Les Aigrots

Les Aigrots
18.71ha
Appellation: Beaune Premier Cru
Lavalle: Première Cuvée
Rodier: Première Cuvée
JTCM: premier cru

Located mid- to upper slope, halfway between the road to Bouze-les-Beaune and the Pommard border. Bouchard Père & Fils owns over eight hectares which goes into its Beaune du Château bottling. The name Aigrots with its stem of bitterness is not particularly conducive to expectations of quality, and indeed I do not remember a bottle of red Beaune Aigrots coming my way – although there is a bottle of 1973 with a parchment label and a dubious-looking plastic capsule sitting in my cellar which somehow or other I never really feel like opening.

However recently several growers have planted Chardonnay here – it is next door to Clos des Mouches, though most of the white vines in Aigrots are above the small road which cuts across the vineyard, especially on the northern edge where a finger of vineyard runs back into a gully. Ironically two famous domaines in Volnay, Lafarge and de Montille, both bought plots of white Beaune Aigrots in time for the 2005 vintage without knowing of each other’s purchases.