Mâconnais: Value heroes of Burgundy plus the 20 wines to seek out

Despite it’s clear value offer, one issue for the Mâconnais has been that the region is not as straightforward to understand as the Côte d’Or.

Rather than one majestic, uninterrupted slope, the vineyards of the Mâconnais are scattered among the hilly country between the former Gallo-Roman strongholds of Tournus and Mâcon.

A series of ridges that run roughly north to south along the Saône river are known as the Monts du Mâconnais.

These limestone and sandstone hills, over a bedrock of granite, are protected in the west by the hills of the Charolais and to the south by those of Beaujolais and represent the last trace of Burgundy’s limestone before the granite of Beaujolais begins to dominate.

Scroll down to see notes and scores for 20 superb Mâconnais wines

A second issue for years in the Mâconnais was the lack of high-profile leaders.

Since the Great Depression, the region has been associated more with quantity than quality. Despite this undeserved stereotype, there have long been growers doing superb work in the Mâconnais, although their efforts languished for lack of a superstar ‘name’.

Fortunately, this has begun to change. Driven by spiralling costs, top growers from the Côte d’Or have expanded their holdings here, including Puligny’s Domaine Leflaive and Meursault’s Domaine des Comtes Lafon.

Finally, the region is beginning to receive the attention it merits. The quality on offer today should compel any thirsty wine lover to explore this scenic country.

Mâconnais white wine appellations at a glance

Mâcon

Appellation founded 1937

Vineyard area 3,768 ha

78ha in Mâcon (spread over 96 communes)

2,043ha in Mâcon-Villages (spread over 83 communes)

1,648ha in Mâcon’s named villages (spread over 72 villages grouped together under 27 village names)

Average harvest 5,0222 hl/ha

Pouilly-Vinzelles

Appellation founded 1940

Vineyard area 67ha

Average harvest 3,057 hl/ha

Pouilly-Loché

Appellation founded 1940

Vineyard area 34ha

Average harvest 1,1811 hl/ha

Saint-Véran

Appellation founded 1971

Villages Chânes, Chasselas, Davayé, Leynes, Prissé, Saint-Amour-Bellevue, Saint-Verand, Solutré-Pouilly

Vineyard area 743ha

Average harvest 42,518 hl/ha

Viré-Clessé

Appellation founded 1999

Villages Clessé, Laizé, Monellet, Viré

Vineyard area 437ha

Average harvest 26,305 hl/ha

In 1936, when other appellations were being awarded official stature as appellation d’origine contrôlée, the only village-level appellation created here was for Pouilly-Fuissé, and much of the Mâconnais were lumped together in an undifferentiated mass.

The renowned appellation of Pouilly-Fuissé includes the villages of Fuissé, Pouilly, Solutré-Pouilly, Vergisson and Chaintré. However, only what were considered the best plots in these villages were included in the appellation.

The other vines, notably at higher elevations and with north- and west-facing slopes, are included only at the semi-regional Mâcon-Villages level. Among these putatively lower-ranking vineyards are cooler sites that, during the scorching summers of our warming global climate, may be the most successful of all.

The sister areas of Pouilly-Vinzelles and Pouilly-Loché were recognised in 1940. They are located due north of Chaintré and east of the villages of Pouilly and Fuissé. At the outset of the present appellation system, everything other than Pouilly-Fuissé was simply sold with the regional Mâcon or Mâcon-Villages label.

The names to know

Domaine Leflaive

In 2003, the Leflaive family acquired five parcels totalling almost 17ha in Verzé. The estate’s biodynamic grape-growing is overseen by family member Paul de Noüe, and Pierre Vincent makes the wines alongside those in Puligny.

The team from Puligny take a hands-on approach and deliver the same world-class results here that they obtain in the Côte d’Or. Over time, the family has acquired or leased additional vineyards in Pouilly-Fuissé, Saint-Véran and Mâcon-Solutré.

Although the wines from Verzé are vinified in a combination of stainless steel and concrete vats, with a small proportion of casks, those from Pouilly-Fuissé are given the same treatment as the wines from Puligny-Montrachet.

Heritiers du Comte Lafon

Although Dominique Lafon is a legend in the Côte d’Or, his reach extends far beyond the borders of Meursault.

Lafon has made a long-standing commitment to the wines of the Mâconnais that is continued today by his daughter Léa and nephew Pierre.

In 1999, Lafon began to purchase property on the outskirts of Mâcon in the commune of Milly-Lamartine, and today the estate farms a total of 26ha including the prized 1.5ha Clos du Four.

Other notable sites include Mâcon-Uchizy Les Maranches, planted in east-facing clay and limestone soils with a large proportion of the aromatic Chardonnay Muscaté clone; Mâcon-Bussières Le Monsard at the base of the slope in thin, rocky soils and Mâcon-Chardonnay Clos de la Crochette, a south-facing clos of nearly 3ha.

As in the Côte d’Or, the vineyards here are certified organic and biodynamic, and the wines are fermented in large, primarily neutral casks on native yeasts, although the wines are not aged as long as those from Meursault.

Domaine Guffens-Heynen & Verget

Jean-Marie Guffens moved from Belgium to the Mâconnais in the 1970s with his wife Maine (née Heynen). He established Domaine Guffens-Heynen in the early 1980s and quickly began to garner notice for his showy wines and unique sense of personal style.

Occasionally provocative, he says what is on his mind: ‘Our house style is vertical but very ripe. We detest wines with exaggeratedly low pH. Oak is not the problem – it’s not that some wines are not over-oaked; they are under-wined. Terroir is one thing, but not the only thing; in the Mâconnais, we are the creators of free wine.’

Behind his style, however, there is great substance and a deep understanding of winemaking. His priorities are to limit yields and pick at full ripeness.

The grapes are pressed slowly in an old, vertical Coquard press and the must is fermented with a high degree of solids – it is almost not settled at all before fermentation.

The first pressing is fermented in cask and the rest in tank. In 1990, Guffens set up his negociant firm Maison Verget with fellow Belgian Jean Rijckaert, and is now assisted by Julien Desplantes. The first vineyard was in Pierreclos; the winery in nearby Sologny.

Bret Brothers & Domaine de la Soufrandière

Jean-Guillaume and Jean-Philippe Bret are third-generation vignerons based in Vinzelles.

The family’s vines had been tended by sharecroppers selling the grapes to the local cooperative until the brothers arrived in 2000. They quickly pursued organic and biodynamic certification, which they achieved in 2006.

Today the estate totals 12ha, spread between Vinzelles, St.-Véran, Pouilly-Fuissé and Beaujolais, all bottled under the Domaine de la Soufrandière label.

Shortly after taking over the family estate, the brothers established a negociant business under the Bret Brothers label. For Bret Brothers, they purchase grapes exclusively, which their teams harvest themselves.

The grapes for the domaine and negociant labels are picked by hand, gently crushed and slowly pressed before fermentation in used casks on natural yeasts. Most age for 11 months, although the top cuvées are given an additional six months of ageing.

Sulphur levels are uniformly very low, and some cuvées see no sulphur. The brothers are also experimenting with using concrete eggs as fermentation vessels.

Domaine des Vignes du Maynes

Domaine des Vignes du Maynes extends over 7ha in the village of Cruzille. It is a legend in the world of ‘natural’ wine lovers.

The vineyard was founded by Benedictine monks from the Abbaye de Cluny in the Middle Ages. The estate passed from the monks to the lords of Cruzille and through several other hands until its modern incarnation.

In 1952, the property was purchased by Pierre Guillot, whose grandson Julien heads up the operation today. He relates that his grandfather and father both eschewed modern agrochemicals, and when he took over from his father in 2001 he converted the estate to biodynamic production.

The vineyards are planted with Pinot Noir, Gamay and Chardonnay. Sometimes (as in the Cuvée 910), all three are blended together, but for me, the Mâcon-Cruzille Aragonite, produced from old massal-selection Chardonnay vines, delivers the wine most worthy of ageing.

Domaine Rijckaert

‘There is no dogma,’ according to Florent Rouve. ‘I adore freshness, and everything must come from the grapes, although I am not a ”naturist”.’

Rouve is the adept of Jean Rijckaert, who was the original collaborator with Jean-Marie Guffens at Maison Verget from 1990. In 1998, Rijkaert formed his own domaine, purchasing vines in Viré-Clessé and the Jura, and today the property covers 10ha.

In 2013, Rijkaert began to hand over control to Rouve who directs operations from his base in Davayé in a space he shares with the Domaine des Deux Roches.

Rouve picks everything by hand and slowly presses whole clusters without sulphur. He believes that the essence of the work is at the press, and he does not use the juice produced at the end of the press cycle when the pH begins to climb.

Although the estate is not certified organic, the work in the vineyard is done along organic lines, tilling the soil and eschewing synthetic chemicals. The result is a range of wines of great purity and expression.

Domaine des Deux Roches

The roots of Deux Roches go back to the 1920s when Joanny Collovray settled in Davayé and began to work as a sharecropper; his son and grandson Christian expanded the family holdings, changing from polyculture to growing grapes exclusively which they sold to negociants.

He and his childhood friend Jean-Luc Terrier married two sisters, and the couples began to produce and bottle their own wine in 1986.

They were joined by their children Julien Collovray (in 2009) and Pierre-Alexis Terrier (in 2019), and over time, the family holdings have expanded to 80ha and an average annual production of 700,000 bottles. Approximately one-fifth of this is from purchased fruit, and the balance is from their own vines.

They produce a line of blended wines called Tradition which are fermented in tank, as well as more vineyard-specific bottlings that are picked by hand and fermented in cask.

The entire property is in the last year of organic conversion, and the first organic-labelled bottles will be from the 2023 vintage.

Thévenet-Quintaine

Grapes have been grown on this estate for centuries, which totals 15ha today. Gautier Thévenet is following in the footsteps of his father, Jean, who is still very much in evidence.

Jean Thévenet was one of the early promoters of organic viticulture in this region, and the vines have been certified organic since 2006. Somewhat confusingly, two labels are produced in Quintaine – Domaine Emilian Gillet (from the northern part of the appellation) and the original nucleus of Domaine de la Bongran. There is also a third label, Domaine de Roally, whose vines are in the village of Viré, where there is more limestone in the soil.

In contrast, Bongran/Gillet has more clay, and there is a particular type of marl that comes to the surface in the village of Quintaine that gives rise to the particularly characterful, rich wines called Levrouté and Botrytis.

Levrouté is an off-dry style with 8–18 grams of residual sugar and is made from late-harvest grapes. There is also a botrytis cuvée (rarely produced), where noble rot delivers a dessert wine with approximately 100 grams of residual sugar.

Jean Thévenet long made these sweeter styles, but when the Viré-Clessé appellation was codified in 1998, they were explicitly excluded and were not part of the appellation until 2002.

Everything is done in tank at these estates, with no wood used. The wines see a maturation of up to 18 months in tank and further ageing in the bottle.

Domaine Merlin, La Roche Vineuse

Olivier Merlin founded his eponymous domaine with wife Corinne in 1987 in the village of La Roche Vineuse following wine school in Beaune and apprenticeships in the Jura and California.

The couple took over the 4.5ha of vineyards of the 200-year-old Domaine du Vieux Saint-Sorlin and today the domaine stretches over 22ha, including property in La Roche Vineuse, Saint-Véran, Moulin à Vent, Pouilly-Fuissé and Viré-Clessé.

Merlin produces 170,000 bottles each year over a range of 17 appellations. In 2012, the Merlin family began a joint venture with Dominique Lafon when they acquired the Château des Quarts in Chaintré (Pouilly-Fuissé).

From the beginning, Merlin has tilled the soil and has avoided chemical inputs, although they are not certified organic.

The grapes are picked by hand, pressed as whole clusters and mainly fermented in cask. Olivier and Corinne are today assisted by their sons Paul and Theo, who have returned after their studies and international apprenticeships, and who have also acquired their own vineyards in Pouilly-Fuissé.

Another appellation, Saint-Véran, clusters around the nucleus of Pouilly-Fuissé. It is an appellation cut in two. One half includes parts of four villages (Chasselas, Leynes, Chânes and St-Vérand) southwest of Pouilly-Fuissé.

These vines often produce sunny, straightforward wines from mixed soils. The other half of the appellation produces some superb wines from Davayé, Prissé, and parts of Solutré-Pouilly on soils with more limestone. Davayé in particular has a fascinating terroir—one grower told me, ‘The best Pouilly-Fuissé that never existed is in Davayé’. Saint-Véran had to wait until 1971 to receive official recognition.

These appellations are all clustered at the southern end of the Mâconnais. The villates to the north are classified in three ways: Mâcon, Mâcon-Villages, and Mâcon with the name of a specific village (in ascending order of quality). This last appellation often produces interesting wines now garnering their own acclaim. The villages just north of St.-Véran include La Roche Vineuse, Milly-Lamartine, Pierreclos, Verzé, and Igé, all of which are increasingly well-known.

In the middle of the Monts du Mâconnais are the villages of Viré and Clessé, which were combined and promoted to village appellation status in 1998. The style of Viré-Clessé is usually very rich; in 2018, regulations officially sanctioned a traditional demi-sec style with 4–8 g/l of residual sugar and a version called ‘Levrouté’ that has 8–18 g/l.

At the northern limit of the Mâconnâis there is another cluster of villages that includes Uchizy, Chardonnay and Cruzille, where Benedictine monks built a walled clos a millennia ago that still produces today as the Clos des Vignes du Maynes.

The monks of the nearby Cluny Abbey knew better than to ignore the potential of the vineyards of the Mâconnais. From their time forward, winemaking flourished, and the region’s whites were drunk at the court of Louis XIV. It seems certain that Leflaive, Lafon and the other champions of the Mâconnais will restore this worthy region to its rightful place.

Mâconnais wines to seek out: top 20 bottles

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