The Southern End of the Slope, on the Chassagne Side
The five grands crus of the Montrachet form a staircase on the slope: Chevalier-Montrachet at the top, between 265 and 290 metres; the Montrachet at mid-slope, between 250 and 270 metres; Bâtard-Montrachet below, between 240 and 250 metres, with two distinct appellations at its extremities. To the north, Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet, entirely within Puligny. To the south, Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet, entirely within Chassagne-Montrachet.
This symmetry is telling. Montrachet and Bâtard, the two central crus, are cut in two by the communal boundary and belong to both villages; the three others each attach to a single commune — Chevalier and Bienvenues to Puligny, Criots to Chassagne. Criots is thus the only one of the five to lie exclusively in Chassagne, alongside the communal shares of Montrachet and of Bâtard that complete the village's three grands crus.
The Terroir: A Name That Describes the Soil
The place name states the nature of the site. According to Marie-Hélène Landrieu-Lusigny, a specialist in the lieux-dits of the Burgundian vineyard, "criot" or "cruot" is a Burgundian diminutive of "crai", which designates stony ground. The climat nonetheless belongs to the same family of soils as the neighbouring Bâtard: brown limestone soils, thick and clayey, over a Jurassic bedrock dated to around 175 million years ago, between 240 and 250 metres in altitude.
On the scale of Chassagne, we are here at the contact of the "calcaires de Chassagne", the Lower Bathonian white oolith that forms the bedrock of the lower slope and continues north beneath the alignment of the Montrachet. The contrast with the crus above remains the guiding thread: Chevalier works on thin, stony soils, the Montrachet on a thin layer of earth laid over a hard limestone, while Criots, like Bâtard and Bienvenues, has a deep profile and a more comfortable water reserve.
Climate and Management: Everything Played Out on a Hectare and a Half
The climatic setting is that of the Côte de Beaune: temperate with a slight continental tendency, cold winters, wet springs, hot and sometimes stormy summers. Chardonnay buds there slightly before pinot noir, which exposes it to spring frosts — a risk heightened at the foot of the slope, where cold air flows down and stagnates. The heatwave of 2003 started some harvests in mid-August, a month early, an earliness unheard of since 1422 and 1865.
On so small an area, the room for manoeuvre lies entirely in vineyard management. Single Guyot pruning, disbudding, wire lifting, green harvesting and sorting at the harvest all serve the same objective: to keep the yield at around 40 hectolitres per hectare and to prevent the richness of the soil from turning into dilution. At this scale, a seasonal accident on a few rows reads directly in the final cuvée.
The Style of the Wines
The robe is gold with mineral glints. The nose unfolds spice, honey, dried fruits, fern and butter; the palate is harmonious, structured, unctuous and deep. The cru shares the aromatic family of its neighbours at the foot of the slope, with a profile generally described as tighter and livelier than that of the Bâtard, on a mineral base that the original stony soil partly explains.
Vinification is that of the whole slope: hand harvesting and sorting, pressing, settling, alcoholic fermentation conducted between 18 and 24°C, malolactic fermentation in barrel or in tank, ageing on lees with bâtonnage over several months. The wine keeps for at least ten to fifteen years, more than twenty in the great years. It is served between 12 and 14°C with lobster, crayfish, white fish in a sauce, foie gras or poultry.
One of the Smallest Appellations in France
The figures give the measure of its rarity. Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet covers 1.57 hectares and produces about 72 hectolitres a year, that is some 9,600 bottles — against 22,930 for Bienvenues, 43,600 for Chevalier, 44,821 for the Montrachet and 70,660 for the Bâtard. It is by far the most confidential of the five grands crus of the slope, and one of the smallest appellation vineyards in France.
This size explains an extreme fragmentation: only a handful of growers share the climat, and each draws no more than a few barrels from it. Domaine Roger Belland, at Santenay, was among the producers listed in the survey consulted in 2026. As everywhere in Burgundy, such a list is dated by nature: successions and tenancy agreements regularly redraw the map of owners.
History and Recognition
Criots belongs to the same history as its neighbours: that of a slope whose climats bear ancient names — Chevalier, Pucelles, Bâtard, Bienvenues, Criots — and whose renown eventually required legal protection. The lawsuit brought in 1921 by Julien Bouchard and eight owners of the Montrachet established the principle: each cru is sold under its own name, and the Montrachet appellation cannot be usurped by its neighbours.
The INAO register dates recognition of the cru to the decree of 31 July 1937, published on 11 August following, at the same time as the four other grands crus of the slope. The cahier des charges in force derives from decree no. 2011-1687 of 28 November 2011; it had been preceded by a national objection procedure opened in December 2010, which covered simultaneously the five appellations — Montrachet, Chevalier-Montrachet, Bâtard-Montrachet, Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet and Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet.