20 Fast Facts About The Burgundy Wine Region

You don’t have to be a sommelier to know that wines from Burgundy have a certain prestige in the wine world.  Peruse a restaurant wine list, and you’ll notice that some of the featured wines or top shelf offerings are Pinot Noir or Chardonnay from Bourgogne, or Burgundy. Wine is grown worldwide, so what is it that makes Burgundy so revered amongst the well studied and introductory wine drinkers?

Origins

1. Winemaking in Burgundy can be attributed to the Romans! They brought the vines to Gaul, present day France, and taught the French how to trellis, how to prune, and how to watch their yields.
2. When the Romans were conquered, the Gaulois determined the best way to maintain the vineyards was to give the vineyards of Burgundy to the churches. Bourgogne is said to have been raised by monks, who used record keeping to identify variability in the region and best practices.
3. After the French Revolution in 1789, the vineyards were taken from the church and divided amongst the bourgeoisie, the middle class, in Dijon, Beaune, and Auxerre.

Nomenclature

1. The Bourgeoisie began differentiating between the plots and the wines produced as a result of the variability from meter to meter. Terms like “cru” and “climat“, and the various “côtes” or coasts of Burgundy helped to establish place within the region.
2. The reason some villages are well known internationally and others are not is not about quality, but about the marketing technique established in the 19th and early 20th century.  If a town down the road had more name recognition, lesser known vignerons would use that term under the practice of equivalence. 
3. The controlled naming system of Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée was established in 1935.
4. Original naming classes were “regional,” “villages,” or “Grand Cru”, but with the occupation of Bourgogne by Germans in World War II, additional naming of “premier cru” in an agreement with the French Vichy government helped vignerons to protect their top level “villages” wines.
5. Beaujolais is not considered part of Burgundy.
6. Today, the five wine producing regions of Burgundy are:
   1. Chablis (with the inclusion of Grand Auxerrois, and Châtillonnais)
   2. Côte de Nuits
   3. Côte de Beaune
   4. Côte Chalonnaise (with the inclusion of Couchois)
   5. Mâconnais

Types of Grapes and Wines

1. The main grapes grown in Burgundy are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Aligoté, with lesser amounts of Gamay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Sauvignon Gris grown as well.
2. 61% of the wines produced in Burgundy are white, 27% are red or rosé, and 12% are sparkling.
3. 23% of the wines produced in Burgundy are designated as AOC, meaning the remaining 77% are considered vins de pays, a style of wine less strictly controlled by the French wine governing bodies.
4. The tiers of Burgundy wines, from more approachable to the most esteemed are Regional, Villages, Premier Cru, and Grand Cru.
5. Regional and Villages wines are typically lower on the slopes of the hills and plateaus, and characterized by more fruity tastes while Premier Cru and Grand Cru wines have higher elevations and more herbaceous and savory notes.

Economics of Burgundy

1. 7% of all jobs in Burgundy come from the wine industry. That accounts for 45,200 jobs!
2. There are 3,489 wine producing estates in Burgundy at the time of this writing. In comparison, there are approximately 1,850 wine producing estates in Napa Valley, California.
3. 50% of all wines from Burgundy are exported. A breakdown of the export markets:
   1. 20% to the United States
   2. 16% to the United Kingdom
   3. 9% to Canada
   4. 8% to Belgium
   5. 8% to Japan
4. 201.9 million bottles of Burgundy wine are sold yearly, on average.

Now that you’ve learned about Burgundy, there is no better way to celebrate than with a glass of wine from the region! A crisp Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, or sparkling Crémant de Bourgogne will satisfy the preferred styles of any wine drinker. Santé!