Mad About Mâconnais Wines

First published: August 27, 2024 by Dominic Rippon

In search of opulence, we head south from Burgundy’s Côte d’Or and into the vineyards of the Mâconnais.

At the heart of winemaking Burgundy sits the city of Beaune, in the famous Côte d’Or département. The vineyards that surround it are some of the world’s most valuable, including mythical grands crus such as Le Montrachet, Le Chambertin and the impossibly rare delicacy that is La Romanée-Conti. In villages like Vosne- Romanée, even visitors with ample funds are likely to find their favourite estates with little wine left to sell, such is demand.

Drive an hour south from Beaune and although you’re still surrounded by Burgundy’s vineyards, these ones have a very different complexion. Here in the Mâconnais, vines are planted among a variety of other field crops in wilder, more sweeping landscapes that enjoy a slightly warmer climate than those further north- with a winemaker’s welcome to match. The Mâconnais’s wines are less well-known than those from the Côte d’Or and can consequently represent excellent value.

Nine of every ten bottles here are white, made from the Chardonnay grape, which loves the area’s limestone subsoils overlaid with alluvial clay. As you arrive in the area from the north, the village of Chardonnay itself, said to be the birthplace of the variety, greets you with its rich dry whites.

Chardonnay is one of 26 villages that can append their names to the Mâcon-Villages appellation, making more serious wines than generic Mâcon Blanc. A little further south, the villages of Viré, Clessé and a handful of others have their own appellation – Viré-Clessé – for plump yet sinewy Chardonnays that are well worth seeking out.

Red wines made from the Gamay grape of the Beaujolais region – which itself overlaps with the southern fringe of the Mâconnais – are labelled Mâcon Rouge; while the increasing number of reds made from Pinot noir are sold as the generally more interesting Bourgogne Rouge.

At the far south of the Mâconnais is the appellation that most wine lovers make the journey for: Pouilly-Fuissé. Nestling in the shadow of the twin peaks of the Roche de Vergisson and the Roche de Solutré, these vines make Chardonnays which, at their best, can rival the satisfying complexity of those from Côte de Beaune’s famous villages, but with a sumptuous richness that is all their own.

The efforts made over many years by Pouilly-Fuissé’s vignerons to identify the appellation’s best vineyard sites were finally rewarded in 2020, which became the launch vintage for the Pouilly-Fuissé Premier Cru appellation – a just recompense for southern Burgundy’s finest white wines.