Bordeaux vs Burgundy: The Two Capitals of Wine

Ask two wine lovers to name the greatest region on earth and you will often start an argument, because the answer nearly always comes down to a choice between Bordeaux and Burgundy. The two capitals of French wine sit only a few hundred miles apart, yet they represent almost opposite philosophies of what a great wine should be, and understanding the difference is the surest way into the whole of fine wine.

Bordeaux is a region of grandeur and scale. Its wines come from large estates, the châteaux whose names adorn the label, some of them farming hundreds of acres and producing many thousands of cases a year. Its greatest wines are blends, marrying Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and a few other grapes in proportions each estate guards closely, and its hierarchy, fixed in the famous classification of 1855 that our guide to the five First Growths describes, ranks the estates themselves. To buy Bordeaux is, in a sense, to buy a brand, a château whose consistency and reputation stretch back generations.

Burgundy could hardly be more different. Here there are no grand châteaux but a mosaic of tiny plots worked by family domaines, and the wines are made not from blends but from a single grape, Pinot Noir for the reds and Chardonnay for the whites. Its hierarchy ranks not the producer but the ground, classifying individual vineyards as grand or premier cru in the belief that place, above all, shapes the wine. Production is minuscule, and, as our look at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and the great estates of Burgundy makes clear, the scarcity can be extreme. To buy Burgundy is to buy a place, filtered through the hands of a particular grower.

The contrast runs deeper than method. Bordeaux, at its finest, is a wine of structure and power, built to age majestically over decades and often more approachable to the newcomer. Burgundy is a wine of perfume and subtlety, seductive and maddening by turns, capable of the most ethereal heights and the most frustrating inconsistency. Bordeaux offers relative reliability and a deep, liquid market; Burgundy offers the thrill of the chase and, in its greatest bottles, an emotional intensity many collectors spend a lifetime pursuing.

Most serious wine lovers eventually find themselves drawn more to one than the other, and the choice says something about temperament, the collector who prizes consistency and structure against the one who chases nuance and rarity. In truth a complete cellar holds both, and learning to appreciate each is central to the education set out in our guide to starting a fine wine collection. To source the finest of either, contact us.