Côte de Nuits

The Côte de Nuits runs about twenty kilometres from the southern edge of Dijon to Corgoloin, where the Côte de Beaune begins. In places the band of vines is only a few hundred metres wide. The wine route that threads its villages is signposted as the Route des Grands Crus.

Its name comes from Nuits-Saint-Georges, the Côte's historic wine town; its wines were long sold simply as "vin de Nuits". North to south the great villages follow in a line: Marsannay, Fixin, Gevrey-Chambertin, Morey-Saint-Denis, Chambolle-Musigny, Vougeot, Vosne-Romanée and Nuits itself. Several added the name of their most famous vineyard to their own in the nineteenth century — Gevrey became Gevrey-Chambertin by royal permission in 1847 — a marketing habit that endures on labels today.

Gevrey-Chambertin is the largest red-wine village of the Côte de Nuits, with nine Grand Crus bearing the Chambertin name. Morey-Saint-Denis holds Clos de la Roche, Clos Saint-Denis, Clos de Tart and Clos des Lambrays, plus a sliver of Bonnes-Mares. Chambolle-Musigny, whose wines are often described as perfumed and delicate, has the Grand Crus Musigny and Bonnes-Mares.

At Vougeot, the walled Clos de Vougeot — around fifty hectares, assembled by the monks of Cîteaux — is now divided among some eighty owners, a textbook case of Burgundian fragmentation. Vosne-Romanée and neighbouring Flagey-Échézeaux hold the most famous cluster of all: Romanée-Conti, La Tâche, Richebourg, Romanée-Saint-Vivant, La Romanée, La Grande Rue, Échézeaux and Grands-Échézeaux. Nuits-Saint-Georges itself has no Grand Cru but many respected Premiers Crus.

At the northern end, Marsannay is unusual: its village appellation (granted on 19 May 1987) covers red, white and rosé.

Pinot Noir is thin-skinned and sensitive, which is why it is used to compare places. Côte de Nuits reds are often described as more structured and longer-lived than those of the Côte de Beaune, with red and black fruit when young and, with age in bottle, notes such as wild mushroom, truffle and leather. Such descriptions are tendencies, not rules: vintage and grower can matter as much as the village.