Pouilly-Fuissé & Saint-Véran
Two rocks and a split appellation.
At the southern end of the Mâconnais the limestone has been broken into blocks and tipped over. The Roches de Vergisson and Solutré, both a little under 500 metres, are the raised edges: cliffs of hard Bajocian limestone facing north-west, with long slopes falling away to the south-east behind them and soft blue-grey marl coming out at the foot of each scarp. Vines on thin, stony soil close to the limestone give the tauter wines; vines on the deeper clay washed down toward Fuissé give the fuller ones. In September 2020 the INAO approved Pouilly-Fuissé's first premiers crus, 22 climats and 194 hectares across Chaintré, Fuissé, Solutré-Pouilly and Vergisson, chosen after ten years' study of their reputation, history and ground.
Saint-Véran wraps around Pouilly-Fuissé in two separate pieces: Davayé, Prissé and Solutré-Pouilly to the north, Chânes, Chasselas, Leynes, Saint-Amour and Saint-Vérand to the south. Davayé was invited into Pouilly-Fuissé in 1936 and said no, because so much of its wine was then red. Bill Nanson finds Davayé a little warmer than the other communes, with grey marls in the north of the appellation. The Luquets work both sides of the line from their house in the middle of Fuissé: La Grande Bruyère at Davayé, clay and limestone at 245 metres, planted by Roger and Renée Luquet in 1973, and Pouilly-Fuissé from chalky clay very rich in limestone around Fuissé, vines averaging about fifty years.
Tap the two to compare them and cut a slice between them. La Grande Bruyère sits at the centre of the lieu-dit on the land register; the Pouilly-Fuissé is a blend of the family's parcels, so its pin marks the village and is approximate. The premier cru boundaries are not drawn.
Curve shapes are illustrative; the size of each swing is from published figures.
Heights, planting dates and soils from Domaine Luquet via our producer page; tasting words from the Guide Hachette. Soil depths are not published, so the pits are drawn to suggest the ground, not to scale.
Every producer on this plate
Pick a producer to light up their vineyards and see where each wine comes from.
How the ground is shown: there is no open soil map at the scale of a lieu-dit, so colours and pits follow what the grower describes. Heights and slopes come from the elevation data.
Heights marked as the grower's figure come from our producer notes; others are read off the elevation data at the pin. Soil notes come from the producers' technical sheets.
Sources: elevation from AWS Terrain Tiles (EU-DEM and other public data); lieux-dits from the BIVB's Bourgogne Maps and the Etalab land register; the 2020 premiers crus from the INAO's press release of 3 September 2020; the geology of the rocks from Decanter's Pouilly-Fuissé profile, Maison Loron and the BRGM Mâcon sheet as summarised in our Mâconnais section, with the rocks' heights from Wikipedia; Saint-Véran's two halves, Davayé's 1936 refusal and its warmth from Bill Nanson's Burgundy Report village profile; parcels, soils and dates from Domaine Luquet; tasting words from the Guide Hachette.
On to Côte Chalonnaise · back to Burgundy.