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How to drink Burgundy – and why drinking Burgundy is changing

31.07.25

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5 min read

How to drink Burgundy – and why drinking Burgundy is changing

On the map
Names to know: icons and iconoclasts
The Burgundy cheat-sheet

Wines of unparalleled complexity are made in a region that's hard to understand. Here's how to navigate it

There is a subset of wine-drinker we think of as the Burgundy Aspirant. Their cellar is well-stocked, they navigate wine lists with ease, and they know that Burgundy is the promised land of terroir, the place where wine becomes poetry. Yet, you'll find none in their cellar. When handed the list, the region gets skipped.

Because they know enough to know that Burgundy's hard. The labels are inscrutable. The gatekeeping, intimidating. And it's all too easy to spend huge sums on wines that leave lingering notes of wet gravel and regret.

And yet, to shun Burgundy is to miss out on wine's zenith. Roald Dahl once wrote that "to drink a Romanée-Conti is like having an orgasm in the mouth and nose at the same time." Other places make wonderful wines. Few of them elevate wine to art, like they do in Burgundy.

Granted, to buy a case of Romanée-Conti you may need to sell your car and your house at the same time. But Burgundy's opaqueness also means that, with a little steer, there are plenty of wonderful bottles and producers to discover that don't require a remortgage.

"Yes, Burgundy can be expensive, and yes, some of the most expensive wines in the world do come from Burgundy," says Pauline Vicard, co-founder and executive director of Areni Global. "But there's a lot of relatively affordable prices, too. If you're looking for something under €5, don't go to Burgundy. But if you can afford that mid-range, from €8-25, you will find some very exciting stuff, in both red and white."

The trick is understanding Burgundy's idiosyncrasies. And its geography.

On the map

Everything in Burgundy starts with place. The region is in east-central France, running roughly north to south, carved into five main subregions: Chablis (cool, steely whites); Côte de Nuits (Pinot Noir mecca); Côte de Beaune (more Pinot, plus world-class Chardonnay); Côte Chalonnaise (bang for buck); and Mâconnais (sunny, generous whites). And oenophile heaven lies in a 30-mile strip at its heart – the aptly named Côte d’Or.

Within it are hundreds of villages and thousands of vineyards, each with their own microclimates, soil types, and histories. The Burgundian way is granular, obsessive, deeply nuanced. Bordeaux, down in the sunny south-west, is about blends and branding. Burgundy is about specificity and smallness.

This is where the classification system comes in. There are four quality levels:

Regional wines: Simple, entry-level.
Village wines: From a specific commune.
Premier Cru: From designated superior vineyard sites within a village.
Grand Cru: The top tier – just 1% of production (and priced accordingly).

And yet, Burgundy is also simple, in that it consists almost exclusively of two grapes: Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The reds can be life-changing; light but complex, earthy but fragrant, silky but never overblown. The whites are a revelation, especially if you associate Chardonnay with California. Yes, you'll find oak, but they range from flinty to nutty, and are always driven by that elusive quality the French call minéralité, courtesy of layers of limestone beneath the Côte d'Or soil.

What makes Burgundy so maddening, and so seductive, is how variable it can be. Not just vineyard to vineyard, but even bottle to bottle. The same producer, vintage, and village can show two different bottles – one a revelation, the other flat.

“I wish all wine drinkers knew how fragmented the vineyards and ownership of the vineyards in Burgundy is,” says Arnt Edil Nordlien, head of products at A/S Vinmonopolet (Norway's government-owned alcohol retailer). "Too many regular consumers just want to go in a store and buy a bottle of one of the greater Burgundies. These bottles don't sit on the shelf; they sell out quickly."

Which can make Burgundy a roll of the dice. But when your numbers come up, nothing else comes close.

Names to know: icons and iconoclasts

The easiest way to navigate Burgundy is via its producers. Domaine de Romanée-Conti is the one that breaks auction records (grand cru wines that start at four figures, and quickly add zeros). Domaine Leroy, Comte Liger-Belair, and Armand Rousseau are the others that get collectors sweating, as admired and out of reach as Picassos (and often also sold at Sotheby's).

But Burgundy's not just for oligarchs. Domaine Jean-Marc Roulot is revered for whites with piercing precision and grace. Domaine Sylvain Pataille, in Marsannay, is a rising star crafting detailed, soulful wines from an underrated village, with a focus on natural and biodynamic viticulture. And Benjamin Leroux is a négociant (buyer of grapes and juice from other estates) whose reds and whites start at around £30, but taste like £300 wines.

And then there's A & P de Villaine, founded by the owner of DRC, but at democratic (for Burgundy) price points. A taste of grand cru greatness without the grand cru mark-up, produced from under-the-radar communes such as Bouzeron and Rully.

The rise of the new guard is partly due to the shifting climate, by which Burgundy has been less impacted than other regions, though it's still far from immune. For some growers, though, rising temperatures have actually been beneficial. "There are some superb wines now being made in the traditionally 'lesser' Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOCs), like Marsannay, St Aubin and Maranges," says Pierre Mansour, director of wine at the Wine Society. "Here, climate change seems to be having a more benign impact on viticulture."

The Burgundy cheat-sheet

Burgundy can feel like a private club, with too many rules and a Gallic doorman who won't let you in. But it's less snobby than you think, with the right guides.

Start with a producer, not a label. Pick a winemaker whose style you like and follow them across vintages and villages. It’s more reliable than chasing appellations.
Explore lesser-known villages. Gevrey-Chambertin and Puligny-Montrachet are well-known enough to be tourist traps. But there are incredible wines being made in lesser-known – and lesser-priced – places like Maranges (structured reds, worthy of ageing), Saint-Aubin (elegant whites), and Fixin (muscular reds, and complex whites where Chardonnay can be joined by Pinot Blanc)
Find a good retailer or sommelier. Burgundy is a wine that rewards relationships. Your best bet is someone who knows the producers and can guide you through.
Taste broadly. Burgundy is all about personal preference. Do you like the airy elegance of Chambolle-Musigny, or the muscular depth of Nuits-Saint-Georges? You'll never know unless you try them.
Learn your vintages. In general, 2020 is balanced and elegant; 2021 was a growing nightmare, but there are some lovely examples; 2022 is fresh and approachable and 2023 is shaping up beautifully.

Burgundy is not simple. It demands attention, patience, and sometimes a line of credit. But it also offers the greatest emotional highs in wine, the kind of juice that has writers reaching for their adjectives. It’s the heartbreak wine, the obsessive’s wine, the wine that keeps revealing itself, glass after glass, year after year.

So take the plunge. Mispronounce Bitouzet Prieur. Order from the bottom of the list. Fall for a village you can't find on a map. Burgundy is never easy. But nothing this beautiful ever is.