Montrachet

or Le Montrachet

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Wine

By Jancis Robinson

Published 2006

  • About

Montrachet or Le Montrachet, the most famous grand cru white burgundy, the apogee of the Chardonnay grape produced from a single vineyard in the Côte de Beaune district of the côte d’or. Claude Arnoux, writing in 1728, could find no words in either French or Latin to describe its qualities, though he noted that it was very expensive and that you needed to reserve the wine a year in advance. Dr Lavalle’s view (see burgundy, history), expressed in 1855 and not necessarily valid today, was that whatever the price for a good vintage of Le Montrachet, you would not have paid too much.