The shape of French wine#
I come to France for five regions: the Jura, Beaujolais, Burgundy, Champagne and the Loire. Not Bordeaux, not the Rhône. These five are where the argument about how wine should be made is sharpest and the lunch tables longest. France as a whole grows vines on about three quarters of a million hectares, trades the title of largest producer with Italy every few vintages and leads the world by export value.
The frame for all of it is the appellation d’origine contrôlée, which fixes area, grapes, yield and ripeness. More than 300 wine AOCs sit in hierarchies that differ by region: Burgundy has 84, from regional Bourgogne through 44 village names to 33 grands crus; Champagne has one, with 17 grand cru and 42 premier cru villages inside it. A grower who wants out bottles as Vin de France, and in the natural corner of every region quite a few do.
And the two camps farm the same slopes. In Villié-Morgon the Lapierre family ferments Gamay without added sulfur; a short drive south at Odenas the Geoffray family of Château Thivin makes structured, classically sulfured Côte de Brouilly. I pour both at one table and let the wines argue.
A short history in dates#
Greek settlers founded Massalia, today’s Marseille, around 600 BC; the Romans carried vines up the Rhône to Burgundy and the Loire. Cîteaux Abbey was founded in 1098, and its Cistercians walled the Clos de Vougeot and recorded what each parcel gave, which is where Burgundy’s climats begin. On 31 July 1395 Philip the Bold banned Gamay from Burgundy, and Gamay went south to the granite of Beaujolais.
Dom Pérignon, cellarer at Hautvillers from 1668 to 1715, was a blender and quality reformer, not the inventor of sparkling wine. The appellation law passed in 1935 and the first six AOC decrees followed on 15 May 1936, published alphabetically, so Arbois in the Jura is the first AOC in France. In 1981 Marcel Lapierre, following the chemist Jules Chauvet, vinified his Morgon without added sulfur. UNESCO listed Burgundy’s 1,247 climats and Champagne’s hillsides, houses and cellars on 4 July 2015.
Grapes: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Gamay, Savagnin, Chenin#
Chardonnay and Pinot Noir belong to Burgundy, Champagne and the Jura; Meunier is Champagne’s third grape, Aligoté Burgundy’s sharp second white. Gamay, ga-MAY, is about 97 percent of Beaujolais: whole-bunch semi-carbonic maceration gives red fruit, pepper and an iron edge, and at 13 to 14 degrees it is what Lyon drinks with charcuterie.
Savagnin, sa-va-NYAN, is the Jura’s grape and genetically a Traminer. Topped up in barrel, ouillé, it is fresh and lemony; left under a veil of yeast, sous voile, it turns to walnut, curry and salt. Vin jaune is Savagnin kept under that veil for at least 60 months and sold in a 62-centilitre clavelin. Poulsard is the pale Jura red, Trousseau the darker one.
Chenin Blanc, shuh-NAN, runs from bone dry through demi-sec to moelleux and makes the Loire’s pétillant and many of its pét-nats. Cabernet Franc, locally Breton, is the red of Chinon, Bourgueil and Saumur-Champigny: raspberry, graphite, a green-leaf lift when young.
The regions#
Jura#
The Jura vineyard is an 80-kilometre strip on the Revermont, the western foot of the Jura mountains, at 250 to 450 metres on grey, blue and red marls: Arbois in the north, Château-Chalon and L’Étoile in the middle, Rotalier in the south. Under 2,000 hectares, four geographic appellations, both schools of white in most cellars. My story about Stéphane and Bénédicte Tissot at Montigny, who farm biodynamically and age Trousseau in amphora beside classic vin jaune, is where I would start.
Beaujolais#
Beaujolais runs 55 kilometres north from Lyon toward Mâcon. The ten crus sit on the granite of the north at 200 to 500 metres: pink granite around Fleurie, blue diorite on Mont Brouilly at 484 metres and the Côte du Py at 358. Twelve appellations, roughly 13,500 hectares, almost all Gamay. The modern natural movement was born here, and the Lapierre cellar in Villié-Morgon is still its reference point.
Burgundy#
Burgundy is the Côte d’Or, an east-facing escarpment of Jurassic limestone and marl running south from Dijon past Beaune, plus Chablis to the north-west. Premiers and grands crus sit mid-slope at 250 to 300 metres. About 30,000 hectares, 84 appellations, 1,247 named climats, and an old tension between the négociant houses of Beaune and the family domaines of the villages. Beaune is the capital and my base.
Champagne#
Champagne lies 150 kilometres north-east of Paris on chalk 100 to 300 metres deep. Reims and Épernay hold the big houses; the Montagne de Reims grows Pinot Noir, the Vallée de la Marne Meunier, the Côte des Blancs Chardonnay in Cramant, Avize, Oger and Le Mesnil. Some 34,000 hectares, over 16,000 growers and about 350 houses. The letters RM or NM on every label tell you which you are drinking; Pierre Larmandier at Vertus is the RM I would point you to first.
Loire#
The Loire I tour is Touraine and Anjou-Saumur: Vouvray and Montlouis facing each other across the river east of Tours, Chinon and Bourgueil downstream, then Saumur-Champigny, the Layon south of Angers and Savennières to its west. Vines sit low, 30 to 120 metres, on tuffeau, the soft limestone carved into cellars, and on schist west of Saumur. Chenin does everything here; Cabernet Franc does the reds. Domaine Huet in Vouvray, biodynamic since 1988 and classic in every other respect, shows the other side of the same river.
Natural and classic in France today#
France has no legal category for natural wine. Biodynamic farming is mainstream at the top, from Leflaive and Dujac to Larmandier-Bernier and Huet, so “natural” here is a question of the cellar, above all sulfur and yeast, not of the vines. The Vin Méthode Nature label, accepted in 2020, asks for certified organic grapes, hand harvest, indigenous yeasts, no additives, and either no added sulfites or under 30 milligrams per litre in total; it is voluntary, and many growers in the movement do without it.
On my routes the natural camp is Overnoy and Houillon in Pupillin, Ganevat in Rotalier, the Beaujolais “gang of four” named by the importer Kermit Lynch, Philippe Pacalet and Fanny Sabre in Burgundy, Mark Angeli and Richard Leroy in Anjou. The classic camp is Château Thivin, Leflaive, Dujac and Drouhin, the grandes maisons, Huet and Clos Rougeard, most of them farming organically and using moderate sulfur. What I pour, and why has its own page.
The fairs mark the calendar. La Dive Bouteille in Saumur in early February is trade only, and Georgian growers exhibit there, so the qvevri of Kakheti join the conversation in a tuffeau cave.
What arrives on the table#
Lunch is 12:00 to 14:00 and dinner from 19:30, restaurants close on Sunday evening and Monday, and much of wine France shuts for two or three weeks in August. I build the days around those hours.
In the Jura it is poulet au vin jaune et aux morilles, a Mont d’Or baked in its box with Morteau sausage, and long-aged Comté with a glass of vin jaune. Lyon’s bouchons serve saucisson brioché and quenelles de brochet, and the mid-morning mâchon of charcuterie comes with a cru from a 46-centilitre pot. Burgundy is boeuf bourguignon, oeufs en meurette, escargots with Aligoté, and Époisses with a Marc de Bourgogne or an aged white, never a young red. Champagne dips the pink biscuits of Reims in the glass. The Loire is rillettes from Tours with chilled Chinon, fouées baked in a tuffeau cave near Saumur, dry Chenin with Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine, and moelleux Vouvray with blue cheese rather than dessert.
When to go and how to get there#
May and June are the safe months: flowering around mid-June, cellars open, 18 to 24 degrees in the Loire and Beaujolais. The Jura is one of the wettest wine regions in France, about 1,100 millimetres a year, so I pack for rain there in any month. Harvest runs late August to mid-September in Champagne and Beaujolais, mid-September in Burgundy, late September into October in the Jura, and into November for the Loire’s moelleux; many small estates take no visitors while picking. October is colour and open doors, and the Hospices de Beaune auction, held since 1859, falls on the third Sunday of November.
Two bases. Paris serves Burgundy, Champagne and the Loire: Reims is about 45 minutes by TGV, Beaune about two hours by way of Dijon, Tours about an hour. Lyon serves the Jura and Beaujolais: Villié-Morgon is about an hour from Saint-Exupéry airport, Arbois about 2 h 15, and Arbois to Beaune 1 h 20.
France is euro and Schengen. Cards work nearly everywhere, but some small estates prefer cash and some sell nothing at the door; paid tastings are standard in Burgundy and Champagne. The drink-drive limit is 0.5 grams per litre, so we move by minibus with a driver.
How I tour France#
Three scheduled small-group tours. The Jura and Beaujolais natural-wine tour starts in Lyon and works from Arbois and Villié-Morgon: voile cellars and marl slopes, then the Côte du Py and a bouchon dinner. The Burgundy and Champagne classics tour starts in Paris and runs from Beaune to Épernay: one grape on adjacent climats in Puligny and Meursault, a négociant cellar under Beaune, a house and a grower on one table in the Côte des Blancs. The Loire Chenin tour is Vouvray, Montlouis, Saumur and Savennières from Tours: one white grape, dry to sweet to sparkling, in tuffeau and on schist.
On every table I put a natural and a classic wine from the same hill and we talk about why each winemaker chose as they did; the point is the choice, not the verdict. Several famous cellars in this guide see the trade only, and I say so in advance rather than promise doors I cannot open. For the Rhône, Alsace, Bordeaux, or Burgundy during the Hospices auction, private tours for two to twelve people start from a conversation.
