The Best of Beaune - Domaine des Croix at 20
- adrianlatimer61
- Oct 20
- 6 min read
Updated: Nov 5
David talks vineyards and geology
‘Imagine Beaune as the Bahamas during the Jurassic, around 150 million years ago’.
It was a compelling image from geologist Francoise Vannier, up on the podium with David Croix to introduce a fascinating tasting of Beaune climats and terroir, that prehistoric inland sea (that reminds me of another famous one in Chablis where the Kimmeridgian soil is comprised of squashed ancient oyster shells, the same in Sancerre).
Around 23-35 million years ago (Oligocene) the climate remained tropical, but the tectonic plates stretched the earth’s crust and split it into faults, depositing limestone downslope until a mere five or less million years ago (Quatenary) the weather turned temperate and cold, with permafrost (but no actual glaciers here) and deposits of gravel and winter rivers that gouged out what are now the famous ‘combes’ or small valleys that bring down cool air and alluvial soils.
Geological Map of Beaune
Of course I simplify grotesquely, but it interesting to glimpse how the slopes, soil, twists and turns arrived. Beaune is actually concave, and in parts quite steep (up to 40%), with the more elegant wines further north towards Savigny and more powerful further south towards Pommard. In the middle sits Beaune Greves, the ‘grand cru’ wanabee, a wine that seems to combine some of the power with the elegance and strict minerality.
David Croix set up the Domaine des Croix in 2005, and this was his 20 year celebration. Typically, he started it with a tasting of 9 wines of which only 4 were his, in an effort to showcase the whole of Beaune not just his domaine. There were four pairs of 2021, not an easy vintage, plus one 1995 from Chateau de Chorey les Beaune just to show how the old school wines could age. Some carried a little more make up, from Morot and Drouhin, fine wines but with more evident, toasty oak, the Croix wines perhaps more linear and pure. Yes, the Pertuisots and Clos des Mouches from the south were weightier, the Greves the best balanced, but for an example of terroir at play the Bressandes versus Cent Vignes are always the most striking example.
Geological ages and elevation
Same winemaker, same grape variety and vineyards touching each other, but the former up top of the slope on greze bedrock, active limestone, colder, more mineral and structured, a wine where any whole cluster would just add to the natural rigidity of the tannins; the latter directly 100m below, on alluvial soils and limestone softer, rounder, fruitier with 25% whole bunch to give it a bit more backbone. The Bressandes is sterner, more mineral, tighter and commanding attention, the Cent Vignes more the crowd pleaser, easy and fun. It shows two things so clearly – both the effect of ‘terroir’/place, weather and soil on the structure of the wine and equally of the winemaker. As David said, he used to try to soften the Bressandes and beef up the Cent Vignes, but now he just leaves them to show their own characters. Both are lovely, just very different. And yet a stone’s throw apart – the beauty and humbling fascination of Burgundy.
By chance friends had invited us to stay in their brother-in-law’s house which just happens to sit facing Beaune Greves and in the afternoon sunshine we’d decided to walk up the slope past Greves to the top of the Montagne de Beaune and then down through Bressandes to Cent Vignes and the road. First we walked it, then we learned it, and finally we drank it. Veni, vidi, vici!
Autumn in Beaune
Lunch was up there overlooking the whole expanse of vineyards, the hill of Corton with its tonsure of woodland to the north, the flatter slopes of Pommard to the south, undulations of burnished yellow interspersed with scarlet, vine leaves veined with rubies. A few grapes remained, sweet enough and nicely juicy.
Lovely leaves in Beaune Bressandes
Beaune is often overlooked these days, not as fashionable as Volnay or Pommard and of course lacking any grand crus (the Cote de Beaune only having them in Corton, in both colours) but offers a lot of wine with all of 335 hectares of mainly affordable 1e crus. A far cry from the grandiloquence and crazy prices of the Cote de Nuits.
What did interest me when speaking to members of the trade was the overwhelming feeling that Burgundy prices had got way ahead of themselves in many places, and were exploiting the current scarcity and intense global demand, but that the moment that, say, Asian fashions change and maybe move on to somewhere else, fed up of paying through the nose for Burgundy, well, Bordeaux shows all too clearly what can happen, and is now in major distress having ignored its faithful clientele and today largely lost them. I hope the greedier Bourguignons take heed; they really need to. If sales of Cote Rotie and Barolo are going up rapidly, it’s pretty obvious why.
But not at Domaine des Croix where things remain level-headed. If the tasting and hilltop lunch were not enough, a lavish dinner kicked off with one of my favourite wines – his Corton Charlemagne, but again he delivered a clever lesson in vintages. Yes, 2010 is a legendary vintage for Chardonnay and 2011 is not, but the difference was amazing. The 2011 was the paler of the two, liquorice-minty, green fruited, dense, citrus, tooth coating, a wine I think I could easily bling guess. Classic and delicious, what a treat.
Its elder sibling was more golden yellow but with a force of almost tropical fruit that would have you wondering just where you were. On the nose and first taste you might wonder if you’d flown to Napa, pineapple and apricots, but then that acidity and tooth coating extract kicked in and transported us back to Burgundy. I’ve never tasted such an exuberant Charlemagne, and though impressive, I think we all preferred the more elegant restraint of the 2011. But what a generous treat to taste them side by side.
The 2017 Greves and 2009 Pertuisots were what you’d expect and hope, the Greves the more refined and mineral, the Pertuisots with that extra age and ripeness from 2009, both showing how fine Beaune can be, but the surprise was some perfectly aged (24 month) Comte cheese with its soulmate wine, a 2018 Chateau Chalon from Domaine Courbet. Whilst I quite like vin jaune, I find its curry powder and nut taste lovely but in small doses, and requiring age, but here we had a young wine that everyone wanted more of. It was so much more subtle, with all the flavour but dancing on the palate rather than stomping around.
The day was brilliantly organised by Chloe, executed to perfection and filled with generosity, taste, instruction and fun. A real joy and I’m still not quite sure what we were doing there, but a million thanks!
Vineyard Map of Beaune, all the climats and crus
And as a cherry on the cake, it was David who had suggested to us that we might use the charity Vendanges Solidaires (which helps vignerons hit by the ever more frequent and destructive forces of Nature, drought, flood, hail, frost, fire etc) for the new book. When I asked him how I should best get in contact now that the book was in hand, he simply said that the charming couple that we’d just been chatting with, well, he was a co-founder.
Now we just need to sell the books…
And enjoy more Beaune.
Pinot grapes in Beaune
Postscript - ‘The Wine in My Glass’
After some encouragement and a fair few blog posts, I have published (Sept 2025) a book about my travels in the wine world, people, places and, of course, wines. I am not a professional, so everything I say is objective and unbiased (so I can criticise when other journalists do not dare to do so for instance) and any profits will go to the Vendanges Solidaires association which was set up in 2016 to help winemakers who are in trouble after suffering the extreme weather conditions (frost, hail, fire, flood etc) which sadly are becoming ever more frequent: www.vendangessolidaires.com.
The book ranges from California to Sicily, via Salta, Jujuy and Patagonia in Argentina, Valtellina, Piemonte and Tuscany in Italy, Madeira and of course all over France (Burgundy, Chablis, Sancerre, Beaujolais, Bordeaux, the Rhone). I'm interested in the people, places and stories behind the wines we all love, not tasting notes and scores.
If you have found any pleasure and/or interest in this blog, I think you might enjoy it, especially as it has been brilliantly illustrated by Arabella Langlands-Perry who managed to juggle bringing up two young kids, helping run Maceo/Willi’s Wine Bar in Paris and producing artwork with an abundance of both talent and wit. Brava.
‘The Wine in My Glass – Tales of Wines, Winemakers and Places’
Published by The Medlar Press Limited, Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, autumn 2025.
Available from Medlar in UK, and/or from me in France or Willis Wine Bar in Paris.
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