While I’m lucky enough to taste rare and expensive red Burgundy now and again, my wheelhouse—and that of most sommeliers I know—is closer to today’s price point.
And if you’ve been a Burgundy drinker for any length of time, you know: This price tier can be very hit-or-miss, especially in the tonier winemaking precincts of the Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits. It pays to venture a little further south, and it need not be all the way down to the Mâconnais—I think we too often look past Burgundy’s Côte Chalonnaise and its rich supply of affordable reds and whites. Today’s wine, from Givry, had us all thinking of Volnay costing at least twice as much. It is a resolutely classic, aristocratic red with everything a Burgundy aficionado could ask for—the high-toned perfume, the purity of fruit, the mineral bass notes—at a price that’s really in everyone’s wheelhouse. We need to be talking more about the great appellations of the Côte Chalonnaise, and not just Givry but Montagny, Mercurey, Rully, Bouzeron, etc. These are places where newer generations of Burgundians can still afford to farm vines and find their voice—and where newer generations of Burgundy lovers can find top-quality wines they can afford to drink. Whenever we encounter a wine like today’s 2016 from Domaine Ragot, which is as artisanal and rooted in its place as it gets, it’s not merely a pleasant surprise but a cause for raucous celebration. This is Burgundy-lover’s Burgundy, and a ‘trophy’ wine, in its way—the kind that signifies insider ‘street cred’ rather than wealth and access. In the end, it’d be great to have both, but for now I’m thrilled that wines like this one exist!
If you don’t know where Givry is, get to know it and don’t forget it: Once you try this wine, you’ll be wondering what else is out there, not to mention what might be found in some of its neighboring communes. The moment you exit Santenay, at the southern end of the Côte de Beaune, it’s on to the Côte Chalonnaise, where vineyards have similar east/southeast orientations and limestone-rich clay soils. Givry sits almost smack in the middle of the Côte Chalonnaise, and is known almost exclusively for reds from Pinot Noir (just 10% of the appellation’s production is white). Almost half of the vineyard land in the appellation is designated Premier Cru; this is not some ‘outer-borough’ address, it’s the real deal.
It certainly helps that the Ragot family traces its Chalonnaise roots to 1760, when a Gabriel Ragot began making wine in the town of Mercurey. About a century later, Louis Ragot purchased five hectares of vines in Givry, forming the basis for today’s domaine, which stretches over 8.5 hectares of old vines and is run by Jean-Paul Ragot and his son, Nicolas. Since 2008, Nicolas has been actively converting portions of the estate to biodynamic viticulture, which means eliminating all fertilizers and herbicides and plowing regularly to promote root penetration. All fruit from the domaine’s vineyards is hand-harvested, destemmed, and fed into fermentation tanks by gravity, where they ferment on native yeasts.
Just 1.25 hectares of 50+-year-old vines provide the source material for today’s “Vieilles Vignes” (“old vines”) bottling, which aged in 20% new oak
barriques for 12 months before bottling. While it is still young and taut, the first impression you’ll get is of what a complete wine it is: Given a little time to aerate in the glass, it blooms with fruit and floral aromas and delivers a high-impact impression on the palate. It’s a bright ruby color moving to garnet and pink at the rim, with lively aromas of black raspberry, wild cherry, red and black plum, breakfast tea, black pepper, vanilla, violets, and a smoky underbrush note. Medium-bodied, with very fine-grained tannins and lots of nerve, it glides across the palate but leaves your mouth watering, readying you for a bite of food—and another sip! It’s got the freshness for at least 5-7 years of aging, but it also performs admirably now with a good hour in a decanter before service at 60-65 degrees. Polish up some nice Burgundy stems and serve this with a regional classic like
coq au vin, beef bourguignon, or if you really want to get rustic and authentic, duck
rillettes. This wine just screams “Burgundy!” so don’t be afraid to really go for it. Enjoy!
