Marsannay
Styles
Principal grape varieties
Accessory grape varieties
Terroir
Natural factors
- The vineyard lies at the northern tip of the Côte de Nuits, a rectilinear tectonic escarpment extending approximately 25 kilometres in a general north–south direction.
- This escarpment separates the calcareous plateaux of the Hautes Côtes to the west, at between 400 and 500 metres in elevation, from the plain of Bresse to the east, a Tertiary rift basin at around 250 metres in elevation.
- South of the dry valley, intense faulting parallel to the escarpment has carved out long, narrow strips where Liassic marls, Bajocian crinoidal limestones and marls, and Bathonian oolitic limestones or Calcaire de Comblanchien come to the surface.
- The regional climate is cool oceanic, with a moderate annual rainfall of around 750 millimetres, a mean annual temperature of 10.5 °C, and no marked summer drought.
- The soils are poorly developed, generally calcareous, shallow, and free-draining; they have a high clay content at the foot of the slope and over the marl horizons, while the soils of the large alluvial fan are highly permeable and rich in calcareous pebbles.
Human factors
- From 1850 onwards, production shifted towards everyday wines made mainly from Gamay, in response to the doubling of the population of Dijon, before that variety almost entirely disappeared in the 1960s in favour of Pinot noir.
- The reputation of the vineyard was built on the production of rosé wines, which in 1961 were permitted to add the designation 'Rosé de Marsannay' to the appellation name Burgundy, prior to the recognition of the AOC Marsannay by decree in 1987.
Product characteristics
- The red wines are deeply coloured and combine a powerful tannic structure with good suppleness, with aromas of small black fruits mingled with notes of prune and musk.
- The rosés are soft and fruity, often with notes of peach or red fruits underpinned by a pleasing freshness, while the whites are broad and rich with exotic fruit, menthol, or lemongrass notes.
Terroir / wine link
- Parcels on the gravelly, permeable soils of the alluvial fan often yield fruity wines with an elegant, supple structure that become expressive relatively quickly.
- Parcels on the main hillside, with their shallow soils rich in clay and iron oxides, yield powerful, deeply coloured wines with greater ageing potential.
Facts drawn from the specification's terroir-link section by automatic interpretation — see the source.
About this boundary
On the map, at overview zooms, this appellation is drawn as a silhouette of its vineyard generalised at 250 m from the INAO parcel delimitation; the parcels themselves appear as you zoom in.
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