Wines of the Burgundy region of France

Burgundy's frosty northern latitude has a climate that is ideal for grape growing, but one that can also be challenging, including hailstorms that can devastate a crop.

Burgundy's vintages vary from year to year, since they are natural products. Over the centuries, Burgundians have learned how to adjust to the climate and as a result, there are no "bad" vinatages in Burgundy, only better ones.

What is so special about Burgundy's soil? To understand, you must go back 150 million years to the Jurassic Period, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. At that time, the petrified remains of sea creatures were compressed with mudstone and lime, resulting in an iron-enriched limestone shelf.

Ironically, this made for an infertile and rocky soil that discouraged farmers for centuries. Fortunately, however, it is the ideal soil for growing some of the world's best grapes.

Whiel winemaking started in France in ancient times, it really took off when the Benedictine monks arrived in the 11th Century. Before long, local princes seeking the monk's good graces gave them large tracts of land that were so rocky and barren, they were unusable by any "reasonable" farmer.

Undaunted, the monks, who saw physical exertions as a purifying penance, transformed this wasteland into a winemaker's paradise and Burgundy's legend of world-class wines was born.

While the monks were busy producing the world's greatest wines, they were overtaken by the French Revolution. As a result, their gigantic vineyards were confiscated and divided among many different owners.

These subsequent owners were then required by law to divide the ownership of their estates equaly among their sones, and so it continued for generations. As a result the vineyards remained physically intact, while ownership became fragmented.

Therefore, many small growers sell their grapes to negociants who specialize in aging and bottling wines. Because of their critical role, the names of the negociants are as important as the name of the particular vineyard.

But even back when the monks held sway, the Burgundians knew they were on to a good thing. In 1395, Duke Philippe le Hardi, a bit of a wine connoisseur himself, decreed that only the Pinot Noir grape could be planted on Burgundy's Cote d'Or region for red wine production.In modern times, France enacted the Appellation d'Origine Controlle (A.O.C.) or "controlled place of origin" law. The law defined geographic boundaries capable of producing wine, placed limits on the maximum yield of grapes per acre (the more grapes produced, the lower the concentration of flavor in each grape) and codifed winemaking procedures perfected through the ages

Because it functions as an amalgam of cottage industries, Burgundy's total wine output is small. Some vineyards produce only a few hundred cases a year. This means that the wines of Burgundy are essentially handcrafted, singular "works of art."