French Wine Guide: Burgundy (France) [NOOK Book]

Wine guides for the ultra curious, Approach Guides takes an in depth look at a wine region's grapes, appellations, and vintages to help you discover wines that meet your preferences.

Publisher note: The purpose of this guide is to profile the unique aspects of Burgundy's appellations and grape varieties; this guide does not profile specific producers or rate individual wines.

ABOUT THIS WINE GUIDE
While all of France’s wine regions are special, Burgundy is in a class by itself. The wines are sublime, distinctive and evocative of place. However, as good as the wines are, developing an understanding the region’s complex wine landscape – derived from the extreme fragmentation of its classified vineyard area into small geographic plots – can be quite a task. Explaining this landscape and what makes the wines from each area unique is what this guidebook was designed to do.

This Approach Guide focuses on the five principal areas of Burgundy:
* Côte d’Or. The Côte d’Or, or Golden Slope, is home to the supreme expressions of pinot noir and chardonnay. Its wines are celebrated for their subtlety, sophistication, and reflection of terroir.
* Côte Chalonnaise. Located immediately south of the Côte d’Or and focused chiefly on pinot noir, the Côte Chalonnaise delivers some lighter and crisper wines of good value.
* Mâconnais. Just south of the Côte Chalonnaise is the Mâconnais, whose chardonnays deliver great values.
* Beaujolais. Beaujolais, comprising the southern end of Burgundy, is home to the red gamay grape. Wines are approachable, offering bright fruit and low tannins at attractive price points. Plus, wines from its ten Cru Beaujolais villages, accounting for roughly 25% of total production, are sophisticated, yet still affordable.
* Yonne. Separated from the rest of Burgundy and sitting off to the northwest, the Yonne is best known as home to the minerally, gunflinty chardonnays of Chablis.
This Approach Guide begins by offering a straightforward vintage ratings table, which affords high-level, area-by-area insight into the best and most challenging years for wine production in Burgundy.

It continues with a brief review of Burgundy’s primary red and white grape varieties and where they reach their highest expressions.

Finally, it concludes with detailed appellation profiles. For each appellation, this guide offers insight into its specific terroir, pointing out the best wines and what makes them distinctive.

This guidebook’s approach is unique: Rather than tell you what specific bottle of wine to order by providing individual bottle reviews, this Approach Guide gives you the information you require to make informed wine choices on any list. To help you in your selection process, we have marked our favorite regions, grape varieties, and denominations with an asterisk (*) -- look for this indication as a sign of quality, consistency, and good value.

We hope that this guide serves as a great resource for your wine adventures in France and sets you on a path to making your own discoveries.

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