Why Are These Premier Cru Burgundy Wines Priced So Differently?

Hi everybody, this is Agnesa from No Sediment and today we are going to taste white Premier Cru wines from across the Burgundy and ask slightly dangerous question does Cote d'Or really deserve all the glory? The idea for this video came to me while I was traveling through Burgundy and peeking into almost every wine shop I passed. For one, I had a professional interest of course, another reason was the scorching heat I was trying to hide from. And while studying the offer, you see wines at all sorts of price points. You see different names, villages, vineyards and climats on the labels, enough to confuse even the most seasoned Burgundy lovers. What I thought could be confusing for a consumer is that I could see Premier Cru wines priced anywhere between 30 euros and 500 euros. Of course, we already understand that not all Premier Cru wines are the same. Some have consistently been rated higher than others. Some, legend has it, were meant to be formalized as Grand Cru and were only refused that status because of whatever political, financial or ownership reasons. Burgundy lovers take great pride in their knowledge of these complexities, especially those who have dived so deeply into Burgundy and feel so comfortable there that the only reason they poke their nose out of it is if they smell a glass of champagne. So why are we going to talk about Premier Cru today? Burgundy is unique. Broadly speaking, Burgundy's quality hierarchy can be divided into four major categories. At the base, we have regional wines, Bourgogne Blanc, Bourgogne Rouge, Bourgogne Pastute, Grain among others. A step above that, we have village-level wines. These take the name of the village or commune where the grapes are Next up, we have Premier Cru wines. On the label, you will see the village name followed by Premier Cru and in certain cases, you might even see the name of a specific Premier Cru site or climat. At the very top, the pinnacle of Burgundy, crème de la crème, the jewel, the treasure and the crown sit the Grand Cru wines. There are 33 Grand Cru vineyards in Burgundy and each has its own unique AOC. Take together with the rest of Burgundy's appellations and it is no wonder that Burgundy is responsible for 23% of all France's AOC wines and seems to take great pride in it. So Grand Cru in a way remains a completely different story. First of all, with almost no exceptions, these are very limited and very expensive wines. Except for Chablis, there are no Grand Cru vineyards outside Côte d'Iorre. The Côte d'Iorre is the heart of Burgundy and the holy grail for Burgundy lovers. Further south, we have Côte Chalonnaise, which is often praised as the land of discoveries. And even further south, we have Mâconnet, with probably the most famous appellation there at the moment being Puy-Fusay. Funny enough, I think that village Burgundy can offer great deal of fun and excitement but also quite a lot of disappointment. And to make things worse, it is village level Burgundy that has shown a very significant price increase over the last 10 to 15 years. Prices have doubled and in some cases have risen by as much as 300 or even 500 percent. If I am being honest, we have seen a significant price increase across all Burgundy wines. But having said that, when I look at Burgundy shelves and see that the price gap between village and Premier Cru has narrowed, I cannot help but wonder if the safer choice now lies with the Premier Cru label. And now we can find Premier Cru wines in all major Burgundy sub-regions Chablis, Côte d'Iorre, Côte Chalonnaise and Mâconnet. There are even discussions underway about elevating some vineyards in Beaujolais to Premier Cru status as well. And that means, or at least I tend to think so, that there are still spots to look for good value wines in Burgundy. And I do think that you can find less disappointment in the Premier Cru category. Initially, it might seem like a silly experiment to compare Côte d'Iorre Premier Cru wines to those of Côte Chalonnaise and Mâconnet, because we clearly know which ones are more affordable and which carry greater prestige. But despite what we are often told through promotional activities, vineyard classification and official recognition are not nearly as romantic as they might seem. There is always politics, money and power involved. For example, Jasper Morris, Master of Wine, has written that one reason so much of Chalonnaise was classified as Premier Cru is that vineyards classed as Premier Cru would not be requisitioned by the occupying German forces. These vineyards were codified in 1942 and apparently it was done in quite a rush. So it might be the case that some Premier Cru vineyards in the Chalonnaise are not up to the standards we might expect from them today. Certain things could also be said about some vineyards in Côte d'Iorre. Meanwhile, the Mâconnet Premier Cru vineyards are only in force from the 2020 vintage onwards, and although they are based on historical data, prestige and consistency in outperforming other sites, we still cannot entirely exclude the factor of politics and power play here as well. So I thought it would be interesting to taste these wines in blind and whether what we are talking about really is quality gap, or maybe instead we are simply discussing a stylistic differences between these sub-regions of Burgundy. And let us also ask with this tasting, can we really expect a similar level of quality from all Premier Cru vineyards across Burgundy? Or does Côte d'Iorre remain the sacred grail? Let's start with wine number one. I do love the color here. It is relatively deep lemon and you know that this wine will pack some tension and some intensity and concentration. Not that you can tell all of that from the color. It can be very misleading as Yes, you feel this really ripe fruit profile here. All the yellow fruits you can imagine. Think of pear, apple, peaches, even hint of melon maybe. You can also feel some note of vanilla and toasted nuts and sweet spices. So it seems that this wine has seen at some stage of its vinification oak. Those stone fruits that I feel on the nose here, they're maybe slightly bruised in a way, but let's taste it. Overall I think that this wine is quite generous and open and really inviting. It has some tension when it comes to acidity, when it comes to focus and precision of the fruit. But all together I think it acts like this nice gentle and kind hug and it is very approachable right now at this very moment. And then there's this generosity of fruit and openness of fruit on the palate. It's all really ripe. It seems that this wine is coming from a warmer vintage or relatively sunny sunshine driven site. I will give this wine 90 points. Let's move to wine number two. So with wine number two we see slightly paler color and on the nose, on the nose I would say this is quite aromatic perfumed wine style. There is tension and nervousness to it. If we had all these ripe yellow fruits, these orchard fruit driven profile in wine one, here it is more more citrus fruit, lime, lemon. Lemon is quite ripe here and there's another element that I feel a lot and that is floral characters. We have these citrus fruit florals and maybe some acacia blossom as well, like that fresh spring morning meadow. Slight green elements as well, but not green in a way that it is unripe, but more like maybe lime peel or you know some sage. Let's taste the wine. While wine one had that jolly generous appeal to it, wine two is more focused. It has higher acidity and it has slimmer body. It seems more steely and linear in a way. While I'm talking with you what I really enjoy here is that long long lasting aftertaste because that lemon, that lime peel, that floral character is so persistent that through all these seconds me conversing with you I still feel the wine on my palate. I think this is quite magnificent bottle. I will give this wine 92 points. Let's move to wine number three. Wine number three. We also feel those bright ripe yellow fruits as we did in wine number one. Here we have those peaches and apricots. They're a bit crunchier. They are not as ripe as in wine one and what I also feel here in wine three is that creamy buttery element that adds a bit of extra layer if you will. But what I also enjoy that it is not overpowering the fruit. The fruit still plays the main role. It is the leading actor here in the wine three. It is evolving now because now it starts to smell of chamomile, fresh chamomile blossom. I really like this wine. Wow it seems layered and complex and it keeps developing in the glass. Let's taste the wine. So wine number three. It is almost like mix between one and two because you have that generosity of fruit. It is quite open and it is there you know to please you. But as you pay attention on that fruit, the acidity slowly creeps in and it just lifts it all up and you know adds extra dimension to the wine. It elongates the wine and all of a sudden to that ripeness of fruit we get that wave of freshness, that wave of focus and precision and it is really beautiful. And what is also quite interesting with wine number three as opposed to wine number two is that we also have really long aftertaste. But here the aftertaste was this one-dimensional element. You know I had that citrus fruit character. Here the aftertaste at first I had that fruit ripeness, that stone fruit character. Then I had some of the floral elements and now it almost feels there's something herbal to it. So this is really complex and interesting wine. I will give this wine 93 points. And let's move to wine number four. Okay so wine number four. On the nose we have similar elements of those ripe stone fruits. I'm talking peaches and yellow apple but that really ripe in character. But there's also some spiciness to it. Like you almost have that you know peach compote or peach jam that is mixed together with rosemary or thyme to add a bit of oomph, to add a bit of you know depth, flavor depth to the fruit. And I have very similar experience in this glass. And then when you talk about it and you think like you have catched the aromas of these wines and you have already defined them, you know it starts to evolve and it starts to evade. Let's taste it because now I feel like it just closed. Wow I think this wine also packs a lot of flavor and complexity and concentration on the palate. The aftertaste is really intense here. But I think this wine in a way it shows a lot of power and structure and body. But there's also some fragile elements to it. You know there is this really concentrated and nice firm acidity that elevates it, that makes that ripe fruit profile quite refreshing and not at all dull. I do enjoy this wine. That spiciness, that ripeness of the fruit without losing you know that elegant fragility some of the best wines can offer. I will give this wine 91.5 points. Shall we reveal the wines? We will start probably with the lowest scored wine. All of these wines were fantastic. All of these wines were great and I would be incredibly happy to enjoy all of them on their own. But also there are differences in quality and in style and the way I perceive it. So we will start with wine number one which I gave 90 points if I'm not mistaken. All right so this is 2022 vintage. It is Montagny Premier Cru and it is a blend from several Premier Cru wines. This is interesting. It was really generous and and open and rich and ripe fruit driven. Jasper Morris says that more than half of Montagny vineyards are actually Premier Cru. So according to him some of the Premier Cru wines could be of higher rate and some maybe not so much. This is blend from relatively young vines and this wine was I think the cheapest of the bunch and it received 90 points. This was really beautiful wine. Maybe the richness and opulence was a bit too much for my personal taste. But let's move to wine number four which I gave 91.5 points. This is one of my recent discoveries Eric Forrest Puy Fausse Premier Cru Lecre 2024. It would be very difficult for me to identify the vintage because 2024 was really challenging vintage and you could not see it in this wine. It was really clean and beautiful and you had that nice focused acidity. For the longest time I have been great supporter and fan of producers who harvest their grapes relatively late. I like the generosity of flavors. I like the ripeness of the fruit in the wines. I like when wines offer something more flavor wise than just acidity and I think this wine represented it beautifully and when I visited this estate the winemaker explained it and it made a lot of sense. Of course when you harvest grapes later there is this risk of increased residual sugar which will translate in higher alcohol level but other elements in grapes concentrate too and including acidity. So sometimes waiting more you know allowing grapes to fully mature on wine you can actually get better acidity on the palate as well and this wine it has only 13 percent. It is a relatively cool and challenging vintage as I said but for me this is great discovery. I really enjoy this producer. Let's move to wine number two which received 92 points and I would have been quite surprised if it wouldn't be Chablis because this it was the slimmest, the freshest, the nerviest of all the wines and I think I did describe the style more citrus driven. It was also more perfumed in a way on the nose. This was beautiful. With Vaillon we are not on the slopes where the famous Grand Cru vineyards are. With Vaillon vineyard we are actually on the other side of the river and I think it can offer great value. In a way both of these wines are actually very similarly priced so you can see that they also offer quite good value when it comes to Burgundy because when we talk about value we always have to remember that we are talking about value in Burgundy. It is completely different than when we talk about value in other winemaking regions. Let's move to wine number three which I know where it is coming from. By now I gave this wine 93 points and I thought it was quite magnificent and it was evolving and developing. So we are in Cote d'Ivoire. We are with Jean-Louis Chaville Pouligny-Monachet Premier Cru Le Foletier. It is one of the largest Premier Cru vineyards if I'm not mistaken. It is also often regarded as one of the finest Premier Cru vineyards in Pouligny area and I think in this specific case this wine really shined. I was impressed by it and when I was tasting the wine in blind there was a question mark. Could this be the Cote d'Ivoire wine? Because the way it evolved in the glass, because the way it was so complex and layered and was not one-dimensional, you know there was a lot of things to talk about when we smelled, when we tasted the wine and I am absolutely sure if I would take this bottle back home and enjoy it over the course of dinner it would reveal a lot of new elements and things in the glass and the conversation would continue. Well we can see now that Cote d'Ivoire indeed was the top scored wine. However we have to be honest this bottle is twice the price of this bottle and twice the price of this bottle and thrice, three times more the price of this bottle. However the scoring was not that much greater. Of course this is beautiful bottle and it was great experience. Let me know in the comment section below where do you look for good value in Burgundy? If you at all look for value in Burgundy and also should I make similar experiment tackling red wines of Burgundy? That would be also quite interesting and meanwhile make sure to watch this video next.