In the Mâconnais, Pouilly-Vinzelles and Pouilly-Loché finally received their deserved recognition with identification of Premier Crus vineyards, those sites that have the potential to produce superior wine. These two appellations now join Pouilly-Fuissé, the best-known Mâconnais village, where regulators identified 22 vineyards as Premier Cru starting with the 2022 vintage. With the 2024 vintage, “Les Longeays,” “Les Pétaux,” and “Les Quarts” in Pouilly-Vinzelles and “Les Mûres” in Pouilly-Loché will carry the Premier Cru designation on the label. Regulations required that no herbicides be used in these vineyards and all grapes must be harvested manually. Like Pouilly-Fuissé, these two villages produce only white wine from Chardonnay. In Pouilly-Vinzelles, these three climats (how the Bourgogne refer to vineyards) comprise 22.72 ha (57.7 acres) or roughly 43 percent of the vineyard sites in the appellation. The sole site in Pouilly-Loché, the 7.09-ha (18 acres) Les Mûres, represents 22 percent of the Pouilly-Loché appellation. By comparison, in Chassagne-Montrachet, 45 percent of the vineyards are classified as Premier Cru. So, it’s clear that the authorities are according elevated status to the truly top spots, as is the case in the Côte d’Or, here in the Mâconnais.
Compared to the Côte d’Or, the climate in the Mâconnais is a touch warmer, leading to riper, plusher wines. The soil, with its limestone, still provides minerality and verve to the wines. One clear sign of the potential in the Mâconnais is the investment by rock star-like Côte d’Or producers, such as Comte Lafon, and the equally, or even more, prestigious Domaine Leflaive.
The Mâconnais in general will be the place to look for well-priced white Burgundy in 2025 and beyond, even accounting for the inevitable increases in prices for wine from Pouilly-Vinzelles and Pouilly-Loché now that some of their vineyards have achieved Premier Cru recognition.
In a bizarre way, the Nazis were responsible for the delay in categorizing the top vineyards in the Mâconnais. Frédéric Burrier, the former head of the Pouilly-Fuissé growers’ organization, explains: In the Occupied France of the early 1940s, the Germans could requisition wines from the village level, but had to pay for ones, at least theoretically, from a higher classification. At that time the only higher classification was Grand Cru. Premier Cru did not exist. So, growers in the Côte Chalonnaise, which was located in Occupied France, rapidly formalized the generally accepted classification of the better sites into a Premier Cru category, forcing the Germans to pay for them. The Mâconnais lay in so-called “Free France” (or Vichy France) where the Germans had to pay for all wines, even those with only a village classification. So, there was no impetus for the growers to create a Premier Cru category. This bit of history explains why Montagny, a Côte Chalonnaise village just over the dividing line in Occupied France, has so many Premier Cru vineyards: 75 percent of its vineyards became—and still are—Premier Cru.
More and more, growers in the Mâconnais are focusing on site-specificity instead of bottling everything under the broad Macon-Villages rubric. There are 27 villages within the Mâconnais that can attach their name to generic “Mâcon” label, for example Mâcon-Azé, if all the grapes come from that individual village. This practice can lead to some confusion when the name of the wine, such as Mâcon-Fuissé, suggests a more exalted AOC. This is not French trickery but rather an example of how part of a village’s vineyards lies within, and are classified as, Pouilly-Fuissé, while another portion of them, lie in less favorable areas, and carry the less prestigious, Macon-Fuissé, moniker.
Tasting wines from Mâconnais producers who make and bottle wines from the individual villages, such as Domaine de la Garenne’s Mâcon-Azé next to their Mâcon-Solutré-Pouilly or Domaine du Château de Pierreclos’s Mâcon-Pierreclos side by side with their Mâcon-Milly Lamartine, shows the wonderful diversity and individuality of wines from this region. Just as in the Côte d’Or, where Meursault tastes different from Puligny-Montrachet, these producers are showing that, in the Mâconnais, wines from adjacent villages taste different because of the subtle differences in soil and exposure. The near magical concept of terroir exists in the Mâconnais, only at a price we non-one-percenters can afford.
Producers, such as Comte Lafon, whose Côte d’Or wines sell out immediately despite their stratospheric prices, are drilling down more, identifying single vineyards within a particular village, such as their Mâcon-Uchize “Les Maraches” and their Mâcon-Chardonnay “Clos de la Crochette” (yes, Chardonnay is the name of a village) because they have found them to be unique and distinctive. Look for more instances of this parcellation in the future.
Although the Mâconnais is known for its excellent and well-priced Chardonnay-based wines, an exciting development there is the appearance of noteworthy reds made from both Pinot Noir and Gamay. To appreciate the stature of these wines, search for ones from Domaine Guilloux-Broux. Like other visionaries in the Mâconnais, he focuses on the vineyard site, putting its name on the front label and relegating the appellation to the back label. He emphasizes, “I sell my name and terroir, that’s why no appellation is on front label.”
Red wines carrying the appellation Mâcon, with or without a village name, must be made entirely from Gamay. The limestone of the Mâconnais imparts a wonderous minerality to Gamay that sets it apart from the fruitiness of Gamay planted on the granite of Beaujolais. If growers opt to use Pinot Noir in the Mâconnais, the wine will carry the Bourgogne AOC, not Mâcon.
At this stage, I wouldn’t worry about remembering names of the individual villages in the Mâconnais, except of course for the ones with their own AOC, Pouilly-Fuissé, Pouilly-Vinzelles, Pouilly-Loche, and two awaiting Premier Cru classification, St. Véran and Viré-Clessé, but rather take my general advice: producer, producer, producer. Here are some I heartily recommend. Whenever I see their wines on a list, I order them even if I’m unfamiliar with the precise locale of the grapes because they are so reliable, even in, as the French would say, “difficult” vintages.
In addition to Domaine Guilloux-Broux, my favorite producers in the Mâconnais include the organic and biodynamically-certified Domaine Soufrandière and their négociant label, Bret Brothers, located in Vinzelles; Maison Auvigue located in Fuissé (sometimes seen under just Auvigue or Héritiers Auvigue); Domaine Jacques Saumaize in Vergisson, and Domaine Rijckaert in Davayé. Also on my list is Domaine Merlin, located in Mâcon-La Roche-Vineuse where they make a stunning wine that carries that appellation. Merlin has also formed a partnership with the aforementioned Comte Lafon to produce Pouilly-Fuissé. Speaking of Pouilly-Fuissé, Château de Beauregard, a leading producer there, also makes a stellar Mâcon-Fuissé.
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E-mail me your favorite producers in the Mâconnais at [email protected] and follow me on Instagram @MichaelApstein
December 25, 2024