- Advice
How to Drink Burgundy Without the Fear
Burgundy is not difficult. It is just badly explained. The ladder from Bourgogne to Grand Cru, why the grower matters more than the vineyard, and how to actually serve the stuff.
- Words By Chris Seddon
Burgundy has a reputation. Expensive, confusing, full of hyphenated villages and men in tweed who say "the '05s are closing down" as though discussing a relative. It is the wine region most people decide they will get into "one day", usually around the time they retire. That is a mistake, because Burgundy is not difficult. It is just badly explained. Learn how to drink Burgundy properly and the whole thing turns out to rest on one simple idea.
Here it is. In Burgundy, the land comes first and the grape barely gets a mention. Red Burgundy is Pinot Noir. White Burgundy is Chardonnay. You will almost never see either word on the label, because the Burgundians consider it obvious, slightly vulgar and frankly beside the point. What the label tells you instead is where the grapes grew. Everything else follows from that.
The Ladder, in Two Minutes
Think of Burgundy as a ladder with four rungs. At the bottom is Bourgogne, wine that can come from anywhere in the region. One rung up is a village wine, named after a single village: Gevrey-Chambertin, Pommard, Volnay, Meursault. Above that sits Premier Cru, a single named vineyard within that village, written on the label as "1er Cru Les Arvelets" or similar. At the top is Grand Cru, the very best slopes, and here the village name disappears altogether. The vineyard is so famous it does not need an introduction. Chambertin. Musigny. Corton.
The proportions are worth knowing. Grand Cru accounts for barely one bottle in every hundred that Burgundy makes. Premier Cru adds roughly another ten. Everything else is village wine or Bourgogne, and that is where most of the joy, and nearly all of the value, lives.
The ladder tells you about the vineyard. It tells you nothing about the person who farmed it, and in Burgundy that is the half that matters.
Read the Grower Before the Vineyard
Here is the part nobody tells you at the start. Burgundy's vineyards are carved into absurdly small pieces. After the French Revolution the Church's land was seized and sold off, and Napoleonic inheritance law then required estates to be divided equally between children. Two centuries of that, and a famous Grand Cru like Clos de Vougeot, around fifty hectares, is now shared by roughly eighty different owners. Some own a few rows. Some make glorious wine from them. Some do not.
Which is why a great grower's village wine will routinely beat a careless grower's Premier Cru. The vineyard name sets the ceiling. The grower decides how close to it the wine gets. So when you shop for Burgundy, read the producer first, then the village, then the vineyard. In that order.
A few names to trust. The Burguet family in Gevrey-Chambertin have been making muscular, honest reds for generations; their Gevrey-Chambertin Symphonie 2022 is dark cherry and spice in a well-cut jacket, and their Bourgogne Les Pince Vin proves that the bottom rung can be a very good place to stand. Alain Jeanniard works out of Morey-Saint-Denis and makes wines of real charm across the Côte, from a bright, joyful Fixin En Combe Roy to a Pommard Premier Cru Les Arvelets with a little more muscle under the silk. Antonin Guyon, based in Savigny-lès-Beaune with vines climbing the hill of Corton, makes a Chambolle-Musigny Clos du Village that smells like a florist's shop on a damp morning, in the best possible way.
How to Actually Drink It
Red Burgundy hates being treated like Bordeaux. Serve it a touch cool, around 15 to 16°C, which in most centrally heated homes means twenty minutes in the fridge before you open it. Warm Pinot Noir goes soupy and loses the very thing you paid for: that lift, that perfume, the sense of red fruit seen through a frosted window.
Use a big glass. The wide, bowl-shaped Burgundy glass is not an affectation; it gives the aroma somewhere to gather, and with this wine the smell is half the experience. Younger village wines from good growers are often a joy straight away. Premier Crus from a warm vintage like 2022 will open up beautifully with an hour in a decanter, or simply poured early and left to sit while you cook.
What to Eat With It
Burgundy is the most forgiving red at the table because it has acidity where other reds have weight. Roast chicken is the classic, and it is a classic for a reason. Mushrooms of any kind are a revelation; a mushroom risotto with a glass of Gevrey is one of life's quiet luxuries. Duck, game birds, a slow-cooked coq au vin made with the leftover half bottle, and, slightly heretically, salmon. Avoid anything fiercely spiced or heavily sauced in tomato. Pinot Noir is a conversationalist, not a shouter.
White Burgundy wants richer company: roast chicken again (Burgundians are not ashamed of repeating themselves), lobster, scallops in butter, a proper Comté. Serve it at 11 to 13°C, not fridge-cold, or you are paying for hazelnut and lemon and tasting only cold.
By the Case
Everything in this piece is in our Burgundy cases right now: six bottles from the growers above, priced below the same six bought one at a time. Quantities are fixed.
Each Buy now link opens a pre-filled email to Patrick in our team at pdiggins@houseofdecant.com. Change the quantity if you like and press send.
The Insider
Five things to say when someone at the bar starts talking about Burgundy, ideally while you are holding a glass of it.
- Napoleon's favourite wine was Chambertin, and he took it on campaign. The story goes that he drank it diluted with water, which tells you everything about his priorities.
- In 1847 the village of Gevrey quietly added "Chambertin" to its name to borrow the glamour of its most famous vineyard. Chambolle added Musigny, Vosne added Romanée, and Burgundy invented the celebrity surname.
- The whole of Romanée-Conti, arguably the most famous vineyard on earth, covers about 1.8 hectares. That is roughly two and a half football pitches.
- In 2015 UNESCO made Burgundy's 1,247 "climats", its individually named vineyard plots, a World Heritage Site. The patchwork itself is the monument.
- Every November since 1859 the Hospices de Beaune has auctioned barrels of its wine for charity. It is the most glamorous jumble sale in France.
Then Climb
So here is the plan. Start with a good grower's Bourgogne or village wine, chill it slightly, pour it into a big glass and put a roast chicken on the table. If you like it, and you will, move up a rung. Try two villages side by side, a Gevrey next to a Chambolle, and notice that one is all shoulders and the other all perfume. That is the whole game, and once you have played it once you will never again think of Burgundy as difficult.
It was never difficult. It was just waiting for someone to pour it properly.
