spelling

Montrachet, available in many varieties: Pouligny Montrachet, Batard Montrachet, and a couple more.

Vilco

^^^^^^^^

This must be a usenet law or something.

So it goes without the "u"? Thanks

Vilco

PULIGNY

Mike

Mike Tommasi, Six Fours, France email link

To amplify a bit, Montrachet is a famous vineyard in the Côte de Beaune. It was located in the villages of Puligny and Chassagne. As Montrachet became one of the most famous names in Burgundy, those villages decided to append the name Montrachet to their own. So now the Grand Cru vineyard Montrachet is located in the villages of Chassagne-Montrachet & Puligny-Montrachet(it straddles the border). I make this point because sometimes one hears people saying "oh yes I had a Montrachet last night", when in fact they had a Chassagne-Montrachet or Puligny-Montrachet, which did not come from the famous vineyard (not that they might not be quite worthy in their own right).

In addition to the Grand Cru Le Montrachet, there are also a other nearby Grand Crus include Montrachet in their name : Chevalier-Montrachet, Bâtard-Montrachet, Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet, and Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet. If I remember correctly (someone with more knowledge or a book correct me if I'm wrong!), Chevalier and Bâtard were named after a vineyard was split- the noble legitimate son got the former, the bastard son the latter. What welcome and tears have to do with it I don't know. :(

Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

Thanks again.

Vilco

Let's note that only Montrachet and Bâtard-Montrachet are located in both communes, Puligny and Chassagne, while Chevalier-M and Bienvenues-B-M are in Puligy, Criots-B-M in Chassagne.

Not very probable (although possible), since these vinyards are not contiguous, but separated by Le Montrachet himself, Chevalier lying above, Bâtard below.

M.

Montrachet. And, btw, both Ts are silent, so it's monra-shay.

M.

The version of the tale I heard was that the Bâtard left the village in disgrace, returned years later as a Chevalier, after which he was Bienvenue. :-)

The Domaine Leflaive 1990 Collection of wine from these vinyards was served at my son's wedding earlier this year, with the fish course (red mullet with crevettes, baby leeks and a bouillabaisse dressing). Excellent (although one bottle was oxidised).

--brian

Thank you Hr Prónay, I wondered when someone would get to that (seeing the phonetic nature of the question). I suspect that in non-Francophone countries, very, very many more people encounter that word written than spoken. Even single-hyphenated Montrachets are not something most wine enthusiasts see daily. (Yoxall elaborated that point, wryly of course.) To say nothing of the un-hyphenated vineyard.

Recently I posted elsewhere an experience maybe five years ago during a certain stock-market boom, wandering through a warehouse type of wine shop and finding, piled casually among many other open boxes, Le Montrachet (DRC), US $1400, across the aisle from Romanée-Conti (DRC), about $4k I think. Just sitting in open boxes along with hundreds of wines priced 100 times less. I picked up one of each and showed them to a friend who was wine-shopping for the first time (as ironic suggestions).

-- Max

-------- The great white wines of Meursault rank [in Burgundy] only after the Montrachet group and Corton-Charlemagne. They are very dry, yet ingratiatingly soft. Some ascribe to them a taste of oatmeal, but I don't eat much oatmeal, fortunately, so am no judge. Others speak of their flavour of peaches, and here for once I am with them, for I can detect this ...

H. W. Yoxall, _The Wines of Burgundy,_ 1968 (IW&FS), ISBN 0140462007. (It's the same in both editions.)