Our recent voyage to France took us through the Cote d’Or or “golden slope” of Burgundy as it’s known and then on to Northern and Southern Rhone.  Traveling in our little Citron stick shift auto from the Cote de Nuits to the Cote de Beaune evoked a sense of deep of history of the region, the monks of over a millennium ago laying the foundation for today’s industry and an awe for the sacred terroir and the hard working vintners that produce Burgundies against which all others are compared.

The Cote d'Or is divided into two separate and very different wine producing regions: the Cote de Nuits in the north and the Cote de Beaune in the south.  The Cote de Nuits, unequivocally, produces the finest red Burgundies on the planet.  No sooner do you depart Dijon than you magically enter an agricultural wonderland with a history of winemaking that spans over a millennium.  If there’s anything that distinguishes this region from all others, it has to be its terroir, specifically, the soil, a mix of limestone and marl that sets the stage for the finest Pinot Noir in the world.  For sake of ease, let’s define “terroir” as all those physical and environmental elements that impact the vines, the grapes and the wines.  This includes the soil, its exposure to sun, its elevation and slope, the water table, and of course, the climate.   What you may not appreciate is the series of slopes, geologic faults and rifts that determine the structure and depth of soil components that derive from the Jurassic and Triassic period.  For example, the Saone fault zone represents a distinct break between two very different geologic profiles.  On the upslope is the weathered Jurassic limestone and marl, those soils that nourish the Pinot Noir grape.  On the down slope, in the valley, the soils are more clay and sand.  As the water table in the valley is rather high, the vine’s roots are easily saturated and can yield reds are that are less powerful and concentrated compared to their brethren.  It’s this geology that often answers the question: “how can one vineyard’s wines display one expression while another only a short distance removed offers another?” In addition, elemental nutrients and efficient cation exchange play a key in the structure of the wines, with phosphorus thought to have a profound influence upon the taste of the wine.