Puligny-Montrachet

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Wine

By Jancis Robinson

Published 2006

  • About

Puligny-Montrachet, village in the Côte de Beaune district of Burgundy’s Côte d’Or producing very fine wines from chardonnay and a tiny amount of less exalted red. Puligny added the name of its most famous vineyard, the grand cru Le Montrachet, in 1879 and has benefited from the association ever since.

Puligny contains two grand cru vineyards in their entirety, Chevalier-Montrachet and Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet, and two which are shared with neighbouring Chassagne: Le Montrachet itself and Bâtard-Montrachet. Below this exalted level, yet still among the finest of all white wines of Burgundy, are the premier cru vineyards. There are at least 13 of these, more if subdivisions are counted. At the same elevation as Bâtard-Montrachet lie Les Pucelles (made famous by the excellence of Domaine Leflaive’s version), Le Clavoillon, Les Perrières (including the Clos de la Mouchère), Les Referts, and Les Combettes, which produces the plump wines to be expected of a vineyard adjacent to Meursault-Perrières.