Meursault: The Quintessential White Wine Village

My final stop along the Route des Grands Crus, Meursault, is a dream for those who love white Burgundy. It’s the quintessential white wine village: picturesque but not pretentious, truly excellent but down-to-earth producers, and heaps of charm and beautiful architecture all surrounded by vines. Although the AOP designation doesn’t include any Grand Crus, Meursaults are world class whites that can compete with any of the other Chardonnays. It’s not a very touristy place, yet there’s plenty to explore. 

I started off at the Hôtel de Ville, which is currently under renovation, in the center of town. The impressive building with a notable colorful tiled roof and decorative fountain was made famous when featured in the old French film La Grande Vadrouille. A stone’s throw away, you have La Petite Vadrouille which is the ideal place to pick up picnic supplies. Whether you want to have a snack amongst the vines, or a full lunch, they’re wonderfully welcoming. The small epicerie has an excellent selection of cheeses, a “cave à saucisse” for all your dried sausage needs, Burgundy grown shiitakes and other produces, chocolates from a Meursault born maker now based in Strasbourg, locally made raw milk cream and butter, and, bien sûr, wine. After we fortified ourselves there for an outdoor picnic, it was time for a small stroll (which is what their name translates to) about town. 

There’s plenty of beautiful architecture to see, like the Romanesque and gothic church Église Saint-Nicolas de Meursault or the Château de Citeaux with its turreted gate house and pigeonnier, and a variety of walled estates that you can glimpse through their fences and gates. There’s even a 12th century leprosy hospital with a very modern zinc addition that you can visit. The former hospital isolated leprosy victims and served the poor, and now serves tourists as the Meursault tourism office with exhibition spaces.  

For a place that looks so traditional in its style, there’s plenty of technology to be found. The town has helpfully set up free wifi where you can find your local winemaker of choice on a map in order to visit, and there’s even a Tesla charging station at Château de Meursault. The Château is a lovely building with a long history, stunning grounds next to a small stream, and a tall dovecote. It’s also the site of a hugely important cultural event each year: La Paulée de Meursault. The Paulée is a lunch that’s traditionally held in November to celebrate the end of the grape harvest. What was historically an informal meal between Cisterian monks and the harvest workers, was revived in 1923 by Jules Lafon, and has become a truly international event for winemakers, workers, writers, and connoisseurs. It caps off the “Trois Glorieuses”: a three-day celebration in Burgundy that starts with a gala dinner at Clos de Vougeot, leads into the famous auction at the Hospices de Beaune, and ends with the grand celebration luncheon of La Paulée. It’s probably the nicest BYOB (bring your own bottle) event one could ever attend with each attendee bringing their most special and prized bottles to share, and the festivities continue long into the evening. Reservations can be hard to come by and need to be made far in advance, but it’s an honor for any wine lover to partake in the conviviality and commemoration of the Burgundian harvest each year.

This article is one of a series that I wrote on the Route des Grand Crus. To read more and see others in the series, please see Chateau de Pommard’s blog.

Aloxe-Corton: A Small Village with a Large Reputation

Aloxe-Corton was the smallest of the villages that I visited on this road trip, with only a mayor’s office, a post office, a church, and a cooperative of winemakers’ tasting cave to its name. When I say tiny... we are talking approximately 134 residents tiny*. The winemaking reputation of this tranquil hamlet looms large and belies the small size of the village, however.

Our journey began in prime Pinot Noir territory in Gevrey-Chambertin and Nuits-Saint-Georges, and will finish with world-class whites in Meursault, but Aloxe-Corton is the only village in Burgundy known equally for both white and red Grand Crus wines. This is the place for equal opportunity drinkers as its unique geographic location straddling the area between the Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits regions offers excellent Chardonnay and Pinot Noir alike.

The white Grand Cru, Corton-Charlemagne, is named after the Emperor Charlemagne. Legend has it that the first vines in the commune were red wine grapes planted by the Gauls on their return from Italy where they were first introduced to vinification, and that, in the late 8th century, Emperor Charlemagne was responsible for replanting his hills there with white wine grapes in order to avoid staining his flowing, white beard when drinking. Who would’ve imagined that his vanity would have such a long-lasting impact on the region? 

Corton is the largest Grand Cru in Burgundy overall and encompasses vines from Aloxe-Corton and neighboring communes Pernand-Vergelesses et Ladoix-Serrigny. The famous, round Montagne de Corton hill is worth driving up for a stunning panorama looking out over the valley. Our spring visit was perfectly timed for when the pink magnolia trees blossomed. The sight of the blooming trees, fringed with delicate flowers, couldn’t have been more beautiful. As we wound our way through Pernand-Vergelesses, there’s a small church that’s worth a short pit stop before continuing further up the mountain for the view. You truly appreciate the terroir of the area from the top of the heavily forested limestone hill where you can gaze out upon the slopes of vineyards lower down and the villages below. 

You can see pretty much all of Aloxe-Corton in a matter of minutes so you don’t need tons of time, but architecturally speaking, the village does not disappoint with three different charming châteaus: Château de Corton Grancey (Maison Louis Latour), Château Corton André, and Château de Corton (a private residence). The Château Corton André is particularly iconic in the region as an example of distinct Burgundian architecture with a vibrant multicolored roof. The colorful roof tiles in diamond shapes, aka the tuile vernissée de Bourgogne, are traditional throughout the region, most famously seen at the Hospices de Beaune. The tiles are made of terracotta, then covered in a ceramic glaze usually made of lead or tin. The amazing turreted building leaves a lasting image for visitors as it is visible from a distance along the Route des Grand Crus, its intricate rooftop peeping out across the vines. 

 * As of 2017

This article is one of a series that I wrote on the Route des Grand Crus. To read more and see more from the series, please see Chateau de Pommard’s blog.

Nuits-Saint-Georges: The Namesake for the Côte de Nuits

My next stop on the Route des Grands Crus was another village known for its superlative red wines-- Nuits-Saint-Georges. Although there are no Grand Crus from this commune, there are some great village and Premier Cru level wines. It’s a well-regarded appellation known for red wines that take a bit more time and require a bit more age than some others in the region. There are a small amount of white wines here as well, but it’s less than five percent of the total production.

You get a sense of the importance of Nuits-Saint-Georges to the winemaking trade in the area from the fact that the region itself, Côte de Nuits, takes its name from the town. Nuits does not refer to the French word for night, however, but it is thought that it comes from the Latin word for walnuts-- a reference to the walnut and hazelnut trees of the area. The wine has such historic significance, that King Louis XIV was told to drink it medicinally and had his bottles of Champagne replaced by Nuits-Saint-Georges.

In comparison to the other villages I visited, the lively town felt like a veritable metropolis... with a population of 5,400 inhabitants. So while still fairly small, it was the largest of the towns we visited on this particular trip and felt bustling with more shops, restaurants, caves, and activity overall.

Nuits-Saint-Georges has enormous importance for its role in promoting Burgundy wines globally as it is where the Chevaliers du Tastevin were founded in 1934. The Chevaliers are an international brotherhood of Burgundy wine connoisseurs. Originally intended to revive interest in the Burgundian wine industry during the Great Depression, the organization now celebrates the magic and conviviality of Burgundy wines worldwide in over 120 countries. Their headquarters have been based at the Château Clos de Vougeot since 1944, but walking around Nuits-Saint-Georges, you can see a small unobtrusive plaque highlighting their humble origins at the Caveau Nuiton.

There is a walking trail that highlights many of the major sights in the town-- you need only to look for small metal triangles with a buccaneer standing atop a wine barrel. One major site to visit would be the Cassissium which is an entire interactive museum and factory tour devoted to the blackcurrant. Grapes are not the only famous fruit export from Burgundy, after all. Crème de cassis, the local liqueur made from blackcurrants, is commonly used as a syrup to flavor white wine for a sweet aperitif called kir, or, when paired with Champagne, a kir royale. It can be nice to break up all the wine tasting along the Route des Grands Crus with a different kind of tasting.

The belfry, along a slightly touristy strip in the commercial center of town, is an architectural jewel. Built in the early 1600s, the Flemish style belfry covered in vines was a watchtower and served as the town hall until 1833. There’s a monument to the local sculptor Paul Cabet on one side of the facade as well. The clock chimes were restored in the 1980s so visitors today still benefit from the local song punctuating the day’s events. A short stroll away is the Église Saint-Denis which has a distinctive tiled roof and sits next to the banks of the Meuzin. Just a small trickle of water now, the river used to supply drinking troughs, communal washhouses, mills and tanneries. Inside the church, there is an organ by “celebrity” organ maker Aristide Cavaillé-Coll who famously made the organ inside Notre-Dame de Paris.

Although technically not in Nuits-Saint-Georges, it’s worth a small detour to the Cîteaux Abbey just east of the town. Famous today for their Cîteaux cheese, which you can and definitely should stock up on in their wonderful small store, the abbey has been around since the 12th century and the Cisterician monks were instrumental in the wine-growing success of the entire region. The history of the climats and terroirs of Burgundy cannot be separated from the history of the monks of Cîteaux who built their own winegrowing estate, acquired land across Burgundy, and systematically increased and improved winemaking and production in the area. There are guided visits of the abbey, a silent walking path laying out the long scope of history there, and the small shop filled with monastic made goods.

For Château de Pommard aficionados, perhaps the most interesting site in Nuits-Saint-Georges is the Saint-Symphorien church which features historic wooden pews including one by the entrance inscribed with the name Marey-Monge. It belonged to Ernest Marey-Monge and his wife Sophie, one of the eight children of Nicolas-Joseph Marey et Emilie Monge who purchased the Château de Pommard premises from the founding Micault family.

This article is one of a series that I wrote on the Route des Grand Crus. For more info and to check out the other pieces, please see Chateau de Pommard’s blog.