A Fun Burgundy Story

Yesterday, we had the fortunate opportunity to meet with the new winemaker of Domaine Leflaive, Eric Remy, and try his 2008 white Burgundies from his Puligny-Montrachet vineyards. One of the biggest wines that he had was his 2008 Chevlaier-Montrachet Grand Cru which is an unbelievable bottle of wine. It was delicious with ripe peach, apricot and pear flavors with a lower acidity than expected but there were notes of honey, spice and chocolate that balanced everything out. However while standing there chatting wine with one of the greatest winemakers in Burgundy, I was asked a question by a colleague about Burgundy and felt compelled to relay that information here.

The question was, "why all of the hyphenated names in Burgundy?" Well, that is easy; in the time of Napoleon's rule of France, his favorite wine was the Grand Cru (one of the best vineyard sites) of Chambertin from the town of Gevrey. Since he professed it as one of the greatest wines ever, everyone was trying to get their hands on Chambertin and completely overlooked the basic village wines. Imagine ordering a cable package for your tv and only ordering HBO, for example, and not getting the basic NBC, ABC, etc. I know that this is not the greatest simile but you get where I am going. The government was then petitioned by local farmers that were losing out on selling their everyday wines and all towns in the Cote d'Or region of Burgundy were allowed to attach the name of their best vineyard site to the nam

e of the town. Therefore, the town of Gevrey became known as Gevrey-Chambertin, hopefully to confuse consumers into purchasing Napoleon's favorite wine at everyday prices.

One of the more confusing hyphenated areas is that of the two towns of Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet. The towns of Puligny and Chassagne both share the Grand Cru vineyard Montrachet, so both used it in the addition to their names. Confusing right? Puligny's tend to have more limestone and mineral flavors while Chassagne's tend to be softer and less minerally.

Both towns produce exceptional wines, but Domaine Leflaive only has property in Puligny, so that is where our focus was. While chatting about the differences of the towns and vineyard sites, a fun story was brought up about the names of the vineyards in the town of Puligny-Montrachet. If you look at the map above, in the upper left hand corner below the Legend box, you will three distinct sites; Chevalier-Montrachet, Batard-Montrachet and Les Pucelles. The legend goes that centuries ago, the Chevalier (lord) of Montrachet (hence Chevlaier-Montrachet as a Grand Cru vineyard name) had an affair with his mistress in the vineyard of Les Pucelles and they produced a child from that interaction. When the mistress gave birth, she had the child in the vineyard next to the site of the affair and that Grand Cru vineyard was renamed Batard-Montrachet (the bastard of Montrachet).

So next time you hear about or try a Grand Cru wine from Puligny-Montrachet, this is a story that should be brought up because it is always a fun time, especially if you glass is full. That always helps.