Corgoloin. I once saw a famous French wine taster, at a formal dinner, mistake a four-year-old Corgoloin for a Musigny aged twenty. I hope I am never caught out so badly.
Côte de Beaune
Ladoix-Serrigny. Its better wines are legally marketed as Aloxe-Corton, an its others are of no consequence. See below.
Aloxe-Corton. If you want to pass for a Burgundian, you will say Alosse, not Aloxe, but Corton is Corton in any language, a noble white wine, and the greatest red of the Côte de Beaune.
We shall leave the white wines out of consideration in this article, except to say that a Corton can be either re or white, but a Corton-Charlemagne only white, and that both are better than white wines called simply Aloxe-Corton, or Charlemagne.
The total area under vines in the township is small, considering the fame of its wines, and only the least and most inconsequential of these are sold as Aloxe-Corton. The others come from Corton's broad and magnificent hillside and are quite properly labeled Cortons, with or without a supplementary vineyard name. Big, bouquetés, long-lived, with a sort of autumnal richness when they are old, they are the Chambertins of the Côte de Beaune.
**(Sometimes merits***) Corton, so labeled or as:
**Le Corton (29)
**Corton Clos du Roi (26)
**Corton Bressandes (42)
**Corton Les Chaumes (6)
**Corton Les Renardes (37)
*Corton Les Grvès (5)
*Corton Les Perrières (27)
*Corton Les Pougets (25)
*Corton Les Maréchaudes (17)
*Corton La Vigne-au-Saint (6)
*Corton Les Languettes (18)
Pernand-Vergelesses. Most of the better wines of Pernand (they are fairly numerous and can be very good) are properly and legally sold under the name of their illustrious neighbor, Corton, and only one really outstanding vineyard is left to uphold the fame of Pernand:
*Ile des Vergelesses (24)
Savigny. Over the door of the Château de Savigny an ancient inscription, now barely legible, tells us that “Les vins de Savigny sont nourissans, thêologiques et morbifuges.” They are all of that and rather plentiful, too, for the township has over 900 acres under vines and produces a great deal of the wine ordinarily marketed as Côte de Beaune. A Savigny of a goo year is a delightful bottle nonetheless, fruity and what the French call tendre, of early maturity and relatively short life.
Another Savigny inscription states in Latin that “There are five reasons for drinking: the arrival of a guest, present or future thirst, the excellence of the wine, and any other reason that you can think of.” And in Savigny you do not need either a guest or a thirst.
There are few really outstanding Savigny vineyards, but Vergelesses, Marconnets, and Jarrons are considered the best.
Beaune. It has been said that Dijon is the capital de la Bourgogne an Beaune the capital du Bourgogne—la Bourgogne being the province, an le Bourgogne, the wine. And truly, Beaune lives for little else. With over 1,300 acres in Pinot vines it has the largest production of the Côte d'Or; it is the center of the Burgundian wine trade, its hospital is a winery, its venerable ramparts a honeycomb of cellars, and its mayor, almost invariably, a wine merchant. In addition, it is a most delightful old town, full of interesting buildings and famous for its good food.
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