Organizational purists will no doubt note the inconsistency in having a separate Regions category for Chablis. After all, Chablis is as much a part of Burgundy as is Pommard. Technically, that is. I won't argue the point; any discussion of Chablis "belongs" in one of the introduction sections or perhaps in the Wines category. But in fairness to me, when people, schooled, half-schooled or unschooled, talk about Burgundy, they much more often than not are not referring to Chablis, Burgundy's northernmost outpost of winemaking. And vice versa, for that matter.
Pity Chablis. Despite its centuries-long, high-profile winemaking history, it has been forced to contend with being thought of as little more than a generic term for some sort of white wine. Even more humiliating, that wine usually can be picked up by its jug handle. Some might argue that the chablisiens got what they deserved because the area's wines had in fact become more generic just when consumers in the United States decided they wanted to try them. What they got in the '70s and '80s were, for the most part, chardonnays that were clean and simple to the point of being insipid.
Chablis is arguably the world's purest expression of chardonnay, something that makes it, not versions from California and the rest of Burgundy proper, the best choice for the dinner table.
That version of Chablis has largely disappeared in the last 10-15 years as producers (not unlike those in many other parts of the wine world who came to the realization that to make clean, technically sound wine is no longer enough) have re-focused their attention on vineyard and cellar practices. Rather than emphasizing volume, there has been a commendable trend toward decreasing yields to better express what mother nature has bestowed upon them.
The happy result is that once again it can fairly be said that the chardonnay produced in Chablis is the world’s purest expression of that most popular and commercially important white grape. Purest in the sense that the marginal—at best—grape-growing climate in Chablis limits the winemaker’s options. He or she doesn’t have the luxury of allowing overripe grapes to bubble into 15-percent alcohol monsters; there is no use in cloaking the wine in 100 percent new oak. It won’t have the fortitude to stand up to such treatment. In other words, no trickery in the cellar, just chardonnay.
Chablis resembles no other chardonnay. You’re not likely to find a bushel of mango, pineapple and passion fruit in a bottle like you would with one from California. And those in search of the spice, bacon fat and crème brûlée flavors of the Côte d’Or’s versions will no doubt be disappointed by the relative austerity of even the richest Chablis. Perhaps the only comparable style is found in Champagne. There is much sense to this because the two places are only a few miles apart. In fact, Chablis is situated much closer to Champagne than to its brethren in Burgundy. While Champagne shares Chablis’ horrid weather—Champagne’s is probably worse on the whole—many of its great blanc de blancs have a level of richness that most Chablis makers would envy. The champenois have the advantage of being able to blend multiple vintages to achieve a degree of roundness when nature hasn’t been kind. Not so in Chablis. What you’re most likely to find when you uncork a bottle is a nose full of flint, minerals and citrus, a wine that is delicate enough to refrain from taking over the dinner table, yet stout enough to mix well with anything from ceviche and sushi to ripe goat cheese.
Chablis is about as fish friendly as a wine can be thanks to its acidity, and typically non-aggressive weight and alcohol levels.
The good news is that it’s not especially difficult to find well-made Chablis at each classification level (at the lowest rung is AOC Chablis, then comes premier cru and finally, grand cru) though it’s far easier at the top of the pyramid than the middle or lower end. Of even more significance for consumers is that dollar for dollar, Chablis Grand Cru is a relative bargain compared to the exploding prices in the Côte d’Or and California. Burgundy prices have leveled off in the last few years, but during the escalation from the mid-80s to perhaps a few years ago, the cost of Chablis wasn’t moving nearly as quickly. A grand cru from Chablis is generally half the price of one of comparable quality from the Côte d’Or. In reality, many of the better-known premiers crus from Meursault and Puligny-Montrachet have long passed the $50-$70 range that most of the best grands crus from Chablis fit comfortably within. Of course, there are notable exceptions, but for the most part, Chablis is Burgundy’s truly affordable luxury.
Simplicity is another reason to like Chablis. Not that the wines are such; rather, unlike the rest of Burgundy, Chablis is compact and easy to understand. There are more than 30 grands crus and more than 560 premiers crus in the Côte d’Or. Fully one-fourth of France’s officially designated appellations are found in Burgundy. That’s an awful lot of place names to know, and is the primary barrier to entry for consumers into the beauty of wines that should be far simpler to understand because there are only two grapes employed (I don’t count aligoté because few pay it any mind). Chablis, on the other hand, mercifully has only one grand cur and one premier cru designation—technically anyway. There are seven climats within the grand cru designation, and 19 premier cru communes with 17 primary climats within them. So, there are still a bunch of names of note but far fewer than farther south. And finally, there is only white wine in Chablis.
While there is unanimous agreement that the grands crus are indeed grand, this is precisely where any semblance of consensus ends. Many of the premiers crus are considered to be latecomers and pretenders that share neither the excellent and vital exposure of the grand cru vineyards or the proper soil mixture. Instead, it’s said, they were promoted over generic Chablis for political reasons (something not uncommon in France). AOC Chablis is what it is, but much more is expected of a bottle with the far more prestigious premier cru marker. Vignerons in Chablis work in—or over— a veritable Jurassic-era water playground of immense complexity. The basis for the crispness that is the hallmark of Chablis is the soil that is the product of a more than 100,000,000-year-old incubation commencing when the entire area was an ocean floor rather than a gently rising ridge of limestone, fossilized sea creature shells, clay and stone. The seven grand cru climats have the best distribution over these four categories of vine nourishment. This belt of soil—called Kimmeridgean, and named for the southern English village of Kimmeridge at its far northwestern limit—makes its way through Champagne and down to Sancerre in the Loire, explaining the similarity of the dry whites in each place. Though Sancerre doesn't share the complexity of Chablis and Champagne, there is a thread of mineralité and chalkiness that would be recognizable to someone well versed in one but not the others. (There are vignerons in Sancerre and Pouilly-sur-Loire who do conjure exquisite whites, but for the most part, sauvignon blanc makes somewhat simpler, greener wines than does chardonnay at its best.) The Kimmeridgean limestone is visible in the topsoil of the vineyards giving the brown dirt an ashen accent.
The seven Chablis Grand Cru vineyards are neatly arrayed east to west in a ridge-like manner, a geographic fact that accounts for their enviable south- and southwest-facing exposures. Given the difficult climate in Chablis, every extra minute of sunshine the vines get helps.
Aspect is everything in Chablis. The grands crus are neatly arranged just across the Serein River from the town itself. From west to east they are: Les Bougros, Les Preuses, Vaudésir, Les Grenouilles, Valmur, Les Clos—probably the best known of the seven— and Blanchot. The collective vineyard of 242 acres stretches just over a mile with a depth of no more than a third of that at any point. They each share the same soil though at varying depths. They also share excellent south- and southwest-facing exposure, something that has been the justification for their lofty standing, and a bone of contention, too. There are a number of similarly well-exposed spots in the greater Chablis area, and owners of some of those spots argued that because their vineyards faced the same way as the grands crus, they should at least be accorded premier cru status if they already had an AOC Chablis rank.
Château de Béru is a case in point. The Béru family has long sought premier cru recognition for its estate-situated Clos Béru precisely because of its uniformity of soil and excellent exposure, though so far to no avail.
Flat stone—and lots of it—as evidenced in this Les Preusses closeup, is the predominant surface feature of Grand Cru Chablis vineyards.
This isn’t to suggest that many of the premier cru wines aren’t special. But it is more difficult to vouch for the contents of a bottle bearing one of the premier cru climats if you don't know the producer. Some of the better-known ones include the boomerang-shaped Fourchaume, located just to the north of Chablis; Montée de Tonnerre, found across the road from Blanchot; Vaillons and Montmains, allayed parallel to each other just to the southwest of Chablis; and Vosgros, the little “island” to the south of the town. The 1,862 acres of premier cru vineyards have less in common with each other than do the grands crus except that they are all larger than their more esteemed relatives. Château de Béru currently owns nearly an acre of the premier cru Vaucoupin.
Few regions in the wine world are as worshiped, and at the same time misunderstood, as Burgundy. The wines, chardonnay for the whites and pinot noir for the reds, are certifiably wonderful, more so now than at any other time in the region's long winemaking history. Unfortunately, a substantial part of that long history has centered on indifferent winemaking that permitted mediocre practitioners to foist thin, insipid bottles on an adoring public, a public no doubt dazzled by place names so steeped in lore as to often mask poor vineyard and cellar practices. Names like Chambertin, Pommard, Clos de Vougeot for reds, Montrachet, Puligny-Montrachet, Meursault for whites, to name a few better known ones, promised something that these justifiably hallowed grounds often could not deliver: ethereal pinots and chards with grace and subtle power.
The good news is that the days of laurel resting are long gone. Producers great and small are exploiting their fortunate geographic placement and making the best wines in the region's history. Though consumers can feel safer about choosing a wine from an unknown producer now more than at any other time in the past, consumers will still be left dealing with Burgundy's virtually incomprehensible classification system. While it may be possible for a somewhat casual white Burgundy fan to identify a known commune like Meursault on a label, it's unlikely that any of Meursault's 18 or so premier cru sites will mean anything to that consumer when spotted on that label, other than the promise of a lighter wallet, that is. Burgundy is a place of place names and these lieux dits (lee-ew dee) or climats (klee ma) are so numerous as to often confound even the most confident student of the region with names never before encountered.
And to make matters worse, Burgundy is the poster child for France's inheritance laws gone wild. A family holding that at one time might have been sizable invariably ends up smaller and smaller with each successive generation's heirs getting his or her piece. The result, in addition to the vast majority of producers being essentially tiny, is a phone book that reads more like a collection of family reunion sign-ins. There are pères, there are fils, there are hyphenations, there are cousins, grandparents, and names so common as to be almost Smith-like in their ubiquity. That's Burgundy.
All of this said, there is a way to make a bit of sense of the Burgundy hierarchy. As it stretches from Chablis in the north to the Mâconnais (that is, the area surrounding the charming town of Mâcon) in the south (technically, the vast, leafy vineyards of Beaujolais are considered part of Burgundy's viticultural area, but it has long been treated separately) and particularly the Côte d'Or, comprised of the Côte de Nuits (in the north) and Côte de Beaune (south of Nuits), pedigree, thus esteem, quality (most of the time) and price, is directly related to vine placement on the ground.
This view of vineyards in Aloxe-Corton and Ladoix (some of which are owned by Domaine Chapelle) in the Côte de Beaune neatly illustrates the Burgundy hierarchy: Vines are generally more highly regarded as they move from sea level up the slopes.
Generally, the lower the vines in elevation, the less special they are. As vines work their way up from sea level toward the slopes, they get better and better. So, usually, vines on the ground floor, so to speak, will typically be accorded generic or regional designations like Bourgogne blanc and rouge, Mâcon, etc. As the vines start to move up the slopes, and/or particularly if they are found in certain communes (essentially something roughly equivalent to a town and its immediate surrounding area), the resultant wines may be given more specific communal appellation monikers, such as Chablis, Meursault and Pommard.
As those vines move up a bit more, something that can easily be witnessed as a visitor drives down roads like the N-74, the finished wines may be given premier cru status. And finally, for those privileged vines raised at or near the crest of certain slopes, a grand cru designation may be indicated. Bottles can then be proudly adorned with the name of the vineyard or other important place within a vineyard. For example, Gevrey-Chambertin is fairly well known as an excellent source of pinot noir. So, a label that simply says "Gevrey-Chambertin" would mean that the bottle contained pinot of a somewhat "basic" quality for that particular commune. (Of course, there is basic and there is basic, and certainly a pinot from Gevrey-Chambertin should be expected to show more class than one from a lesser-regarded commune, such as Ladoix. There's nothing wrong with pinot from Ladoix, however, and in fact, it is an up-and-coming commune that is the source of very well-priced wines.)
If a label also included one of Gevrey-Chambertin's authorized vineyard names or climats, such as for example, Champeaux, one of the best known of the commune's 26 premier cru place names, you would expect the pinot to be a pretty big step up in class from the "basic" Gevrey-Chambertin. You'd also pay a lot more for it. Sometimes winemakers choose to leave the climat off the label but still may label it premier cru. This choice can be made for a number of reasons, including vintage variation and blending of grapes from more than one climat to name just two. And, by the way, you'll never see a bottle of Gevrey-Chambertin with a grand cru designation on its label. Confusingly, there is a grand cru called Chambertin that actually comes from the same commune of Gevrey-Chambertin, but the absence of "Gevrey" means the pinot came from a different place within the commune, one that has long been considered among the best in Burgundy for pinot.
Got it? All of this is very general, and there are so many exceptions that it often seems hardly worth trying to make sense of it. But after all, a general framework with many holes is better than none at all.
Perhaps no wine region in the world is as much a conundrum on so many levels as is Champagne. On the one hand, few would argue the point that Champagne is the world’s most ethereal wine, bubbly or otherwise. And yet the word “champagne” has been bastardized to refer to any place’s sparkler, from Cold Duck and Asti (formerly followed by the appendage Spumente) to Korbel and Prosecco. But just as one would no more ask that a “xerox” of a page be made, “champagne” (lower case) is just as outdated as a generic reference for any sparkling wine.
The reason is simple: Champagne is the one wine that can’t be duplicated, much less surpassed in quality, by any of its pretenders. One might argue the merits of Bordeaux versus California cab, or Loire sauvignon blanc over New Zealand’s more exuberant versions, but there is no such credible dispute in the bubbly realm. Champagne’s combination of nuance, body and balance, thanks to its unique and unusual combination of climate and geographic factors, isn’t capable of replication.
Which points to another of the region’s contradictions: How the world’s most elegant (an overused descriptor to be sure, but one that clearly applies to Champagne) beverage, the great social lubricator—no wine or drink sets the right mood for a large or small party—could emerge from such an unlikely place. Champagne, far from being the prototypical wine country destination, is a stark and mostly featureless land. Its climate is marginal at best for winemaking which is why the vast majority of its roughly 300,000,000-bottle annual production is labeled not with a vintage date but with the words “non-vintage.”
Its cold and damp climate makes attaining ripeness for its three most important grapes, chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier (pee-no mune-nay), anything but a given each year. This is also why most Champagnes are typically blends of these three grapes, each making up for something that the other two can’t do (the two primary exceptions to the standard three-grape blend are all-chardonnay wines, labeled blanc de blancs, and non-rosé wines made from one or both of the red-skinned pinots, called blanc de noirs; rosés, incidentally, are often made with all three grapes).
Champagne producers blend vintages as a hedge against the year-to-year vagaries of Mother Nature. While there is much talk of the impact that global warming is having on all wine regions as well as the fact that winemaking techniques are much better able to reduce the likelihood of entire vintages being ruined by frost, rain, wind or excess heat, most Champagne will continue to be of the non-vintage variety, at least in our lifetimes, though there has been an increase in the frequency of vintage-designated wines.
I once wrote an article entitled "Alas, Poor Alsace." Alas indeed because despite a centuries-long winemaking history and a nearly as long reputation for producing high-quality wines, Alsace's tall, skinny bottles are largely a consumer afterthought, even in this sophisticated market we inhabit. While much of this consumer indifference—the trade hasn't been kind to Alsace's producers either; few wine lists or wine store shelves have more than a handful of Alsace offerings on them—is directly attributable to the misfeasance of Alsace's producers themselves, much of it is also related to inertia.
For the most part, wine drinkers drink what they drink and remain faithful to what they know, even if the fidelity is less than enthusiastic. It's less that we love what we know, it's just easier to stick with what we know than venture out, particularly when there are so many mistaken assumptions about those tall, skinny bottles to begin with. And it's a shame because few regions in the wine world provide such a food-friendly wine palette as Alsace.
The vast majority of the wine made in Alsace, a relatively skinny sliver of earth located in France's far northeast, is white. There is some pinot noir; in fact nearly every producer bottles it, but even though it has greatly improved in lockstep with better vineyard practices, you'd be far better off getting yours from Burgundy, California, Oregon and New Zealand. The whites, however, are wonderful. The range of stylistic choice for consumers may be unmatched among the world's best wine regions. From humble, crisp pinot blanc (think green apple) to the eminently complex riesling (steely citrus to ripe stone fruit mellowed by age), there is something suitable for just about any cuisine or dish, except perhaps red meat.
There are a bunch of other grapes of note, but outside of pinot gris (smoky, rich and the furthest thing from pinot grigio despite being the same variety), gewürztraminer (floral, fat and tropical, and spelled without the umlaut in Alsace) and muscat (some of riesling's complexity with some of pinot blanc's approachability), they don't rise to the level of accomplishment of these five, though each has its advocates. The advantages that Alsace's winemakers have are huge. For one thing, Alsace is among the world's most consistent production zones. From the very low end (under $10 a bottle) to the scarily high (well over $200 for a half bottle for some sweet wines), it's very difficult to find technically unsound wine there.
For another, Alsace's labels have long been American friendly; none of the gothic script found just across the Rhein in Germany (make that Rhin in French). Alsace labels have also long sported the grape name on them, something that other areas of France and the world are only now figuring out is quite important over here. And dollar for ounce, even in these difficult euro/dollar days, there are few better buys at every level. Grand Cru Alsace wines can be had for as little as $25a bottle. See how far the same gets you from Burgundy for some perspective.
And yet, there those tall, skinny bottles often sit, alone and misunderstood. The primary reason for this is that consumers equate tall and skinny with German and sweet. Factor in the historic back and forth of Alsace between Germany and France, and the primacy of Germanic-sounding placenames (of the 51 grands crus, probably 90 percent are more Teutonic sounding than French) and surnames, and it's no wonder that there is so much confusion.
German wines are nothing like Alsace wines, but the unfortunate and self-imposed irony is that at the very same time Alsace's winemakers have had to push back against incorrect geographic assumptions, they've done themselves a disservice by not properly labeling the sweetness levels of their wines. Many consumers understandably recoil upon openning a bottle that for all intents and purposes should be quite dry and find instead that it is closer to off dry. It might be technically "dry" but is at the very edge of the legal analytic limits. Many winemakers deny that there is a problem, but they are simply in denial.
There is a place for every style of wine, from bone dry to richly sweet, but a consumer should never have to guess where on the scale their bottle falls. Ice Bucket Selections back labels eliminate any question. Even assuming that Alsace producers one day provide full and fair disclosure on their back labels, there will always be the German thing. Alsace, as one notable producer once told me, is more French than all of France, and yet, even to the French, the region is considered an oddity. It's neither French, nor German, the thinking in France goes, so even in the mother country, those tall, skinny bottles are routinely ignored in bistros and restaurants outside of the region.
C'est dommage, but one positive about the wines also will forever be true: Once consumers try them, they are nearly always hooked.
The sprawling Loire region is far and away the world's most diverse wine-wise. It tracks the mighty Loire, France's longest river, as it snakes through just about every kind of high-quality vine-growing zone. From chalky to muddy, rocks to river-lapped sand, chilly to practically Mediterranean, the Loire has it all. Planted in that crazy quilt of vineyards is a similarly wide range of red and white grape vines, the most important of which are probably not on the list of most consumer favorites.
That's right, the Loire isn't about chardonnay, merlot, cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir (though all of these can be found there). The Loire's greatest wines are made with chenin blanc, sauvignon blanc and melon de bourgogne for the whites, and cabernet franc for the reds. From these grapes come every meaningful style of wine known in the world today. There are incredibly rich and age-worthy sweet wines thanks to chenin. Brilliantly steely dry whites thanks to sauvignon blanc and melon de bourgogne (better known for the wine it makes, Muscadet. Many experts would argue that Muscadet is far from great, but there is simply no better shellfish wine in the world; if there is merit in being neither more, nor less than what a wine should be, then Muscadet is indeed a great wine.). Perfumed and sometimes meaty dry reds thanks to cab franc. And very good sparklers thanks to all of the above, save melon de bourgogne.
The Loire's strength, its diversity, is also its weakness. Consumers long used to seeing one or two wines from producers are often confused by the range offered by Loire vignerons. From bone dry to decadently sweet to rosé to bubbly, many Loire winemakers have something to offer in each category.
And this diversity is the Loire's inherent problem with consumers. It's impossible to generalize about the region, and few consumers—or those in the trade, for that matter—are willing to spend the time necessary to learn about its various "sections." There are many of those as well, but the ones that I find to be most compelling are the far west (Muscadet), the western portion of the center (Savennières, Chaume and Vouvray for whites, and Chinon and its environs for reds) and the far east (Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé). At least the major grape varieties are not found in any force in more than one of the sections I've focused on.
The far west is all about melon de bourgogne—probably because no other grape could thrive in the somewhat inhospitable climes near Nantes and the Atlantic Ocean where Muscadet is found. In the west-center, the best whites are made with chenin blanc even though other white grapes are cultivated there. The same could be said for the reds of this section; there are other red grapes in the area surrounding the historic city of Tours, but cab franc is the source of the best of this section's reds. And finally, in the far east quadrant, sauvignon blanc's purest expression begins in the gently sloping vineyards of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, both of which literally face off against each other on either side of the river.