Where's the Burgundy price sweet spot?

Given the enormous price variation in Burgundy, and the fact that prices escalate very very quickly, I’m curious as to where people feel their money is best spent. Would it make most sense to concentrate on buying lots of different regional or village wines from high quality producers, maybe single vineyard? Is this where the most bang per buck is? What about a lower level 1er cru? A little more money, for more consistent quality? What about a top 1er cru? Or is it only really worth it to shell out the big bucks for the best of the best?

My personal experience with Burgundy is that the wines tend to be somewhere from mediocre to good. It feels like I can almost always have gotten more for my money if I had bought wine coming from pretty much any other region. But occasionally the wines are simply magnificent and worth every penny. This is coming from a drinker of mostly village, occasionally 1er cru, and very rarely (lower priced) Grand Cru. I’m not popping corks on Richebourg or Le Montrachet.

So what do you all think? Obviously, we’d all buy exclusively Grand Cru DRC, Leroy, Coche, Lafon, etc if we could afford it, but I’m curious where you all feel your money is best spent. What kind of Burgundy buying habits do you have, and what advice would you give to others?

Thanks!

The best value is definitely in specific producers that are lesser-known or whose lower end bottlings punch above their weight class. The problem with higher priced higher end bottles is the expectations typically increase unequally with the reality. At the end of the day it’s all grape juice.

There’s lots of value in the 100-300 price point.

Wines like Hudelot CV, Barthod 1er, Lignier MSD 1er VV are potentially spectacular when they’re on.

Noah,
IMHO Burgundy by virtue of its production limitations and desirability will never be a bang for buck proposition, and you are correct that other areas offer better value.
There is no “end game” that can take you to the promised land, and everyone needs to tread their own Burg path, sometimes you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince. I opened a 2000 AF Gros Aux Reas Vosne village on Saturday night for dinner and it was neither bad nor fantastic but it was very satisfying and went well with the leg of Te Mana lamb that I had roasted in the Webber, I guess you need to decide how many bottles of mature Burg you are going to drink in a year and then start buying and wait. Personally I probably only drink about 12 bottles of premier cru and above a year and probably around 48 bottles of regional and village wines, I find that this ratio allows me to enjoy red burgundy with a variety of food and friends and when I open a Grand Cru I can see the step up in Terroir and enjoy the singularity of the event.

so many iterations of this theme of the lack of value in Burgundy. One has to work to find value but it’s there at $40 and up, white and red. Search prior threads. Redux.

Entirely depends on what you’re looking for.

Single plot Bourgognes and Cote de Nuits Villages around $50

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this. ive been on a big burgundy upgrade kick over the last year and a half during covid. ive focused on what works for my budget where i get the most bang for my buck. lafarge/d’angerville/lignier/barthod/chevillon/hudelot-noellat/bertheau… i no longer buy lower quality producers in good vintages and just focus on high quality producers in my budget.

ive posted recently about prices jumping quite noticeably lately and stand behind that. scooping up deals in the $75-125 range from the producers listed above for village and 1er are very hard to find lately. its like everyone is acquiring these producers with any age on them (2002-2016). my biggest issue is once i drink my small little collection, ill have a hard time replacing it at similar prices. im sure some of you folks who’ve been buying burgundy for years must lose their minds seeing prices today.

I think about this a lot and I think the answer is different in the Cote de Beaune than in the Cote de Nuits (thinking about red here). In the Cote de Beaune, the village wines seem to be a poor value - very often, the 1ers aren’t that much more. It’s very different in the Cote de Nuits, where the 1ers can frequently be double the cost of village wines or more. And of course, the price differential between the two regions is significant also: you can often get Cote de Beaune 1ers for the same price as Cote de Nuits village wines, from the same respective “tier” of producer. And I’m not sure how good a value the village Cote de Nuits wines are either much of the time.

As to what the best “value” is depends on how much you’re willing to pay. I do try to buy mostly 1ers, often from less expensive areas, since I find there often is a bit more stuffing there even compared with similarly-priced village wines from more prestigious appellations. So as a concrete example, I’d rather buy a Pavelot Savigny Dominode than a random village Gevrey-Chambertin. But they aren’t interchangeable and tastes differ. And the better Gevrey village wines all cost more than the Pavelot.

totally depends on the price point you have in mind.

regardless of the price point though, the sweet spot is to find the right producers for that price point. the good producers will consistently make wine worth drinking regardless of vintage, whereas the minefield is really when you start wading into unknown ones.

Lumpp sat alone in a Girvy marsh
Totally motionless except for her heart…

Getting harder and harder to find those producers, and almost guaranteed if Kermit is attached, they will not remain affordable for long…

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I have to be guaranteed that it is going to be a transcendental experience for me to pay over $150 for something. That is never guaranteed in Burgundy–especially with whites. I’ve had a few that were more than worth it–but it is cheaper and more reliable to just get a couple grams of magic mushrooms and something from Oregon. Luckily I still have a cellar full of Côte de Beaune and --but I have stopped buying much Burgundy. I’ll still buy some Villaine, Lumpp, and Volnay if the price is right, but I really get as much enjoyment from Oregon anymore and I get to interact with the jack-wagons that make it too!

Burgundy prices have escalated so far beyond other regions that all Burgundy “deals” are relative (to other Burgundy). But there are still some great wines out there in the $75-125 price range. A lot of Chevillon premier crus can still be found there – e.g. the 2014 Chevillon Cailles is widely available at retail for $110 / bottle now. Not yet ready to drink but a wine that I think will give a lot of pleasure starting in a few years and lasting for a decade or two after. Another good place to look is the big negociants; Bouchard, Drouhin, Faiveley have some reliably very good premier crus that are under $100/bottle pretty consistently. And also Corton grand crus with age can do great things and tend to be inexpensive for a grand cru. E.g. Jadot Corton Pougets, Bouchard Le Corton, lots of others are still under $125.

With all that said, it is still relative – compared to other regions and prices just five years ago these prices are hardly cheap. (Personally I am more or less priced out and giving recommendations mostly based on when I purchased these wines in past years when they were less expensive). But these are crus where you have a shot at a great or near-great wine with age.

I’m sure there are a lot of other wines that qualify in this space that I don’t know about. I never really got to the very high-end producers, but some of them must have village wines or obscure premier crus that can offer a great experience.

My immediate reaction is, “what’s the price for a good 1er cru”? Village pricing (in some cases) is getting out of control, and there are better values to be had in other regions. Grand Cru burgs are much more expensive than other regions as well. A good 1er Cru can give you a lot of the Burgundy experience, cannot be obviously replaced with flavor profiles elsewhere and won’t be priced into oblivion versus great wines of other regions. Good 1er crus are moving up, but I think plenty of great examples can still be found for $125-175 in Nuits, so I think the Burgundy sweet spot is $150.00 +/- for Nuits and perhaps $100 +/- in Beaune (where I am less familiar with the littany of producers there).

Over time, I do see wisdom in others who buy less of this stuff and buy more of the pricier juice. The idea being drink 1/3 the amount (for age, health, tolerance, or quality aspirations) and drink better stuff. Where I only exclusively bought 1er Cru and village starting out, I am now phasing village out entirely where I can, reducing 1er Cru purchases and adding some of that pricey Grand Cru. If I need to sell the Grand Cru in 10 or 20 years because I cannot afford to drink it, I don’t expect to lose (much) money doing so.

You won’t like this answer- heck I don’t like this answer- but as I get into the final few vintages of buying new burgundy (2019 was end of the line for Bordeaux), that number is $300-500 a bottle. But keep in mind I do not drink wine with great frequency and have always aimed for the top rank wines. So for anyone looking for greater quantities, YMMV quite a bit.

My focus these days is on top premier crus that are relatively undervalued- Drouhin Amoureuses and Petit Monts, Jadot Amoureuses- and on a few grand crus that are also much cheaper than they should be- Drouhin and Jadot Clos Saint Denis, Bouchard Clos de Beze, Rousseau Clos de la Roche being the prime examples.

With 2018-2019 I have also been doing more in the premier cru range for $125-200ish. Chambolle Baudes for example (Drouhin and Jadot), Chambolle Les Fuees, and the superb Vosne 1er and Chambolle 1er from Drouhin.

In whites, I am kind of all over the map- but mainly sweet spot premier crus- and always in 6-12 bottle lots so that I can hopefully net 4-8 good experiences after possible premox. Main producer focuses are Drouhin, Bouzereau and the various Domaines making Chassagne Dent de Chien.

I am looking mostly at Cote Chalonnaise and Irancy for superior value under $100. In the $100-200 range, value still requires a search, but can definitely be found if you are resourceful and have good inside information (stay head of the usual wine marketing platforms). Over $200 I dare any Burg head on this forum to not be able to find a satisfying bottling. I could do this in 5 seconds with the tap of a keyboard. Above $500 is the rich man’s playground where things really start to open up though…

Totally agree with the tip of the hat to Corton GCs for value. This is another great place for value.

+1. In all the burgundies I have enjoyed over the past 25 years, I think at current price levels Domaine Parent Corton Les Renardes may be the best QPR grand cru in all of burgundy. The 2015 in particular is magnificent.

Out of curiosity, where do you think a transcendental experience is guaranteed, at any price point?

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I think there’s a point in this discussion for me where having “grand cru” on a label is just not all that indicative of the Q in the QPR piece of the argument, especially in Corton and Clos Vougeot.

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