Meursault to Chassagne

From Meursault south to Chassagne the Côte is the same fault slope as at Volnay, and here it turns almost wholly white. Hard Bathonian limestone lies close under the upper half of the slope, with Callovian slabs and soft Oxfordian marl above it; white marl shows around the hamlet of Blagny and under Genevrières. Downhill, the stony clay washed off the rock gets deeper, and below the road the plain is deep, damp alluvium. Puligny's water table is so high that the village has no deep cellars. Two side valleys cut back into the hills: the Auxey valley, past Monthélie up to Saint-Romain's cirque at 300 to 420 m, and the Saint-Aubin valley behind the Montrachet hill, where the premiers crus face south and south-east, higher and cooler than Puligny's.

Guy Bocard's vines run down the Meursault slope. Les Narvaux sits at the top, at 330 m, on clay full of limestone shards; it gives the domaine its most mineral wine. Genevrières-Dessous is mid-slope. Limozin, lower down, has an even balance of marl and limestone and gives the domaine's deep, rich wine. Charmes-Dessus faces the Clos des Perrières. Everything is clay and limestone; what changes is how much of each, and how high you stand. Vincent Bouzereau's Goutte d'Or, near the village, grows on magnesian limestone. Over the hill the Moingeons farm both faces: Sur Gamay above their hamlet, south-south-west on stony clay-limestone, and La Garenne on the steep Blagny side of Puligny. In Saint-Aubin, Les Frionnes is the cold one, at the bottom of the combe where the north wind blows, on fine, deep clay-limestone. Sous Roche Dumay, at 400 m, is the village's highest premier cru, on limestone scree under the wood.

Tap any two to compare them and cut a slice through the hill between them. Premiers and grands crus are pinned at the centre of their INAO outline, village climats at the centre of the lieu-dit on the BIVB's map: the climat, not the grower's own rows.