Burgundy's four tiers, explained

Burgundy grades the ground, not the grower. Four tiers rank the land itself, and the rule is beautifully simple: the more specific the place named on the label, the higher the wine sits. A bottle saying only “Bourgogne” can come from anywhere in the region. A bottle saying “Chambertin” comes from one named slope in one village, and nothing else is allowed in it.

There are 84 appellations in all: 7 Régionale, 44 Village and 33 Grand Cru. Premier Cru is the odd one out: it is not an appellation at all, but a mention attached to a village name for several hundred classified plots, or climats. Burgundy's own trade body counts them inside the Village tier rather than listing them separately, and that single quirk explains most of the confusion on a Burgundy shelf.

The four tiers at a glance

The scale at the top is smaller than most people picture. La Romanée, a Grand Cru in Vosne-Romanée, covers 0.845 hectares and belongs to one family, the Liger-Belairs. It is the smallest appellation in France.

Why Premier Cru is not an appellation

A Premier Cru wine is legally a village wine with a named plot added. That is why the labelling rule exists: the climat may not be printed in larger type than the appellation itself. Read Chablis Premier Cru Montée de Tonnerre in that order and the hierarchy makes sense: Chablis first, because Chablis is the appellation; the plot second, because it is a qualification.

Chablis is also the exception at the top. Chablis Grand Cru is a single appellation covering seven climats — Blanchot, Bougros, Les Clos, Grenouilles, Preuses, Valmur and Vaudésir — so seven different wines share one Grand Cru name. Every other Grand Cru is its own appellation.

The name trap that costs people money

In 1847 a royal ordinance let the village of Gevrey bolt the name of its greatest vineyard onto its own and become Gevrey-Chambertin. It worked so well that Puligny did the same with Montrachet in 1879, Chassagne followed, and much of the Côte d'Or after them.

The result is a shelf full of near-identical words at wildly different prices. Gevrey-Chambertin is the village; Chambertin is the Grand Cru. Puligny-Montrachet is the village; Montrachet is the Grand Cru. Buying the hyphen is not buying the hill, and it is worth learning to read the label carefully enough to tell them apart.

Where the money is actually worth spending

The classification grades soil, slope and drainage. It says nothing about who farms them, and Burgundy is a region of tiny holdings — the average estate runs to about 8.5 hectares — so the grower matters as much as the grade. If you are buying to drink rather than to cellar, the step that repays you most is Village to Premier Cru; Grand Cru is a collector's step, priced by scarcity as much as by flavour.

Two positions worth holding. Generic Bourgogne Rouge is not a cheap route to the taste of red Burgundy — at that price Pinot Noir goes thin rather than delicate, and the money does more in a village wine from a less fashionable commune. And if you want a Grand Cru without a painful bill, Chablis Grand Cru is the cheapest door into the tier, and white Burgundy shows the step up more plainly than red does.