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Appellation · France

Beaune

The walled town at the centre of the Burgundy trade, and a large village appellation with forty-two Premier Crus and no Grand Cru.

Beaune AOCcontinentalcool
What to expect in the glass

Medium-bodied Pinot Noir with red cherry and a soft, earthy finish. Rounder and readier than the Côte de Nuits, and rarely built for long ageing.

About Beaune

Beaune is the commercial capital of Burgundy — the town where the négociant houses have their cellars, and where the Hospices de Beaune charity auction has been held every November since 1859.

The appellation is large, entirely Premier Cru or village level, and mostly red. The wines are medium-weight, red-fruited and approachable, and they are among the more affordable ways into Côte d’Or Pinot Noir.

The Hospices auction matters more than a charity sale usually would: its prices have historically set the tone for the entire vintage’s market, and the wines are sold in barrel and finished by whoever buys them.

What the name means

Legal name
Beaune AOC
Type
Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée / Protégée (AOC / AOP)
Set by
INAO
Regulates
Origin, plus grape varieties, maximum yields, minimum ageing.

The delimited area, permitted varieties, maximum yields, minimum alcohol, pruning and training methods, and in many cases minimum ageing. Administered by INAO.

Grapes

Wines from here

red

Red Burgundy

Pinot Noir at its most perfumed and site-specific: pale, silky, high in acid, and the reference point for the variety worldwide.

white

White Burgundy

Barrel-fermented Chardonnay from the Côte de Beaune and Mâconnais — the model every serious oaked Chardonnay in the world is measured against.

Rules worth knowing

Confirmed in the EU register

Beaune is registered as a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), file number PDO-FR-A1022, protected at EU level since 1973.

Article 107 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013

Only the rules that change what to expect in the glass or on the label. WineHQ does not reproduce production specifications, and each entry carries the date it was last checked because appellation rules change.

The designation is confirmed above. WineHQ has not read this appellation’s production specification, so it publishes no yields, ageing minima or permitted-variety lists for it — those come from the document linked above, not from a summary of it.

What to eat, and how to serve it

Derived from this region’s signature styles. Each is listed separately, because a region does not have one serving temperature.

Red Burgundy

Serve at 14–16°C (cellar cool).

Try with fillet steak, mushroom pasta or steak with béarnaise.

White Burgundy

Serve at 10–13°C (lightly chilled).

Try with salmon in a cream sauce, halibut or scallops.

Where to go next

Places worth trying if you like this one — neighbours, rivals, and the obvious step across.

  • Pommard — The sturdiest red of the Côte de Beaune — tannic, dark and long-lived, with no Grand Cru and no shortage of reputation.
  • Savigny-lès-Beaune — A large village in a side valley north of Beaune, and one of the better-value red appellations on the Côte d’Or.
  • Aloxe-Corton — The village around the hill of Corton, which carries the Côte de Beaune’s only red Grand Cru and its greatest white.
Location

Approximate centroid: 47.02°, 4.84°. WineHQ stores coordinates only where it has them, and does not estimate boundaries it has not sourced.

Sources

Sources consulted