Côte-d'Or

[koht DOR] The name of this very famous area in France's burgundy region means "slope of gold." It's said that the name comes from the golden color of the vineyard-covered hills during autumn, not from the fact that the wines are so expensive. The Côte d'Or is Burgundy to many people. For all its notoriety, the Côte d'Or is rather small-just over 30 miles in length and measuring about 11⁄2 miles at its widest point and only a few hundred yards wide at its narrowest. The Côte d'Or runs from the outskirts of Dijon in the north to just past santenay in the south. It divides neatly into two parts-the côte de beaune in the south and côte de nuits in the north. The Côte de Nuits is famous for its red wines, while the Côte de Beaune, although it also produces superb red wines, is more celebrated for its white wines. The area's red wines are based on pinot noir; the white wines are based on chardonnay. The Côte d'Or contains numerous grand cru and premier cru vineyards that turn out some of the greatest wines in the world, which, because of the limited vineyard area, are extremely high priced. This list of famous wines includes bonnes mares, chambertin, clos de vougeot, corton-charlemagne, montrachet, romanée-conti and la tâche. These grand cru vineyards are part of the many villages that produce wine in their own right under their village or communal appellations such as chambolle-musigny, gevrey-chambertin, meursault, morey-saint-denis and puligny-montrachet. Wines that don't qualify for grand cru, premier cru, or the individual village appellations may fit into either the côte de beaune-villages ac or the côte de nuits-villages ac. If not, then they may simply fall into one of the general regional appellations such as bourgogne ac or bourgogne passe-tout-grain ac.