Another Great White Wine You May Not Have Heard Of – Aligoté

First the pronunciation – alley go TAY.  This is a white grape from the Burgundy region of France that has long been hidden in the shadow of the great Chardonnay wines frequently called White Burgundy.  It is a cross between the Pinot Noir grape used in all the great red Burgundy wines and the Gouais Blanc grape that was done in the 17^th Century. 

For hundreds of years it was just a white table wine that was grown in the locations that were not good enough for the two stars of Burgundy – Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.  And the top winemakers ignored it, so the resulting product was often not very good.  Below I have a great story about the poor quality of Aligoté but I cannot certify that all parts of this story are true of you are a fact checker.

One of the towns in Burgundy near Dijon had a good amount of Aligoté vines but no market for the wine made from them.  The mayor of that town had the idea that if they added some additional flavor to the Aligoté, that might get people to buy it.  The town also grew black currants, and people in the town would make a dark red sweet  liquor out of them called Crème de Cassis.  At a town event the mayor poured a little of the Crème de Cassis in the bottom of his wine glass and then filled the glass up with Aligoté.  He walked around suggesting that people try this cocktail mix and many of them really liked it.  Word spread about mixing Aligoté with Crème de Cassis and that cocktail became popular in Burgundy and then spread into the rest of France and eventually around the world.  The name of the mayor was Kir, and that name was given to this cocktail. 

Unfortunately, the popularity of the cocktail did not generate significantly more sales of Aligoté.  Rather than put that wine on their shelves, cafes chose to use other house white wines with the Crème de Cassis and still call it a Kir.  When sparkling wine from the neighboring region of Champagne was used instead of Aligoté, that became Kir Royale. 

Early in the 20^th century some good winemakers became more interested in the Aligoté grape and started using good vinification processes with it and got a nice crisp, dry white wine with a little fruity acidity and white fruit aromas.  In 1937 it got an AOC, Bourgogne Aligoté.  The Côte Chalonnaise sub region of Burgundy has had some very good success with Aligoté.  To the best of my knowledge, this grape is not grown outside the larger Burgundy region. 

We first tried Aligoté in the 90s and it became our house white wine with a price under $10 for about 10 years.  We had only one source for it in DC and for some reason one day they told us that they could no longer get it.  After that, the only Aligoté we could occasionally find was from A & P De Villaine.  This wine is made from grapes grown on the personal estate of Aubert and Pam de Villaine in the town of Bouzeron in the Cote Chalonnaise.  Aubert is best known as the co-owner of one of the most famous estates in the world, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, where he served as the co-director until 2021.  He was a big believer in the Aligoté grape and thanks largely to his advocacy, it first earned the appellation Bourgogne Aligoté de Bouzeron in 1970 and was upgraded to A.O.C. Bouzeron in 1997.  Their Bouzeron Aligoté is the best Aligoté on the market, but it was $35 when we first had it and now is generally about $45, so not a table wine. 

However, in the last few years a number of very good Aligoté wines have become available in the US, generally around $20.  A search for Aligoté on for wines that can be shipped into to Maryland had 25 different products that were under $30 – http://www.wine-searcher.com. Our current favorite is the Grivot-Goisot – Aligoté Bourgogne 2022 shown in the picture at the start of this post.  We are getting this from our favorite wine store in DC, Calvert Woodley.  Their price is $22 but it was recently on sale for $19 and we got a case of it.  It pairs nicely with seafood and chicken dishes and is great to sip at before dinner.  We have Crème de Cassis in the bar, but have no intention of adding it to this wine!

If you enjoy crisp, dry white wines with some good flavors, I suggest you give Aligoté a try.  Let me know what you think.