A Discreet Valley at the Northern Gate of the Côte chalonnaise
The appellation occupies two communes of Saône-et-Loire, Bouzeron and Chassey-le-Camp, about eighteen kilometres north-west of Chalon-sur-Saône and two kilometres west of Chagny. This is the very north of the Côte chalonnaise, right on the hinge with the Côte de Beaune: Chagny is the border town, and Santenay lies only a few kilometres away. That proximity is no anecdote — it explains the level of viticultural ambition found in this little valley.
For the Côte chalonnaise is not the Côte d'Or. Where the Côte de Beaune runs in one long continuous east-facing ribbon, the Côte chalonnaise is a fragmented hillside, chopped up by transverse valleys, with slopes facing in every direction and generally higher altitudes. Bouzeron illustrates it perfectly: a perpendicular valley, two facing slopes, a steeply pitched vineyard that has never spread onto the plain.
The Terroir: Oxfordian Marls on a Jurassic Base
The geology of the Bouzeron valley reads like a cross-section. The valley floor is made of hard limestone; leaving Chagny, you cross a short band of marls, then meet the basal levels of the Rauracian, the limestone facies of the Oxfordian — oolitic and gravelly limestones, with a few chert intercalations. A fault brings them into contact with the Callovian formations, among them the celebrated Dalle nacrée, and then, beneath, with the very thick beds of the upper Bathonian.
Yet it is the marls that make the wine. The two slopes that enclose the valley show intercalated marl beds outcropping along the edge of the hillside: these Argovian marls, the marly facies of the Oxfordian, carry almost the entire vineyard. The soils there are clay-limestone, the gradient is on average fairly steep, and natural drainage curbs the vigour of an aligoté reputed to be productive. The whole logic of the appellation lies in that: taking aligoté out of the rich soils of the plain and putting it back on the slope, exactly as one would with a village chardonnay.
Climate: Temperate with a Continental Tendency, Swept by the Bise
Bouzeron has a temperate climate with a slight continental tendency: hot summers, cold winters, a marked temperature range between the two seasons. Rainfall is irregular through the year, May being the wettest month. The bise, the cold dry north-easterly, blows for part of the year and dries the canopy — an advantage for a variety prone to downy mildew and grey rot.
Late frosts, which make the whole of Burgundy tremble, remain broadly infrequent in this vineyard, even if a few lieux-dits are identified as frost-prone. Violent storms, sometimes with hail, can on the other hand break over the valley in summer. The slightly higher altitudes of the Côte chalonnaise and the varied exposures of this transverse valley lengthen the cycle and preserve acidity — exactly what aligoté needs to stay taut without turning lean.
Aligoté Doré: The Heart of the Appellation
Aligoté is an old Burgundian: DNA analysis has shown that it shares its lineage with chardonnay, both born of a natural cross between gouais blanc and pinot noir. Long planted in prime positions on the slopes of Meursault or Pernand-Vergelesses, it was supplanted by chardonnay and pushed out onto flat, rich land, where it gives the abundant bourgogne aligoté that earned it a reputation as an acidic aperitif. Bouzeron took the opposite path.
The key is called aligoté doré. As early as 1973, Aubert and Pamela de Villaine selected, among the village's very old vines, the so-called "doré" plants — whose skin, finer than that of "green" aligoté, takes on a golden hue at maturity — less productive and markedly finer. It is this biotype that the appellation enshrined. Bouzeron is thus the only village in Burgundy where aligoté is grown exclusively on the slope, and the only one to carry its name on a village-level label.
The Style of the Wines and the Table
The robe is pale gold. The nose plays on acacia and white flowers, lemon and hazelnut, with clean mineral notes. The palate is lively but round, generous, without the tart greenness usually ascribed to the variety: that is the benefit of the marly slope, the doré selection and restrained yields. Green harvesting is increasingly practised in the appellation with the same aim in view.
Served between 9 and 11°C as an aperitif, a little warmer at table, bouzeron goes with oysters and shellfish, but also with veal, poultry, jambon persillé and goat's cheese or comté. It is happily drunk young, on its tension, but old vines and careful ageing reward patience: the aligoté of Bouzeron knows how to age, something few drinkers still suspect.
From "Bourgogne aligoté de Bouzeron" to Bouzeron
The village's first vines are said to have been planted by the monks of the abbey of Cluny; in the 13th century, a chapel occupied by religious was already making wine, and the lieu-dit has been called l'Hermitage ever since. As early as the 18th century, Abbé Claude Courtépée, in his Description du duché de Bourgogne, praised the aligoté of Bouzeron — a sign that the village's reputation is old and tied to this one variety alone.
The modern story is shorter. In 1974, three growers from the village — Messrs Chanzy, Chemorin and Cogny — set in motion the process that led, in 1979, to recognition of a "Bourgogne aligoté de Bouzeron" distinct from generic bourgogne aligoté; the vines on the plain were then abandoned in favour of the slopes. The fight for village status was subsequently led by Aubert de Villaine, also co-owner of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, and succeeded in the late 1990s: Bouzeron became the fifth appellation of the Côte chalonnaise and the only village AOC in France reserved for aligoté. Seventeen holdings claim it today.