Even a Riesling lover like me will readily concede that the greatest white wines in the world are white Burgundies, more specifically those from the grand cru vineyards of France's Côte de Beaune. If you don't believe me, pick up a 1995 or a 1996 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Montrachet, available in retail outlets. You'll find them tasty, I guarantee. You'll also find them for about $5,000 a bottle.
It's not the majesty of the grapes vinified for these wines that make them unrivaled. The grapes are Chardonnay, which we've all drunk. Chardonnay is easily grown everywhere, although most of what Americans consume comes from California, and we think it's pretty good. A little boring, but good. Chardonnay is mindlessly appreciated by a majority of American wine-drinkers. It's reflexively vilified by a majority of American wine experts—when it's not from those remarkable vineyards in France.
Standing alone, undisguised, Chardonnay is a bland grape, relatively punchless, easily manipulated by winemakers. It's productive enough that mediocre bottlings can be made inexpensively. Maybe we like it because it has human attributes. When life is too easy, it grows fat and lazy.
But it has certain qualities that make it capable of greatness. Because it is essentially subtle, it picks up flavors from the soil and the earth—few other grapes are so influenced by the concept of terroir, the French word for sense of place. It reacts well to coddling. It's willing to improve. It's a swell learner. When challenged, it rises to the occasion. The best white Burgundies are spare, concentrated, focused and noble.
What's significant to me is that the overall region where white Burgundies are produced doesn't just encompass the famous vineyard sites of Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet, and Chassagne-Montrachet. There are vineyards throughout the Côte de Beaune and farther south that produce genuine white Burgundy that can be sold for modest prices—well, in the double-digits, at least.
I gathered up about three dozen bottles to taste. A great many came from the Mâconnais and the Côte Chalonnaise, two of those southerly areas. What they have going for them is limestone soil similar to that found in the famous villages. I also tasted the most basic, least-expensive wines from Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet, and Chassagne-Montrachet, those that are called "village wines" because they are made from blends of wines from the least prestigious sites within the villages.
My goal was to see if any of them could match, or even approach, the taste of wonderful white Burgundy. At their best, the great ones have power that comes not from new oak, as is commonplace in California, but from the stress of growing on starving vines. They are austere, rather than fat, dry rather than sweet, and yet they have enormous intensity. They have minerality, sometimes nuttiness. In certain years, they are honeyed, which not everyone likes, but I do. They are restrained and understated, yet profound. They are even a touch oaky—French winemakers, unlike American winemakers, use new oak to balance, not prop-up, their Chardonnays. They can age, which even the best California Chardonnays rarely do well. (One friend of mine calls California Chardonnay "the inbred cousin of real Chardonnay.")
How can I even suggest that white Burgundy bottlings from lesser regions can be anywhere close to the greats? Because anything is possible in good vintage years, and because I always remember something one of the greatest of the white Burgundy producers, Vincent Leflaive of Domaine Leflaive told me, when I visited him at his estate nearly two decades ago. He said, "You know, white wine is very easy to make."
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