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Appellation · France

Meursault

The largest white-wine village of the Côte d’Or, and the byword for rich, buttery, hazelnut-scented Chardonnay.

Meursault AOCcontinentalcool
What to expect in the glass

Full-bodied dry white with ripe apple and pear, hazelnut, butter and toast, and a broad, creamy texture. Rounder and less taut than Chablis or Puligny, and one of the clearest illustrations of what oak and lees do to Chardonnay.

About Meursault

Meursault is the biggest and best-known white wine village in Burgundy, and the one whose style is easiest to describe: broad, rich, textured Chardonnay with hazelnut, butter and toasted-oat notes over ripe orchard fruit.

It has no Grand Cru, which is an accident of the classification process rather than a judgement — Les Perrières in particular is routinely priced and rated as though it were one.

The richness is not purely a matter of site. Meursault growers have historically used more new oak, more lees stirring and fuller malolactic conversion than Puligny or Chassagne, and the house style has shifted noticeably towards freshness since the 2000s as those techniques have been dialled back.

A small quantity of red is made and is a curiosity; the reverse arrangement with Volnay means the appellation lines here follow colour rather than commune.

What the name means

Legal name
Meursault 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.

Worth knowing

No Grand Cru, despite Les Perrières being widely regarded as of that standard. Some white wine grown in neighbouring Volnay is entitled to the Meursault name.

Grapes

Wines from here

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.

Soil and geology

Soils
Deeper limestone-clay soils than the Montrachet villages, with marl at the base of the slope
Drainage
Moderate
Water holding
Moderate

What it does to the vine. Deeper, marlier soils than Puligny’s, holding more water and producing a broader, more vigorous vine. The wines are correspondingly fuller-bodied, though barrel and lees handling contribute at least as much to that as the ground does.

WineHQ describes soil in terms of what it demonstrably does — drainage, heat retention, water supply, rooting depth — and not in terms of flavours it is said to transmit. Vines take up ions, not aromas, and no mechanism has been demonstrated by which a mineral in the ground is tasted in the glass. See soil and drainage.

Rules worth knowing

Confirmed in the EU register

Meursault is registered as a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), file number PDO-FR-A1017, 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.

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.

  • Puligny-Montrachet — The most precise and mineral-toned of the great white villages, sharing Montrachet itself with its neighbour Chassagne.
  • Volnay — Pommard’s neighbour and its opposite: the most perfumed and delicate red on the Côte de Beaune.
  • Chassagne-Montrachet — The southern half of the Montrachet hill, historically a red-wine village and now overwhelmingly white.
  • Pommard — The sturdiest red of the Côte de Beaune — tannic, dark and long-lived, with no Grand Cru and no shortage of reputation.
Location

Approximate centroid: 46.98°, 4.77°. WineHQ stores coordinates only where it has them, and does not estimate boundaries it has not sourced.

Sources

Sources consulted