Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

by Bianca Bosker

But that is where Burgundy’s simplicity ends. Whereas Bordeaux helpfully ranks its top sixty-one producers into a hierarchy of “First Growths” (best of the best) through “Fifth Growths” (worst of the best), Burgundy holds itself to no such logic. It can be thought of as having four quality designations (Grand Cru, Premier Cru, Village, and Bourgogne, in descending order); five distinct wine-growing areas (Yonne, Côte d’Or, Côte Chalonnaise, the Mâconnais, and Beaujolais); and approximately one hundred different appellations. (You can look them up.) But knowing the reputation of each appellation will help you only so much, because what also matters is the vineyard site within that appellation. (There are around six hundred Premier Cru vineyards alone, so don’t bother trying to memorize them.) And within that vineyard, quality can swing from marvelous to meh, depending on which part of the vineyard you’re in and who’s making wine from those vines. (Multiple winemakers will share a single vineyard.) You can’t just rely on a producer’s reputation either. A single Burgundian winemaker, and there are thousands of them, might produce as many as twenty different types of wines, each drawn from different vineyards, appellations, and quality designations.