canteen to many of the winemakers based nearby. A strong wine list complements a short menu of light, modern takes on classic French cuisine.

Café Terroir Chez Saint-Cyr

Further south, the Café Terroir Chez Saint-Cyr just west of Anse is, as the name suggests, based at the Saint-Cyr winery. It’s the perfect place to take a break from a day’s tasting and enjoy a light lunch with a view out over the vineyards, accompanied by one of the bottles produced at the winery or by one of Raphaël Saint-Cyr’s many friends.

Beurre Noisette

Staying in the southern part of Beaujolais, Beurre Noisette in Lucenay offers a refined, creative, veggie-friendly menu and an interesting, varied wine list sourced from many of the region’s best producers, as well as from further afield.

Ema

You’ll find similarly smart restaurants further north in Beaujolais, of course. Ema is perched high on a hillside that faces west, towards the forested slopes of the Beaujolais Vert. The restaurant’s terrace is the ideal spot for a long, lazy summer lunch chosen from a short but precise, carefully plated menu and an extensive wine list.

Auberge de Clochemerle

Beaujolais has two Michelin-starred restaurants. The one housed on the ground floor of the Auberge de Clochemerle recently regained its star thanks to the understated elegance of its food.

The basic ‘M’ menu looks as if it only offers three courses. Don’t be fooled. The parade of pre-prandial snacks and a generous procession of petit fours means you should count on eating far more than you might imagine. The wine list is compendious, as is the norm at this level of service.

Auberge du Cep

There’s an equally weighty wine list at Fleurie’s Auberge du Cep, which offers a combination of classic French cuisine, and the best of regional and seasonal ingredients.

You can splash out on a nine-course menu (10 if you’re really hungry and tuck into an additional slice of the Auberge’s signature pâté en croute), but canny guests opt for the lunchtime menu du marché, which offers two courses for €35 or three for €40.

Wineries to visit in Beaujolais: 14 of the best

If you’ve come to stay in Beaujolais, you’re here for the wine, right? Many of the region’s best producers are happy to welcome visitors, although almost all of them prefer you to make an appointment beforehand rather than just pitching up on spec.

In many cases, the small scale of the operation means that you may well find yourself tasting in the company of the person who grows the grapes and makes the wines.

Château du Moulin-à-Vent

The Château du Moulin-à-Vent, just along the road from the famous windmill itself, is among the cru’s foremost producers. The single-vineyard wines are benchmark examples.

Domaine Richard Rottiers

Based in the same appellation, Domaine Richard Rottiers offers an informal tasting of Rottiers’ elegant cuvées.

Domaine David-Beaupère

The tasting room at Domaine David-Beaupère overlooks the steep vineyards of Juliénas, giving visitors a greater appreciation of the amount of hard work that goes into the creation of the domaine’s dense, dark wines.

Domaine de la Madone

Perched on a hillside beneath Fleurie’s famous landmark chapel, Domaine de la Madone offers one of the slickest visitor tasting experiences in the region. Tour the vineyards and winery, discover the secrets of winemaking and learn about Fleurie’s prized terroir, concluding with a guided tasting of the domaine’s wines.

Domaine de la Grosse Pierre

At Domaine de la Grosse Pierre in Chiroubles, Pauline Passot crafts some of the cru’s most refined, elegant cuvées.

Domaine Mee Godard