Gorgeous red burgundy at an appealing price

Unfortunately, the very best Burgundies are not for everyone. The issue is not the grapes — Pinot Noir for the reds and Chardonnay for the whites — but the relatively high prices that can put the wines out of reach for everyday drinking. I am talking about such wines as Meursault, Pommard and Gevrey-Chambertin, to cite just a few Burgundies, which are named after the villages from which they come.

Yet in Burgundy, as in most areas, there are ways to get a good taste of the wines without serious depletion of one’s liquid assets. In this case, one of the tricks is to look for wines simply labeled “Bourgogne,” the French word for Burgundy. It is the appellation for vineyards that fall outside, in some cases just outside, the prime, sloping areas of Burgundy’s villages (generally east of the region’s main road), and hence must use the more generic name.

In fact, on occasion, Bourgognes can be superb. One red is the 2001 Bourgogne “Les Bons Bâtons” from Ghislaine Barthod, a small grower in Chambolle-Musigny in the area of Burgundy known as the Côte d’Or, or golden slope. The Bourgogne, at $19, is just one of many wines in the Barthod portfolio.

Rosenthal Wine Merchant

I chilled it for about 15 minutes to bring it down to “cellar” temperature, which can help to bring out the flavors, poured myself a small first glass and found it immediately attractive.  The aromas suggest cherry, blueberry, plum and hints of orange that become vivid on tasting the wine. The color is very light, unlike that of many American Pinot Noirs. The wine, though light in character, has beautifully expansive and concentrated fruit that, along with a mineral presence, a bright acidity and appealing tannins, fills and lingers in the mouth.

In the course of dinner, a simply sautéed steak, the various parts of the wine kept emerging, adding up to a complexity that can distinguish a good Burgundy from just about any other Pinot Noir in the wine world. It would also go nicely with fish, if you prefer it with a light red, as I sometimes do.

In “The World Atlas of Wine,” fifth edition, Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson say  (somewhat dismissively) of the vineyards that yield Bourgogne: “Their produce may be clearly inferior but, in the hands of an able winemaker, can be one of the Côte d’Or’s rare bargains.” Barthod’s wine, from a vineyard just a stone’s throw from distinguished ground, suggests to me that they can be considerably more than that.

If you have trouble finding it, the importer is Rosenthal Wine Merchant.

Edward Deitch's wine column appears Thursdays. Write to him at .

MORE FROM WINE

Wine Section Front

Give a bouquet of rosés for this Mother’s Day Smart sipping: Very fine wines for $10 to $15 Digital decanting: Great wines just a touch away Raise a glass: New red, white and rose wines Light and lovely: The taste of spring in a bottle Praise for a more-than-worthy merlot The elusive under-$20 California cabernet Sweet steal! South Africa’s under-$15 wines Note to self: ‘Life is too short for bad wine’ ‘Grooner’ is a wine (and marketing) hit Wine Section Front   Add Wine headlines to your news reader: