Robe — Translucent ruby, paler than Bordeaux, turning early to garnet
cherry
raspberry
rose
undergrowth
game with age
Palate
Silken and perfumed; fine-grained tannin, acidity carrying everything
Ageing
5–25 years; longer for the grands crus
Serving
15–17 °C, never warm
The monks of Cîteaux and Cluny walled the clos and learned, plot by plot, that the same grape made a different wine across a footpath — the climat system, inscribed by UNESCO in 2015. Duke Philippe le Hardi enforced the choice in 1395, banishing the "disloyal" Gamay to keep Pinot Noir alone on the Côte.
A merchants' wine for centuries, Burgundy passed to its growers in the twentieth century, when domaine bottling turned peasant parcels into world names. The wine is Pinot's paradox: pale, fragile, transparent to its ground — and, at its rarest, the most expensive red wine on earth.