Category: Wineries

You can visit wineries in Bordeaux that are still owned by original families, but the Rothschilds of today, for example, are the descendants of the founders.  Even in Napa Valley, Robert Mondavi, Warren Winiarski and their like are no longer with us.  But one of the things that makes wine tasting in Santa Barbara County, the Santa Rita Hills in particular, is that the founding fathers (and mothers) are still making wine in their namesake wineries.

One such is the Melville Winery, owned and operated by Chad Melville.  The winery even offers a private tour and tasting with Mr. Melville himself.  You won’t get that at Château Latour!

Located in the Santa Rita Hills not too far from Buellton (although the address is in Lompoc), Melville’s tasting room is located in and beside a handsome, mission-style yellow building.  A tasting at Melville has the vibe of a garden party far more than that of most wineries.  Oh, they do have an indoor room that’s cozy in a rustic sort of way, but the real Melville experience is to have your tasting on their wide, capacious lawn.  [Melville also has a tasting room in Santa Barbara, which is a totally different experience.]  Although we were told that they occasionally receive tour groups and they say they can accommodate 150 people, it’s difficult to imagine it ever getting rowdy at this winery.

Rather, visitors either recline in Adirondack chairs or gather around widely spaced tables under white umbrellas.  They sip their wine viewing the vineyard and the mountains beyond.  So very civilized, especially considering the completely opposite experience in some tasting rooms, not least in nearby Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone.  Guests can even bring picnics. 

We were a bit surprised by the wines they serve at Melville.  Santa Rita Hills is rightly famed for Pinot Noir, which they do serve.  But we also tasted Chardonnay, Grenache and Syrah.  There’s nothing wrong with those grapes, but they weren’t what we expected.  We think this may say a lot about changing climate, even in such a contained space as the Santa Rita Hills, or maybe a broader audience for the wines made there, some of whom may not be Pinot Noir fans.  That said, of the wines we tasted, the Pinot Noirs were our favorites.

For a long time, it has been possible to taste quality wine in California far afield from Napa Valley and Sonoma County.  It seems to use that Santa Barbara County, and the Santa Rita Hills in particular, are coming (or have come) into their own.  There are wines we have tasted there, especially Pinot Noirs, that are the equal or better than any we’ve had in that state.  Now, we think the winemakers in the Côte d’Or can sleep well at night, but overall we find the Pinot Noirs made in the Santa Rita Hills to be more Burgundian than we have tasted elsewhere in the US.

Melville is an exemplar of the region’s arrival.  Power Tasting doesn’t review wine; our specialty is the wine tasting experience.  We can say that a visit to the Melville Winery is a lovely way to while away an afternoon with some well-regarded wines.

In 1805, François Clicquot died.  He had inherited a Champagne house from his father, and his widow (veuve in French), Barbe-Nicole née Ponsardin was left to run the company.  And wow did she run it well.  Under her direction, the company sold the first vintage Champagne, the first rosé Champagne and generally established sparkling wine from that region as the premier luxury drink.

If you visit the company now named for la Veuve Clicquot in Reims, you’ll learn all about the Grande Madame (yes, their top wines are named for her).  You’ll get to see the cellars where the Champagne is aged and you’ll get to try some rather interesting examples of the Champagne-maker’s art.  You won’t see vineyards or even well-tended gardens.  The entry to the winery is simple and architecturally uninteresting.  The caves are everything.

There is no tasting room as such.  All visits include a guided tour of the caves with a sample of Champagne at the end.  The caves are large openings within the tunnels, some of which date back to Roman times.  Others were dug under Mme Clicquot’s reign.  Many of them are decorated with sculptures and other artwork.  The guide explains the making of Champagne, including the process of riddling, which Mme Clicquot also invented.  (Riddling is the manual turning of the bottles to capture the dead yeasts from second fermentation in the neck of the bottle, to be expelled, leaving a clear beverage.)

The tour is interesting for a first-time visitor to a Champagne house (or even the better sparkling wine makers in the New World).  Once you’ve seen it and heard about it, there’s not a lot of new information to gather.  We will say that we appreciated the knowledge of the guide who showed us around and her ability to answer questions that weren’t on the script.

Guides serving Champagnes in the caves.

Veuve Clicquot offers four tours.  One is of their basic Yellow Label and lasts an hour.  Another similar tour focuses on rosé Champagne.  We took the one that offered more interesting wines to taste and lasted an hour and a half.  We must say that we were impressed by the depth and differences among the wines served.  There is also a two-hour tour that includes aged bottles.  The prices for the tours range from 36 to 160 euros.  These prices have increased a bit since we visited only a few months ago.

So is it worth it to visit Veuve Clicquot.  Yes, it is.  For one thing, when you are there you are on the spot in which Champagne as we know it today – clear, sparkling, elegant, festive – was invented.  For another, if you take a tour other than the Yellow Label one, you’ll get to experience otherwise unavailable wines in the caves.  There is a lot to be said for authenticity.  You can buy a bottle of Veuve Clicquot at home and you will enjoy it.  You can also buy a postcard of the Mona Lisa.  Same wine, same picture, but not the same experience.

It was around 4:00 pm.  We’d been walking around the streets of Santa Barbara pretty much all day, tasting wine as we went.  We weren’t driving and we could walk back to our hotel, so we could try one more tasting room if we wanted to.  Still, at that time, did we really want to?  Well, we did and we’re certainly glad about that.

The tasting room at Longoria on State in Santa Barbara.

We stepped into Longoria on State, which is the only tasting room actually on Santa Barbara’s main drag.  We were quite surprised at what we saw.  It didn’t look like a typical tasting room but more like an upscale cocktail lounge.  There were long banquettes with plush pillows, comfortable chairs and trendy tables.  It was a relatively dark room, with track lighting and a huge skylight to brighten it up.  The bar was long, tiled and served only wine.

The wines all come from the Longoria winery.  Frankly we hadn’t heard about Longoria before tasting there, but we learned that it was founded by Rick and Donna Longoria in Santa Barbara County in 1982.  Being among the pioneers of Central Coast winemaking, the Longorias influenced many other winemakers in the area.  They sold their winery in 2022 and the new owners, the Christian family, are responsible for the snazzy digs on State Street.  (There is another tasting room in Lompoc that we have not visited.)

As is often the case in California, Longoria makes a wide variety of wines.  There are several whites, a rosé, some Spanish-style reds and a few blends.  But the core of Longoria’s list is Pinot Noir, which is what we enjoyed the most.  All of them are from the Santa Rita Hills, which by itself is good indicator of the quality of the terroir.  For the most part, all the Pinot Noirs seemed rather elegant to us, with a range of fruitiness and depth among them.

To be fair, the wines we tasted were bottled prior to the sale of the winery, so there may be some changes coming.  We hope not, because we really liked what we tried.

The tasting room on State Street is relatively new, not there on our previous visits to Santa Barbara.  As mentioned, we arrived at the end of the afternoon; we walked right in and were served.  (The Longoria web site does ask for reservations, but as in much of California they’re not always needed.)  We have a hunch that later in the day the room may be more crowded.  Longoria on State is open until 8:00 most nights and until 9:00 on Saturdays, so that night club vibe might draw more patrons at later hours.

One of our greatest pleasures in wine tasting is discovering fine wines in unexpected places.  In that regard, Longoria on State meets both criteria.  We would certainly urge anyone who would like to explore Central Coast wines while in Santa Barbara to include Longoria on their itinerary.

Of all the Champagne houses we have visited – and that’s quite a few – Pommery feels the most Californian.  There is no Napa palace here but the architecture is palatial and it has its roots in the 19^th century.  The grounds are enormous and are dotted with artworks.  Pommery has added a large pavilion that shows that the proprietors have recognized that wine tourism is a business that attracts visitors to their brand.  (A word about those proprietors: You may see the estate referred to as Vranken-Pommery.  That’s because a Belgian fellow named Paul Vranken bought it in 2002.)  But the cellars are ancient and the Champagne is the real deal.

The grounds of the Pommery Champagne house, with its “art works”.

Pommery is located in Reims, in a sector where several other Champagne houses reside, so you can easily walk from one to the other. Be certain to line up your schedule, since all the houses offer tours combined with tastings.  The working property includes a Tudor-style castle and a French château.  The pavilion adjoining these buildings contains the entrance to the cellars, a chic restaurant, some exhibits concerning the history of the firm and a Champagne bar.  The most notable exhibit is called the Émile Gallé tun.  A tun is a massive wine barrel; this one holds 75,000 liters.  It was built to be shown at the 1903 World Fair in St. Louis and illustrates the friendship between France and the United States.

The pavilion at Pommery, with the Émile Gallé tun at the left and the Champagne bar in the center.

As mentioned, there are numerous artworks on the grounds although we were not enamored of the particular pieces being shown on our most recent visit.  The dedication to art, both 19^th century and contemporary, is carried through in the cellars.  These are reached via a staircase of 116 steps.  (There is an elevator for those who can’t handle the stairs.)  There is a history to the cellars, which were adapted from Gallo-Roman chalk pits.  As the guide explains how Champagne is made and what the various areas in the cellars are used for, much attention is paid to the art installed throughout.  Some of it is contemporary and edgy; others were installed when the cellars were created.

116 steps into the cellars!

Once the tour is over, you are led back to the pavilion where you can drink some bubbly.  A glass of Champagne is included in the cost of the tour, at various levels of quality and price.  Since each visitor gets only one glass, it’s not really a tasting, but it is possible to buy more glasses at the bar.  There are comfortable seating areas in the pavilion where you can enjoy your drinks.

There is a certain sameness to all tours of Champagne houses (or for those of domestic sparkling wineries, for that matter.)  All of the other attractions give a visit to Pommery a certain spice not found elsewhere.  So does the history of the Maison.  It was founded in 1836 and, under the management of the founder’s widow, it became one of the world’s largest producers, producing up to a million cases annually today.  In the 19^th century, all Champagne was intensely sweet, with up to 300 grams of sugar per liter.  Madame Pommery invented brut, which today must have less than 12 grams per liter.  It’s worth raising a glass to her at the winery that bears her name just for that achievement.

Before we introduce you to this particular winery, we’d like to say a few words about how we got there.  We visited Vienna for the first time and fell in love with the city.  Our purpose was not wine tasting, but as long as there was an opportunity to see some vineyards, we couldn’t resist (of course).  Quite frankly, we don’t usually like to take a tour for wine tasting purposes, but in this instance, we thought it was the best choice.  Not every winery we visited was worth reporting, but Weinbau Prinz (www.weinbauprinz.at) was a very pleasant experience so we’re pleased to share it with our readers.

Weinbau is a German word for viticulture or wine growing, what we would call a winery. This particular one is owned by Roswitha and Martin Prinz, who are from winemaking families stretching back for centuries.  Their small (3.1 hectares) vineyard is located in the village of Stetten in the winemaking district known as the Weinviertel, the largest in Austria.  The Weinviertel (“wine quarter” in German) abuts Vienna and this winery is only a 45 minute drive from the city center.

The village church in Stetten, Austria rising over the vines of Weinbau Prinz.

The wine tasting experience at Weinbau Prinz is highlighted by the setting.  Your party is seated at a long table right in the vineyard, with the steeple of the village church looming over you.  If, like us, you have seen scenes like this in the movies and were ever-so-eager to do it yourself, you’re hooked before you even take the first sip.

Tasting in the Weinbau Prinz vineyards.

The wines are poured by Roswitha Prinz herself.  (Martin is the cellar guy.)  Besides owning the winery, she is a lecturer at BOKU, which we gather is the Viennese university for viticulture.  She seems unfazed at answering questions from those who know little about Austrian wine or wine in general, as well as from wine snobs.  You get all kinds in the wine business, we guess.

Weinbau Prinz is proud to proclaim that they have been fully organic (or bio as they say in Europe) since 2018.  For a small vineyard, they make quite a wide variety of wines, ranging from the inevitable Grüner Veltliner, through a white blend they call, simply enough, Cuvee Weiss to some sparkling wines known in Austria as sekt.  Weinbau Prinz has a number of wines made from unusual (to us) white grapes, including Blütenmuskateller, Donauriesling, Cabernet Blanc, and Sauvignac.  Although the Weinviertel is primarily known for white wines, they also offer a few Zweigelts, a red grape more frequently found in Western Austria.

We’ll leave it to others to discuss the subtleties of aroma and taste of the wines at Weinbau Prinz.  Power Tasting is all about the wine tasting experience, not wine reviewing.  If your objective is an enjoyable hour well spent, in scenery that seems to come from the winemaking Tourism Bureau, we recommend Weinbau Prinz without reservation.  Oh, maybe a reservation would be a good idea, since they welcome tours.

A few issues back, Power Tasting featured a winery, Margerum, that had moved from the refined area of Santa Barbara to the raucous Funk Zone.  Here, we report on Kunin Wines (www.kuninwines.com), which went the other way.  Some years ago we featured Kunin in their old digs (now occupied by the Santa Barbara Winery).  We are pleased to say that the wine is just as good, maybe better, and the vibe is way, way cooler.

We last visited Kunin in early 2017.  Tragically, the founder, Seth Kunin died later that year.  His widow, Magan, joined in time by their daughter Phoebe, took the reins.  Maybe we were just in a better mood in the new tasting room; maybe the vintages were better this time; or maybe Magan has just improved the wines.  Whatever the reason, we enjoyed the wines even more this time.

The new facility is in the Presidio section, once the center of Spanish colonial administration in Santa Barbara.  In fact, some of the old buildings are visible out the window.  It’s a storefront, with an adjoining cheese shop.  You can buy some cheese or sliced meats to accompany your tastes, if you so choose.  The tasting room is small and sparsely furnished, with a few stools at the bar, and a few chairs and tables in an open room.

The Kunin tasting room, with a server ready to pour.

Crowd control is not the problem it was in the Funk Zone, because there are no crowds.  Most of the uptown wineries have tasting rooms on the main drag, State Street.  Kunin is a few blocks away.  We hope that they attract dedicated tasters, because we suspect that foot traffic is sparse.

Kunin still makes Rhône style wines with Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre taking the pride of place.  (We hate to hear them called GSM, but that seems to be the American way.)  But Kunin also produces wines from a variety of grapes not often found in the US.  These include Carignane, Cinsault and Counoise.  Whites are made from Viognier and Chenin Blanc.  Many are estate wines, but Kunin does have several single vineyard sourced wines.

Two wines available for tasting are somewhat different.  Kunin has two wines that they call Pape Star, which are their take on Chateauneuf de Pape.  The white is a blend of Grenache Blanc and Rousanne, which we don’t think any other American wineries make.  The red is made of Grenache, Mourvèdre, Counoise and Carignane.  These wines are a tribute to the great wines of the Southern Rhône.  But make no mistake; they’re unmistakably California Rhône-style wines  that don’t need to tip their proverbial hats to their French cousins.

There’s also a real oddball wine that they call MV Special K.  MV means multi-vintage; Special K doesn’t mean breakfast cereal.  Moreover, this wine is a blend of different vineyards from around Santa Barbara County.  It’s usually reserved for Kunin’s club members.  If it’s not on the tasting list, ask for it politely.  If they have it open, we’re sure they’ll pour you some.

If you’re wine tasting in Santa Barbara, make a point of visiting Kunin.  Don’t let them be lonely.

Several years ago, Power Tasting published a review of the Sanford tasting room in Santa Barbara.  That space now hosts other vineyards, but interested wine lovers can still visit Sanford (www.sanfordwinery.com) at their facility in the Santa Rita Hills.  It’s a drive of an hour or so outside of Santa Barbara, and it’s a trip worth taking.  [Elsewhere in this issue we discuss the attraction of the locale; here we’ll focus on the winery.]

The interior of the Sanford winery, with doors leading to the vineyards and outdoor tastings.

When you get off the road at Sanford, you’re immediately surrounded by grape vines.  You are, in fact, in the midst of the Rinaconda vineyard and some of the wines you are about to taste were made from the same vines, just a few years prior.  That sense of being surrounded by great grapes stays with you throughout the visit.

The winery and its tasting room are housed in a handsome adobe brick building, with Spanish roof tiles.  It looks very much like a hacienda, an impression that is reinforced inside, with Southwestern décor.  It evokes the missions that once dotted California in its colonial times.  We suppose there are tastings in there on rainy or cold days, but if you can, have your tasting outside.

As we said before, Santa Rita Hills is a trip worth taking.

A capella tasting, at the “hacienda”

Visitors are seated at comfortable tables, spaced widely enough that you have the sense that you are the only ones there to taste Sanford’s wines.  The pleasure is doubled by the vista, all the way to the horizon, of vines.  Make that tripled pleasure, because the tables are placed within gardens of blooms and desert plants.

The server explains the history of the Sanford winery, which in brief is the history of wine production in the Santa Rita Hills.  Richard Sanford and Michael Benedict planted the first vines there in 1971.  Their first vineyard, called Sanford-Benedict naturally enough, was and is the most prestigious in the region.  Today, Sanford is owned by the Terlato family, who also have several other top wineries in California.

And then the wines.  They make Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays.  Unusually, they serve the reds before the whites.  When we questioned this practice, the server acknowledged that this is not the way others do it, but that the winery believes that the high level of acidity in the Chardonnays would affect the taste of the Pinot Noirs if served first.

The standard tasting menu includes their top single-vineyard wines, including the aforementioned Sanford & Benedict and the Rinaconda.  The former is emblematic of Santa Rita Hills wine; the latter is somewhat richer, to our tastes.  Also to our tastes, Sanford’s Pinot Noirs are among the most Burgundian of American wines made from that grape.

The servers are generous with their pour, which leads to a dilemma.  Yes, there’s a bucket, but the wines are so good that we didn’t want to pour anything out.  Still, we had to be aware that there would be driving ahead of us.  As dilemmas go, this wasn’t a bad one.  WE savored the wines but responsibly left some behind.

In the city of Épernay, there is a famous street called the Avenue de Champagne, which Power Tasting has featured in the past.  It is lined with Champagne houses where you can taste all day long.  At the far end, away from the center of town, is Champagne Mercier (www.champagnemercier.com).  They may not make the best Champagne in France (we’ll leave it to others to choose which one is) but it is the most popular one in that country.  Considering the combination of quality and price, that’s understandable.  Their top Brut Rosé costs about $38 a bottle.  Alas, it can’t be found in the US and wouldn’t be that inexpensive if it were.

However, the price of a bottle isn’t the attraction at any winery, it’s the enjoyment of the visit and the tasting.  And here Mercier excels.  As you approach the entrance, there’s an antique truck that evidently was once used to deliver Champagne.  It’s a way of telling a visitor that Mercier has been around a long time, since 1858 in fact.  The current facility was erected in 1871.  When you enter, you are confronted with a massive, decorated wine barrel, that holds 200,000 bottles worth of wine.  It was built for the 1889 Paris World Exposition.

Viewing the artwork from the train at Champagne Mercier.

The actual visit begins with a tour of the cellars.  Groups are taken together onto a glass elevator that descends slowly down 98 feet.  The walls of the shaft have paintings, to get you into the spirit right away.  At the bottom you are ushered into an open train, sort of like at Disneyland.  It winds its way through parts of the 11 miles of chalk tunnels.  Evidently the founder, Eugène Mercier was concerned about the cultural well-being of his workers, so there are carved works of art throughout the cellars.  And of course you get to see where Champagne bottles are stored, riddled and aged.

There is a recorded guide as you progress through the cellars, which is available in English as well as in French.  Be sure to bring a sweater.  The whole reason for cellaring Champagne is to age it and concentrating the sediments in a stable, cool environment.  Rolling along in an open train, you definitely feel a little chill.

At last, the tasting.

At length you return to the surface and have the chance to taste.  Tours include either one or three Champagnes to try.  At this point you’re so eager and thirsty that of course they seem quite good.  It takes some taste memory to summon up how you felt about better-known labels you’ve had in the past (or an hour ago elsewhere on the Avenue de Champagne.  If you wish, you are free to wander around the public area, admiring that big barrel and taking in the modernist interior architecture.

When you step outside at last you find yourself in a vineyard.  We think it’s the only working vineyard inside the city limits of Épernay.  Once you’ve seen the hectares after hectares of vines in Champagne, you may not be surprised by the size of this vineyard, but it’s mere existence is another reminder of what Champagne production must have been more than 100 years ago. 

Mercier is among the most fun tours we have taken at a Champagne house.  It is worth the visit.

Power Tasting reported on wine tasting in Santa Barbara several years ago; this edition is an update of sorts.  At that time, we visited the Margerum tasting room, then at the El Paseo complex.  The wines were enjoyable but the room was on a dark alley and it was dark and uninviting inside as well.  Power Tasting’s policy is that we don’t print bad reviews; we believe that silence is the best way to deal with wineries that we couldn’t recommend.  So we never said anything about Margerum at that time.

The entrance and one of the patios at Margerum Wines.

Margerum (https://www.margerumwines.com) has moved, somewhat surprisingly, to the Funk Zone.  But their tasting room in Santa Barbara is anything but funky.  (They also have a tasting room in Los Olivos that we haven’t visited.)  From the elegant, soaring entrance to the broad, capacious room inside, the message is: “Margerum makes serious wine and should be taken seriously”.  [Is the Funk Zone evolving?  Time will tell.]

The interior of the tasting room at Margerum in Santa Barbara.

The overall ambiance is that of Spanish-accented lounge at a fancy resort.  There is a wide bar, terraces in front and on the side, and a separate section above for groups and parties.  Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it a restaurant at resort, because Margerum also has a rather extensive menu.  Many wineries will offer a cheese and charcuterie plate, as does Margerum, but this one also has a lengthy list of hors d’oeuvres, sandwiches, salads and pizzas, all prepared on the premises.

All of this would mean nothing if the wines were subpar.  While Power Tasting doesn’t review wines as such, we can say that there were several that we enjoyed quite a bit.  While Margerum does offer Pinot Noirs and several Sauvignon Blancs, their specialty is wines made from Rhône-style grapes.  Our favorites were the Pinot Noir from the Sanford-Benedict vineyard, their Reserve Syrah and particularly their Mourvèdre.  The Margerum Rosé is also quite Rhône-like.

Doug Margerum, the winery’s founder, is a Central Coast wine pioneer and continues to advocate for and consult to other vineyards in the area. He has started a second label, Barden, using his middle name for these wines.  The intent, according to their web site is “an exploration of cold climate grapes grown in and around the Santa Rita Hills AVA”. We didn’t enjoy them as much as the Margerum-labeled wines. We visited the new tasting room on a weekday and so can’t speak to the weekend when the Funk Zone fills with partiers.  We were told by our sever that weekends get quite crowded.  We don’t understand why the decision was made to relocate to an area better known for high times than fine wines.  We prefer to taste wine in an environment that to some degree replicates the atmosphere of a dinner party in our home: a happy buzz of conversation but not the clang of a wild night of drinking.  We can only advise that wine lovers visit Margerum and do so on the days of the week that best fit their temperaments. 

Caveau de Chassagne

Burgundy is one of Wine Country’s greatest and best known sectors.  And the best Burgundy wines come from the Côte d’Or.  On the southern tip of this vinicultural (and cultural) wonderland are the paired villages of Chassagne-Montrachet and Puligny-Montrachet.  Puligny is more famous, probably because of its white wines, which some connoisseurs believe are the world’s finest.  We at Power Tasting are merely wine lovers and make no pretense of connoisseurship, so we offer no opinion. 

Photo courtesy of the Caveau de Chassagne.

Chassagne, on the other side of the road, has both excellent whites and reds.  You can visit some châteaux, but there aren’t that many (and not the greatest ones) that are visitor friendly.  So if you want to taste the wines of the two AOCs, we recommend the Caveau de Chassagne (http://caveaudechassagne.com/).  In some ways, it’s like a cooperative, in that you can sample wines from a variety of local producers.  But it’s more of a regional showcase, with tastings and sales of wine.

To confuse things, the tasting room is also known as the Caveau Municipal, which is emblazoned on the exterior of a somewhat plain, sandy-covered building.  That was the name of the place when it opened in 1986 and they haven’t bothered changing the sign.  The interior is rather dark, perhaps because the walls are bedecked with wine bottles.  There are a few tables and a display case with the wines you can sample.  There are servers, whom they call guides, who are of varying degrees of friendliness to those who don’t speak French, and are quite knowledgeable about the local wines.  All that said, it’s worth going.

Some of the Grand Crus available. Photo courtesy of the Caveau de Chassagne.

Although the tasting room is located in Chassagne, Puligny’s are served as well.  What makes it distinctive is the range of quality of the wines they serve. A few words about Burgundian wine naming rules is called for here.  If the label says only Burgundy, then the grapes can come from anywhere in the province.  If it has a village name, such as Chassagne-Montrachet, on the label then it’s from some of that village’s designated vineyards.  If it says Burgundy Villages as well as a village name, then it’s from its better vineyards.  Premier Cru is even better (and somewhat affordable) and Grand Cru is the top, in both quality and price.  And all these levels are available to sip and compare at the Caveau de Chassagne.

Almost all the wine in Burgundy comes from two grapes, Chardonnay for the whites and Pinot Noir for the reds.  The reasons have much to do with history as well as terroir, but certainly the local vignerons have perfected the elevation of these grapes.  (Yes, there is also Passetoutgrains, which aren’t worth drinking, and Bourgogne Aligoté, which is used in making kir.)  Since all of the wines you are going to taste at the Caveau de Chassagne are from the same two appellations and the same two grapes, comparison tasting really can show you how different micro-terroirs, winemakers and quality levels determine what goes into your glass.

Oh, about Montrachet.  For one thing, it can be pronounced MAWN-rashay or MONT-rashay.  The so-called Mount Rachet is a not very large hill between the two villages.  We suppose a mountain is in the eye of the viewer.