Côte Chalonnaise – Latest Releases 

BY NEAL MARTIN | JULY 12, 2022

During my trip to Burgundy last March, I spent a day focused entirely on the Côte Chalonnaise. I have included wines from visits to growers in previous reports, but I wanted to just expand coverage with a standalone article. The venue was the cooperage at Mercurey, and apart from a brief period in the afternoon, it was not too busy, affording an opportunity to visit the stands of a dozen producers.

The Grand Jours Mercurey tasting.

As a quick primer, the Côte Chalonnaise lies directly south of the Côte d’Or. Drive past Santenay and you’re there. Covering a total of 2,221 hectares, the five main villages are Bouzeron (161ha), Rully (461ha of which 109ha are Premier Cru, mainly but not exclusively white), Mercurey (792ha of which 178ha are Premier Cru, probably best-known for its sturdy reds), Givry (393ha of which 178ha are Premier Cru, mostly red) and Montagny (415ha of which 240ha are Premier Cru, white wines only). Plus there is Bourgogne-Côte Chalonnaise, a subdivision of the Bourgogne appellation, and Bourgogne-Côte de Couchois, the most recent addition in 2000 for Pinot Noir only. The best vineyards tend to lie on limestone soils, Bathonian or Oxfordian, on slopes rather than flatter reaches.

For many years the Côte Chalonnaise was perceived as an inferior “add-on” to the Côte d’Or, as if quality came to an abrupt halt south of Santenay. There is a mixture of factors why the Côte Chalonnaise has traditionally been given short shrift, partly because of the over-zealous authorisation of Premier Crus in Montagny in 1943; in order to prevent the occupying German army from requisitioning vineyards, the cognoscenti did not really take the status seriously. Partly because there were insufficient quality-driven growers bottling their own wine.