A blind tasting at the Espace de Dégustation concludes our tour of the Cité des Climats et Vins de Bourgogne in Mâcon, and it ends with good news: “With the exception of the Pouilly-Fuissé and two or three appellations, you can find a decent white wine in the Mâconnais for as little as seven to ten euros,” David Legris assures us. To prove it, the manager pours a Mâcon Villages at the Cité, which serves as a sparkling showroom of wines from southern Burgundy from the Côte Chalonnaise to the Beaujolais border. The pale yellow wine is fresh and smells delicately of citrus fruits, notes of white flowers and vineyard peaches merge on the tongue. “These wines deserve more attention than they have received up to now,” affirms Monsieur Legris, and he is right. Because the Mâconnais still disappears in the mighty shadow of the Côte d’Or and the Chablisien, even in the perception of French wine drinkers. This is exactly what Mâcon’s Cité des Climats et Vins de Bourgogne, which opened in April as the first of three locations of its kind, aims to change.
The impetus to redefine Burgundy in terms of oenotourism came in 2015 when the Climats were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Eight years later, three decidedly modern embassies of Burgundian viticulture have emerged with three complementary locations that open up the entire wine-growing region with its vineyards that have been balanced down to the square meter over the centuries. The Cité of Mâcon covers Southern Burgundy, that of Chablis Northern Burgundy, that in central Beaune covers the entire wine-growing region with a focus on the Côte d’Or. Opening is the order of the day. Each Cité invites you to wine workshops, excursions into the vineyards and series of events, more than 5000 square meters of exhibition space are freely accessible, there are also panoramic terraces, boutiques, specialist bookstores and parks.