Aligoté

Aligoté is Burgundy's other white grape, and for most of its history it has been treated as a distant second to Chardonnay — planted on the flatter, less favoured ground, cropped generously, and destined for the local aperitif.

It is a sibling of Chardonnay in the genetic sense: both are crossings of Pinot with Gouais Blanc. What it lacks is Chardonnay's breadth and capacity to take oak. What it has is acidity, and a great deal of it.

The wine is lean, dry and sharp, with green apple, lemon, white flowers and a chalky, mineral finish. Body is light and alcohol modest. Its traditional role was as the base for kir, mixed with crème de cassis — a use that says a good deal about how the grape was regarded, since the blackcurrant liqueur was there to soften the acid.

That assessment is being revised. Bouzeron, in the Côte Chalonnaise, is the one village appellation dedicated to Aligoté, and its wines have real precision. More significantly, a number of respected Burgundian growers have begun taking old-vine Aligoté seriously — planted on limestone slopes rather than the valley floor, cropped hard, sometimes barrel-fermented — and the results are wines of genuine mineral depth that age for a decade.

It is widely planted in Eastern Europe, particularly Moldova, Ukraine and Russia, where its cold-hardiness is the attraction, and it is grown for sparkling wine in several places.

It remains one of the better-value serious whites in France.