Mâcon's Actually Affordable White Burgundies

Source: WSJ

By JAY MCINERNEY

Aug 10th

STANDING IN THE RAIN with petite, gumbooted Caroline Gon in the middle of the Clos de la Crochette, a gently sloping vineyard composed of very wet clay studded with calcareous stones, I look down on the unassuming little town of Chardonnay, which may or may not be the birthplace of the world's most famous white wine grape. "This is a special place," says Ms. Gon, the winemaker for Les Héritiers du Comte Lafon. "The monks of Cluny first planted here a thousand years ago."

Any early-morning epiphany I might have been expecting is not forthcoming: I'm very wet and very cold, a condition that will persist throughout a day spent in various wine cellars. Yet my spirits rise as the day progresses and I taste an array of incredibly good Chardonnays-or rather, incredibly good Mâcons, as in France the name of the place always trumps the name of the grape, although in the case of whites from the village of Chardonnay they are one and the same. We may never know if the grape was born in the Mâcon region, but in recent years, this former backwater in the far south of Burgundy, which used to be known for cheap whites made by giant cooperatives, has attracted a new generation of artisanal winemakers and become a source of exciting and inexpensive whites.

Like many Americans, my first Mâcon was Mâcon-Lugny les Charmes, a pleasant, inexpensive white from the cooperative Cave de Lugny, and the perfect accompaniment to grad school potluck suppers. The first truly inspiring wine I had from Mâcon was from Domaine de la Bongran, made by Jean Thévenet, whose family roots in the town of Vire go back some 500 years and whose wines remain among the region's most distinctive and traditional. When I first visited Mâcon in 2001, there were intimations of burgeoning ambition and an infusion of outside talent: a couple from Flanders, Maine and Jean-Marie Guffens, arrived in the late '70s and learned winemaking from scratch, eventually buying grapes and vineyards and setting new standards for quality. After apprenticing in wineries in the Jura and Napa, Calif., in 1987 Olivier and Corinne Merlin took over a rundown domain in the village of La Roche-Vineuse from the uncle of Olivier's college roommate and set about applying what they'd learned to neglected vineyards. They have since been discovered by Burgundy connoisseurs.

The big news rocking Mâcon during my first visit was the arrival of Dominique Lafon, from the revered Domain des Comtes Lafon in Meursault, in Burgundy's famous Côte d'Or. Meursault is one of the greatest of white Burgundies; Comtes Lafon even produces a few precious cases of Montrachet Grand Cru, one of the most famous and expensive white wines in the world. Mr. Lafon bought his first vineyards in Mâcon in 1999 and has been a major inspiration for others in the region as he continues to expand Héritiers du Comte Lafon. The comte, a worldly, chain-smoking ladies' man who looks like a shorter version of Liam Neeson, inherited the domain in Meursault in conjunction with quite a few relatives. When I visited him last year he told me that he liked the idea of pioneering a relatively underexploited wine region. Land in Meursault now sells for over 1 million euros per hectare-a price reflected in the wines. Mr. Lafon's Meursaults start at about a hundred bucks retail, whereas his basic Mâcon Villages can be found for under $20.

As in the Côte d'Or, the really exciting wines in his stable are from single villages and single vineyards, which testifies to the Burgundian concept of terroir. They can demonstrate tremendous variations in taste within the same vintage. The 2010 Mâcon Milly-Lamartine (from the village where French poet and politician Alphonse de Lamartine was born in 1790) has a very tropical character, while the Clos de la Crochette from the village of Chardonnay is much stonier. As yet there is no hierarchy established among the villages and vineyards of Mâcon, no premier or grand cru sites, although a review is under way. Meanwhile, wine buffs can make their own discriminations while enjoying the relatively low prices.

No one is more committed to highlighting individual vineyard sites than the Bret brothers, two diminutive 30-something siblings who used to spend summers at the family château in the village of Vinzelles. They eventually decided to reclaim the family vineyards and farm them organically, as well as to seek out grapes from the best of their neighbors' vineyards. (The wines they make from purchased grapes are sold under the Bret Brothers label, inspired by the Blues Brothers; the wines from their own vineyards are sold as La Soufrandière.)

I was still soaking and freezing after my morning in Chardonnay and a tasting in Lafon's cellar when I followed the hyperactive 38-year-old Jean-Philippe Bret down to the cellar and encountered a lineup of some 25 different Mâcon cuvées, the sight of which wearied me. But the combination of Mr. Bret's enthusiasm and the quality of the wines soon revived me. The wines had an individuality that was remarkable, and the best had a fierce, searing acidity that balanced out their powerful fruit. The 2010 Pouilly-Vinzelles les Quarts, from a vineyard just below the château, had what seemed to me grand cru depth and intensity. Also superb were their wines from the Pouilly-Fuissé appellation.

Pouilly-Fuissé enjoyed a brief and inexplicable moment of fame in this country in the Hall & Oates era (see my colleague Lettie Teague's 2010 article) and is now a bit of a punch line, though in fact there are an increasing number of producers making very good juice there. The Château des Rontets is situated on a hilltop overlooking the town of Fuissé, and has been in the Gazeau family since 1850. Claire Gazeau and her husband, Fabio Montrasi, both architects, knew little about winemaking when they moved from Milan to take over the family estate in the '90s. They've made up for lost time, producing three different cuvées of Pouilly-Fuissé, which rival not only their more established neighbors but also the more expensive wines of Puligny-Montrachet and Meursault to the north.

Although grapes have been grown here for more than a thousand years, Mâcon is in its infancy as a fine wine region. But it's absolutely the best source of that most elusive of beverages-affordable white Burgundy.