Among the many expensive burgundies I tasted last month during Burgundy Week, some that stood out for good value were wines labelled Bourgogne Aligoté, made from the increasingly appreciated Aligoté grape variety anywhere within the Bourgogne appellation. According to the Vins de Bourgogne website, there are around 1,600 ha (3,954 acres) of the variety in the region, traditionally planted in vineyards that do not qualify for more specific appellations, where Chardonnay and Pinot Noir typically offer a better return on investment. (See this 2021 wine of the week for an explanation of this phenomenon from Romaric Chavy.)
One example that really impressed me for quality and value was Thibault Liger-Belair’s Clos des Perrières la Combe 2023 Bourgogne Aligoté at the Lea & Sandeman burgundy tasting. While this vintage is currently available only en primeur, I was able to find and later taste the current, 2021, vintage, which was equally impressive – in fact even more so because of the added complexity that it had acquired after two more years in the bottle. (For detailed information on how wine ages once bottled, see the entry on ageing in The Oxford Companion to Wine.)
As Liger-Belair (above) told me during the recent London tasting, the name refers to the location of the vineyard, planted on shallow limestone-rich soil in 1978 in a former quarry (perrière is the local name for a quarry) within a valley (combe). In this case, the Combe de la Serré (serré meaning ‘narrow’) just west of Nuits-St-Georges, next to the village vineyard Les Argillats in the appellation of Nuits-St-Georges.
The vines are the Aligoté Doré (golden) clone, which produces more deeply coloured grapes (shown below) and wines and, some have suggested, greater concentration of flavour. What is particularly unusual about this Bourgogne Aligoté, and what gives it a greeny-gold colour, a rich texture and so many layers of flavour, is that Liger-Belair macerates the juice and the skins for a week at 10–12 °C (50–54 °F) before fermentation. The grapes are then pressed slowly in a vertical press, which takes 8–10 hours and allows further oxygenation of the must, further deepening the flavour and protecting the wine against future oxidation.
When I asked him why he chose to do this, he replied, ‘I wanted to integrate maceration into the winemaking process because I am a winemaker who mainly vinifies red wines and I found it interesting to be able to do on white what I did on red, with the idea of giving more flesh to the wine and probably a better expression of the soil.’ His appreciation of Aligoté as ‘a wonderful grape variety that expresses the identity of a climat with great sincerity’ underlines this approach to making the wine.
My tasting note on the 2021 vintage reveals how difficult it is to unpick the flavours in the wine:
‘Complex aroma that cannot be parsed into its components but there are suggestions of spice, ripe green fruits, cedarwood and roasted nuts/toast. A deep aroma that both draws you in and makes you want to linger before you sip. Deeply textured, gently chewy but so smooth, barely tannic yet powerful for a wine of just 12.5%. There’s sufficient freshness for balance but that is not the most striking thing about this wine [even though Aligoté is typically a high-acid variety], which is the depth and complexity.’
At the end of the note, I wrote, ‘I am sure this will continue to age but it is certainly delicious now, with a lightly bitter finish giving a more savoury impression at the end’, suggesting you could continue to drink this until at least 2030. Liger-Belair confirmed the wine’s ability to age, ‘We regularly taste some old vintages, and the wine retains its freshness, the freshness is provided by the limestone soil which brings calcium to the wine.’
The wine is aged on the lees for about 15 months in well-seasoned barrels (5–10 years old), so there are no obvious oak flavours.
Thibault Liger-Belair, who took over an old family property in Nuits-St-Georges (above) in 2001 and regained the vineyards that had been contracted out, should not be confused with Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair in Vosne. There’s more information about the history of the company on his website. He also runs a very good estate in Moulin-à-Vent, known as Domaine des Pierres Roses.
Thibault Liger-Belair’s US importer is Vineyard Brands. Lea & Sandeman were the first to import his wines into the UK and have since been joined by Berry Bros & Rudd. The Aligoté is also available from the Huntsworth Wine Company.
If Burgundy prices have taken the region’s wines out of your reach, don’t forget Aligoté!
See the hundreds of tastings notes on wines made from this re-evaluated variety in our tasting notes database.
