Côte Chalonnaise

South of Chagny the Côte stops being one wall. The limestone is cut into tilted, faulted blocks, so the hills face every way and the rock changes over a few hundred metres, with more marl and clay than in the Côte d'Or. Mercurey sits in a rough bowl that opens south-east to the plain, with small valleys and hills inside it that shelter some parcels from the westerly wind and not others. “The top soil changes within a few yards from red clay to super stony,” one Mercurey grower told The World of Fine Wine. Toward Saint-Martin-sous-Montaigu the premiers crus climb a staggered slope: La Chassière low down, the Clos du Paradis higher, Les Montaigus at the top, reaching 390 metres.

Philippe Garrey's vines are all on that slope, “on your right side as you enter Saint-Martin-sous-Montaigu coming from Mercurey.” La Chassière, at 235 to 260 metres, has about a quarter sand in its clay-limestone: “the sand helps maintain a higher temperature. This produces a rounder, more concentrated wine.” The Clos du Paradis behind his house is on marl and gives a lighter wine. In the Clos des Montaigus his rows sit at the bottom of an east-facing plateau, “where the soil is deeper with more clay,” the coolest and slowest of the three. The old-vine village Mercurey comes from Le Châtelet at 320 metres; the white La Chagnée is a steep, nearly due-south slope beside the Paradis. Five kilometres north, Jean-Yves Devevey's La Chaume at Rully faces south-east at 280 metres on white marl and clay-limestone.

Tap any two to compare them and cut a slice between them. Pins sit at the centre of each lieu-dit on the land register. La Chagnée has two pieces on the register; the pin is on the one next to the Paradis and is approximate. Montagny is twelve kilometres south, too far for this frame: Feuillat-Juillot's Les Coères and Nicolas Rossignol's Mont Laurent are listed below the map, not pinned.