Pinot Country

Pinot CountryVineyards (9)

Named sites: grands crus, climats, benchland blocks, a hillside somebody fenced.

France (7)

Chambertin

Gevrey's grand cru on the mid-slope, and the name the village bolted onto its own in 1847 — the first commune in Burgundy to do it, and the start of every double-barrelled name on the Côte.

Clos de Vougeot

Fifty hectares behind a wall the Cistercians of Cîteaux built, and more than eighty owners inside it. One name on every label, and a slope that runs from grand cru ground at the top to heavy clay by the road.

Corton

The hill above Aloxe, and Burgundy's largest grand cru: 95 hectares in production, nearly all of it red, and the only red grand cru on the Côte de Beaune.

La Tâche

Five hectares in Vosne-Romanée, one owner, about 12,700 bottles. The appellation rules set 35 hl/ha, 9,000 vines to the hectare and 11.5% potential alcohol before anyone picks.

Musigny

Ten hectares above Chambolle, the one grand cru of the Côte de Nuits that also makes a white — about two thirds of a hectare of it.

Richebourg

Vosne-Romanée grand cru north of Romanée-Conti, on deeper soil, giving the broadest wine of that group of neighbours.

Romanée-Conti

Under two hectares of Vosne-Romanée hillside, held by one owner, producing about 3,500 bottles a year. No other patch of ground in wine carries this much argument per square metre.

United States (2)

Bien Nacido

Bien Nacido Vineyards, Rancho Tepusquet

Eight hundred acres on the Santa Maria bench, planted in 1969 and farmed row by row for whoever buys the rows. Over 250 acres of it is pinot noir, and the vineyard's name appears on more labels than most wineries manage.

Sanford & Benedict

The planting that proved the Santa Ynez river gap: put in during 1971 by Richard Sanford and Michael Benedict on a north-facing slope nobody else wanted, and now inside the Sta. Rita Hills AVA.

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