The Côte Chalonnaise & Mâconnais: Value Burgundy

Here's a secret the trophy-hunters miss. The Burgundy that Burgundians actually pour on a weeknight almost never comes from the golden slope. It comes from the softer green hills to the south — two regions that make the same two grapes, in the same idiom, for a fraction of the money and a tenth of the crowd. If you've been scared off by Côte d'Or prices, this is the part of the series that hands your wallet back.

We've done the cold north in Chablis. Now we go south of Beaune, where the map keeps giving and the prices keep falling.

The Côte Chalonnaise: the underrated middle

Drop straight below the Côte de Beaune and the great slope doesn't so much end as relax — the vines break up into gentler, mixed-farming country called the Côte Chalonnaise. It makes both colours, and it's the canniest hunting ground in all of Burgundy for wines that taste of the Côte d'Or without the invoice.

Four names carry it. Mercurey is the engine — the largest appellation here, and mostly Pinot Noir, firm and earthy and built to reward a few years' patience. Givry, its neighbour, makes a suppler, more perfumed red (legend has it a favourite of Henri IV). For whites, Rully turns out fine, lively Chardonnay and a good deal of the region's excellent Crémant, while Montagny is white only, taut and mineral, a near-Chablis at a friendlier price. And at the northern tip, tiny Bouzeron flies its own flag for Aligoté — the only village in Burgundy with an appellation devoted to the "other" white grape, and the place that proves it can be more than a Kir base.

The Côte Chalonnaise is Burgundy with the price tag torn off. Same grapes, same limestone idea, just a few kilometres further from the fame.

There's a bonus hiding here, too: bubbles. The Chalonnaise, and Rully above all, is a heartland of Crémant de Bourgogne — Burgundy's traditional-method sparkling wine, made the same way as Champagne from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Aligoté. It's one of the best-value serious sparklers in France, and a Rully grower's Crémant is the kind of bottle locals keep in the door of the fridge without a second thought. If you only know Burgundy as still red and white, this is a happy surprise.

The Mâconnais: sunny, generous, and all about white

Keep going south, toward Lyon, and the light changes. The Mâconnais is warmer, rounder, more Mediterranean in feel — rolling hills, red-tiled roofs, and vineyards that tip almost entirely toward white Chardonnay. This is the easiest place in the whole region to simply fall for white Burgundy, no decoding required.

It runs from friendly to serious. At the base, plain Mâcon and the step-up Mâcon-Villages give unoaked, orchard-fruit Chardonnay for everyday pleasure — the definitive well-priced house white. Saint-Véran and Viré-Clessé climb higher, adding weight and length. And at the summit stands Pouilly-Fuissé, the region's ambitious flagship, grown beneath the great limestone rocks of Solutré and Vergisson — richer, often lightly oaked, genuinely age-worthy, and now dignified with its own Premier Cru climats after a 2020 reform recognised its best slopes.

One quick trap to sidestep: Pouilly-Fuissé is not Pouilly-Fumé. The first is Mâconnais Chardonnay; the second is a Sauvignon Blanc from the far-off Loire. Same first word, different worlds.

How to drink the value here

A simple playbook. For an everyday white that punches far above its price, reach for Mâcon-Villages or Saint-Véran. For a serious white that won't sting, a good Pouilly-Fuissé rivals cru Côte de Beaune for a fraction of the cost. For red, Mercurey and Givry give you honest, ageable Pinot Noir — perfect for learning the grape before you gamble on a grand name. And for the widest value net of all, remember the lesson from the classification: a plain Bourgogne from a great Côte d'Or grower is often the smartest bottle in the shop.

The bonus is the visiting. Cellar doors down here are relaxed, welcoming and unhurried in a way the fabled villages up north simply aren't — the far south sits on the doorstep of Beaujolais and Lyon, an easy extension of the Lyon-to-Beaujolais wine trip. Fewer appointments, more genuine welcome, better prices. For most travellers, that's a better day than queuing for a locked grand gate.

We've now run the length of greater Burgundy, north to south — and one region remains, straddling the very bottom of the map, so distinct in grape and character that it's practically a country of its own. Same administrative Burgundy, entirely different wine. Part 7 crosses into Beaujolais, Gamay country, and the region the wine world spent decades underrating.