White Burgundy. Chardonnay in all its glory.

Climats, monks and the Cru pyramid

Burgundy runs through eastern France from Auxerre in the north to Mâcon in the south. Monks in the Middle Ages noticed how soil and position changed a wine's character and divided the slopes into small plots called climats. Later, Napoleonic inheritance law split these plots among heirs, which is why there are thousands of producers today.

Burgundy has 84 appellations on four quality levels. At the base are regional wines labeled Bourgogne, such as Bourgogne Blanc. Next are Village wines, named after their commune. Premiers Crus add a vineyard name to the village. Grands Crus are the elite sites, and their names stand alone without the village. Unlike Bordeaux, where status follows the producer, Burgundy's ranking is about the specific site.

Chablis: Chardonnay on ancient seabeds

Isolated in the northwest, Chablis is cooler and closer to Champagne and Sancerre than to Beaune. Its Kimmeridgian and Portlandian soils are packed with fossil oyster shells. Christy Canterbury MW and Marc Almert, Best Sommelier of the World 2019, show an ammonite and a piece of exogyra virgula limestone. There is one Chablis Grand Cru appellation, divided into seven named climats east of the town, overlooking the Serein river. Grand Cru Chablis is intense and concentrated, with crisp acidity and distinct mineral flavors, and can age for 20 years or more. Marc also explains why a round, wide glass helps Chardonnay and Pinot Noir breathe.

The hosts compare a village Chablis with Bougros Grand Cru from Château de Chemilly. Learn the French tasting term caudalie, a measure of how long flavor lasts after swallowing, and see why snails with hazelnuts and crème fraîche suit the richer, lightly oaked wine.

The Côte de Beaune: Puligny, Chassagne and Meursault

The Côte d'Or splits into the mostly red Côte de Nuits and the Côte de Beaune, the heartland of white Burgundy. On its limestone slopes, flat land gives Bourgogne Blanc, the lower slope village wines, and the stonier mid-slope the Premiers and Grands Crus. Corton-Charlemagne, near the border with the Côte de Nuits, makes some of the most mineral whites in the world.

Puligny-Montrachet tends toward refined, long-lived wines, while Chassagne-Montrachet is often weightier and fruitier; the two share Montrachet and Bâtard-Montrachet. Meursault, surprisingly without a Grand Cru, is the most opulent style, rich and nutty.

Côte Chalonnaise and the Mâconnais

For better value, look to the Côte Chalonnaise villages of Rully, Mercurey, Givry and Montagny. Bouzeron is the exception, making white wine from Aligoté, the grape originally used in the Kir, named after Félix Kir, a former mayor of Dijon. Marc pours one to show that serious Aligoté deserves better than crème de cassis.

The warmer Mâconnais gives riper Chardonnay with stone fruit and honeysuckle. Its star, Pouilly-Fuissé, received its first Premiers Crus with the 2020 vintage. Do not confuse it with Pouilly-Fumé in the Loire. Saint-Véran sits on either side of the dramatic Solutré hills.

The malolactic experiment, pairings and blind tasting

Why do so many white Burgundies taste creamy? Part of the answer is malolactic fermentation, a bacterial process that turns tart malic acid, like that of green apples, into softer lactic acid. To show it, the hosts make yogurt from milk in a decanter, and Marc explains why Chasselas usually goes through it in Switzerland but not in Germany.

Christy then tastes a wine blind and Marc offers a joker: four bags of real Burgundy soil, one of which matches the wine. See how she reasons through acidity, oak and length. A mackerel rillette on puff pastry closes the episode, tasted against two very different Chardonnays.