Drinking wine at the site it was made.
There are wine lessons you learn from books, wine classes and tasting notes, and then there are the ones you learn standing at a particular spot in Burgundy, looking out over the vineyards while someone explains that moving just a few metres can take you from one appellation to another, and from a wine you might find for under forty dollars to one that could cost hundreds.
Recently we were standing at a famous four-way crossroads in Puligny-Montrachet with Sarah Bird of Detours in France, our guide and translator of all things Burgundy. Sarah has a knack for taking something that can seem almost impossibly complicated—climats, Premier Crus, Grand Crus, soil and geology—and making it remarkably easy to understand.
The incomparable Sarah Bird.
Her explanation began with one of Burgundy’s most important concepts: terroir. “Here, the best work of the winemaker is to let the terroir speak,” Sarah explained. The idea is to avoid obscuring what the grapes are getting from the land and allow the vineyard to express itself.
Chardonnay, she explained, is almost the perfect vehicle for that. “Whatever you do to Chardonnay, it shows it off.”
It’s an extraordinarily adaptable grape. Give it new oak and it will reveal the oak; give it lees ageing, malolactic fermentation or extended time in barrel and those influences will show, too. But plant it in an exceptional piece of Burgundy and allow the vineyard to lead, and Chardonnay becomes one of the world’s great interpreters of place.
Puligny-Montrachet.
Few places demonstrate that better than Puligny-Montrachet. What makes this particular crossroads so fascinating is how dramatically the classification changes within such a tiny distance. We were standing in village-level Puligny-Montrachet, but only a few metres away was the Premier Cru Les Pucelles. A few metres farther and we were looking at the Grand Cru Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet.
Three wines: same grape, same vintage, same general landscape.
Same general landscape, same grape variety, and, with the wines we tasted that day, the same vintage. Yet the difference in classification (and therefore often in price) is enormous. Sarah pointed out that you could be looking at wines costing around $35 at one end of the spectrum and hundreds of dollars at the other, with only a few metres separating the vineyards.
It’s one thing to read about Burgundy’s famously precise vineyard boundaries. It’s another to stand there and see them.
That, Sarah explained, is the magic of Burgundy. These boundaries aren’t simply lines on a map designed to make the wine hierarchy more complicated. They reflect generations of observation and experience about the land, its soils, exposure and ability to produce wines with different characteristics.
Puligny-Montrachet produces less than 1% red wine.
Puligny-Montrachet is now almost synonymous with great white Burgundy, although the village historically produced considerably more red wine than it does today. Over time, however, the reputation of its Chardonnay grew, and the economics followed.
As demand for great white Burgundy increased, vineyards that once contained Pinot Noir were increasingly replanted with Chardonnay. In a place where Chardonnay can command extraordinary prices, the financial incentive is hard to ignore.
Today, Puligny-Montrachet is a mecca for lovers of white Burgundy and home to some of the world’s most prestigious white wines. The geography helps explain why. The Côte de Beaune is home to Burgundy’s white Grand Crus, with the notable exception of Corton-Charlemagne on Corton Hill. The Côte de Nuits, meanwhile, contains almost all of Burgundy’s red Grand Crus, with Corton the important exception.
Corton Hill in Burgundy.
Around Puligny-Montrachet and neighbouring Chassagne-Montrachet, the concentration of celebrated white Grand Crus is extraordinary. Even more fascinating is the way some of these vineyards are divided between the two villages.
Le Montrachet, arguably the most famous and expensive of the white Grand Crus, is shared between Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet. So is Bâtard-Montrachet. Others belong exclusively to one village or the other, including Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet in Chassagne and Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet in Puligny.
Our favourite type of wine school.
If that sounds confusing, Sarah had a much more entertaining way of explaining it. According to the colourful story Sarah shared with us, the Grand Crus can be imagined as characters in a medieval family saga.
At the top of the hierarchy is Le Montrachet, the seigneur of Puligny-Montrachet. As the nobleman in charge, he owns the land, looks after his castles, collects taxes and generally occupies the highest rung of the local hierarchy. Like many a medieval nobleman, however, he apparently has a weakness for the ladies.
Fall vineyard views in Burgundy.
Next door are Les Demoiselles, the pretty young ladies. They are happy to enjoy themselves, and the seigneur is more than willing to oblige. Nearby, however, are Les Pucelles, the young maidens, who are rather more chaste.
According to the story, eventually Le Montrachet manages to win over one of the Pucelles, and the relationship produces a child. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the child is a bastard, hence Bâtard-Montrachet.
A strong sense of place.
Le Montrachet’s wife is understandably furious, and the child is sent away from Puligny-Montrachet. The bastard son grows up, becomes a knight and distinguishes himself through great deeds and victories, earning the name Chevalier-Montrachet, the knight of Montrachet.
Eventually, he decides to return home and show his father what he has accomplished. He arrives at the castle and calls out to announce his return. The story associates this dramatic homecoming with Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet, before his father finally welcomes him home with Bienvenue-Bâtard-Montrachet.
In Burgundy, all signs point to great wine.
It’s a wonderfully entertaining way to remember a collection of vineyard names that can otherwise feel like an exam in Burgundy geography. Suddenly, they have personalities: a seigneur, some pretty ladies, a chaste maiden, a bastard son and a returning knight.
After Sarah’s crash course in Burgundy geography and vineyard mythology, we tasted three wines, all from the 2020 vintage. Another interesting connection was the farming: all three producers are working with organic and biodynamic practices, reflecting the increasing focus among Burgundy growers on soil health and the vitality of the vineyard.
One of the wines came from Félix Helix, a relatively young project established in 2017. The name is a playful reference to its winemaker, Alexi, combining felix, Latin for “happy,” with helix and its whimsical nod to the snail.
The project may be young, but the family’s connection to Burgundy is not. Alexi’s parents own the Premier Cru represented by our third wine, from Domaine du Cellier aux Moines, which they purchased in 2004.
The most famous vineyard of them all.
That connection felt particularly fitting after everything Sarah had been explaining. Burgundy may be defined by its famous names and historic vineyards, but underneath the hierarchy is a much more personal story of families, generations, land and the people who care for it.
We’ve tasted plenty of Burgundy over the years and spent just as much time trying to understand its hierarchy, but sometimes a concept doesn’t truly click until you can see it for yourself.
Sarah’s explanation turned what can feel like an intimidating collection of appellations and vineyard names into something tangible. Here was village-level Puligny-Montrachet, a few metres away a Premier Cru, and a little farther along a Grand Cru. The grape was Chardonnay, but the land beneath those vines was telling a different story.
No better way to learn that to be in the vineyard.
It was also a reminder of why I love wine travel. A good guide doesn’t simply tell you what you’re looking at; they give you the context to see it differently. Sarah Bird did exactly that for us in Puligny-Montrachet.
Now, whenever I see Puligny-Montrachet, Les Pucelles, Bâtard-Montrachet or Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet on a wine list, I suspect I’ll think about more than Chardonnay, limestone and eye-watering prices. I’ll remember that crossroad, those few metres of difference and Sarah’s wonderfully entertaining explanation of the complicated Montrachet family.
It’s a lesson in terroir I’m unlikely to forget, and a reminder that sometimes, to understand a great wine, you simply need to stand where it begins.
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