I am excited by the current wines coming from Burgundy’s Hautes Côtes because they deliver the charm and weightlessness of Burgundy at prices that we 99-percenters can afford. So, I’ve broken down what would have been a very long article into two parts. In this first installment, I’ll address the Hautes Côtes in general, whereas Part 2 will delve into specific producers and wines. I don’t claim that this overview is a comprehensive assessment of the Hautes Côtes—I’ll leave that to other authorities like Jasper Morris, M.W. and Charles Curtis, M.W. However, during my last two annual visits to Burgundy, I visited numerous producers and supplemented those visits with extensive tastings hosted by Jeanne Marie de Champs, one of the most knowledgeable brokers in the region, and by the BIVB (Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bourgogne), the trade organization that represents the wines of the region. So, I think I have a clear sense of these appellations.
Climate change has been welcomed here in the Hautes Côtes, transforming the coarse wines with rustic tannins of past decades into wines that are suave and filled with complexity. The Hautes Côtes, as they are called, comprise two distinct appellations, the Haute Côtes de Beaune and the Hautes Côtes de Nuits, lying at about 1,150 to 1,500 feet of elevation above sea level, and about 350 feet above and just to the west of the respective portions of the Côte d’Or. In the past, the extra altitude prevented grapes from ripening adequately. Agnès Paquet, one of the region’s newly established top producers, notes that, “twenty-five years ago, the grapes were not ripe enough, making it hard to make good wine.” With a broad smile, she adds, “Now we have good maturity.” The warmth has allowed grapes to ripen, bringing with them a broader palate of flavors, and the tannins to soften.
Although Benjamin Leroux, the star Beaune-based micro-négociant, bottles no wine exclusively from the Hautes Côtes, he likes to include grapes from those appellations in his Bourgogne Blanc and Bourgogne Rouge because “they bring freshness.”
The Hautes Côtes is a place where you can still buy land, establish an estate, and make good wine, according to Boris Champy, who believes the appellations still have enormous potential for further advancement, despite the recent giant leap in quality. He should know, given his vast experience with wine in general and with Burgundy in particular. A native of Champagne, Champy worked with Christien Moueix at Dominus in the Napa Valley for a decade, then spent another 10 years as the technical director at Maison Louis Latour (the venerable négociant in Beaune, where he worked with grapes from the entire region), and later was the estate manager at Clos des Lambrays, the Grand Cru in Morey St. Denis. Champy notes that an acre of land in the Hautes Côtes is 1/20th the price of that in Pommard. He quips that, “The bank will lend you money because they know you can make a go of it.”
Laurent Féry, who heads the century old and still family-owned Domaine Jean Féry et Fils in Échevronne in the Hautes Côtes de Beaune, adds that land transactions are easier in the Hautes Côtes because families are willing the sell. “If you own in Gevrey-Chambertin (in the Côte d’Or), you never want to sell.”
As a result, a new wave of younger producers, like Seiichi Saito, a Japanese ex-pat, is flocking to the area. These newcomers join the established producers like Maison Edouard Delaunay and the above-mentioned Domaine Féry, making the Hautes Côtes the place to find excellent and authentic Burgundy at reasonable prices…at least by Burgundy measures.
Prestigious Côte d’Or producers such as Domaine Leflaive in Puligny-Montrachet, Domaine Lafarge in Volnay, Domaine Vincent Dancer in Chassagne-Montrachet, and Domaine de L’Arlot in Nuits Saint Georges, among others, have purchased land in the Hautes Côtes, confirming that it’s the new hot place for top-notch Burgundy.
Paquet observes ironically that formerly the Haute Côtes was a pariah zone, noting how producers from the Côte d’Or looked down their collective noses at them. But now those same producers find the Hautes Côtes quite attractive and are buying vineyards. She complains that “too many people are coming now. It would be good if we could keep our land.” She is proud of the good quality/price ratio of the wines from the Hautes Côtes and emphasizes that she wishes that “it would stay like that.” But she’s fearful of rising prices with the influx of Côte d’Or producers.
The Hautes Côtes de Beaune spans a larger area, running from above Pernand-Vergelesses in the south to above Santenay and Maranges, with more vineyards than the Hautes Côtes de Nuits, which extends no further north than the hills above Vosne-Romanée.
It’s a ruggedly beautiful area where the topography differs vastly from that of the Côte d’Or. There, except for the occasional serpiginous valley heading west to places like St. Aubin, Auxey Duresses, and St. Romain, vines carpet a single east/southeast facing slope. In the Hautes Côtes, steep winding roads take you to plateaus where you may find vines or animals grazing. Elsewhere, well-planted steep slopes stand out among gently rolling hills dotted with quaint villages. Unlike the Côte d’Or, the mixed agricultural tradition remains here. The overall landscape is more reminiscent of the diverse mixture seen in Beaujolais or even Chianti Classico than the Côte d’Or.
Although the Côte de Nuits is more prestigious than the Côte de Beaune, that distinction does not carry over to the Hautes Côtes. Indeed, in my tastings, I generally found the wines from the Hautes Côtes de Beaune to be more elegant and stylish than those from its more northerly neighbor. That said, I found outstanding wines from both appellations.
Try as I might, I failed to get a consistent answer from producers to the question, “What’s the main difference between the wines from the Hautes Côtes de Beaune and the Hautes Côtes Nuits?” All the producers to whom I spoke proclaimed that the terroir was so variable that it was hard to generalize about the wines. Nicolas Thevenot Brun, who represents the fifth generation of the family-owned Domaine Thevenot Le Brun, explains that part of the difficulty stems from the varied orientations of vineyards, the complexity of the soils, and even the influence of air currents that affect how and when the grapes ripen. I suspect that part of the problem might also lie in the lack of tradition of making site-specific wines, since in the past much of the production went anonymously to cooperatives or négociants.
I could not even get a consistent answer to whether Chardonnay or Pinot Noir excelled in one compared to the other. Amaury Devillard, who, along with his family, owns Domaine des Perdrix in the Côte de Nuits (and does not have a dog in the fight because he does not own vineyards in either of the Hautes Côtes areas), believes the Hautes Côtes de Nuits is best suited for Chardonnay, but most growers there plant Pinot Noir because that’s what they’re used to.
A managing director of a major Beaune-based négociant remarked to me, “The wines from the Hautes Côtes can be horrible unless you know who the producer is.” All of which reinforces my mantra for Burgundy—producer, producer, producer. Stay tuned for Part 2.
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E-mail me your thoughts about Burgundy in general or the Hautes Côtes in particular at Michael.Apstein1@gmail.com and follow me on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram @MichaelApstein
December 24, 2025