Louis Jadot

Louis Jadot buys grapes across Burgundy and also owns vineyards, and the thing people get wrong is treating the bought-grape half as the lesser half. A negociant contracts growers, often for decades, and takes the fruit into its own cellar. The pressing, the fermentation and the barrels are all Jadot's. Ownership of soil is not the variable that decides how a wine tastes.

The range works as a staircase. Regional Bourgogne blanc and rouge sit at the base, then the satellite appellations, Beaujolais, Macon and Chablis. Above those come the Cote d'Or villages, Marsannay, Gevrey-Chambertin, Pommard, Nuits-Saint-Georges, then premier cru and grand cru bottlings from single plots. Each step narrows the piece of ground the wine comes from, which is what the price is tracking.

Past village level, extra money buys precision and longevity, not more fruit. For a dinner drunk on the night, a Bourgogne blanc or a Chablis from this house usually delivers more than a premier cru opened three years too soon.

The list below is sorted by price, lowest first.