2017 Bourgogne Aligoté, Vieilles Vignes, Domaine Bruno Clavelier, Burgundy

Domaine Bruno Clavelier

Gifted rugby player Bruno Clavelier took over from his maternal grandfather, Joseph Brosson in the late 1980s, expanding the winery buildings and cellars as he intended to bottle all the wines himself. He rents the vines from the family and now farms them biodynamically, with organic certification.
 
There are no hard and fast rules for vinification except to avoid too much intervention. The grapes are sorted first by the picking team and then on a table de tri. Most are destalked though between 5 and 20% of whole bunches may be included depending on the vintage and the vineyard. Vinification is more an infusion than a maceration process, with no punching down and not much pumping over.
 
In the cellar there is not much new oak used – 15 to 20% for the village wines, a quarter to a third for the premiers crus. In elevage as much as in vinification Clavelier does not want to impose the hand of the vigneron. A keen student of the geology of the vineyards, he is keen that each wine should display its terroir.

Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Wine Director and author of the award-winning Inside Burgundy comprehensive handbook.

Bourgogne Rouge

Bourgogne Rouge is the term used to apply to red wines from Burgundy that fall under the generic Bourgogne AOC, which can be produced by over 350 individual villages across the region. As with Bourgogne Blanc and Bourgogne Rosé, this is a very general appellation and thus is hard to pinpoint any specific characteristics of the wine as a whole, due to the huge variety of wines produced.

Around 4,600 acres of land across Burgundy are used to produce Bourgogne Rouge, which is around twice as much as is dedicated towards the production of generic whites.

Pinot Noir is the primary grape used in Bourgogne Rouge production, although Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris and in Yonne, César grapes are all also permitted to make up the rest of the wine. These wines tend to be focused and acidic, with the fruit less cloying than in some New World wines also made from Pinot Noir, and they develop more floral notes as they age.

Although an entry-level wine, some Bourgogne Rouges can be exquisite depending on the area and producer, and yet at a very affordable price.

Aligoté

A grape that was first recorded in Burgundy in the 18th century and is still planted almost exclusively there, though there are limited plantings in Bulgaria, Moldavia and even California. It is a moderate-yielding grape that tends to perform best on south-east facing slopes and in warm, dry years.

For your Burgundian vigneron, Aligoté is not nearly as profitable to grow as Chardonnay - consequently it tends to be relegated to lower quality vineyards. In the wrong hands and in the wrong sites it can produce thin, raspingly acidic wines that are remarkably undistinguished. However the best growers produce balanced examples with nutty and citrus hints which are most appealing to drink. The best Aligoté wines traditionally come from Bouzeron in the Côte Chalonnaise. Along with blackcurrant liqueur, it is the key ingredient of Kir.