Marcel Giraudon Bourgogne Chitry Rouge 2025

The Land

For part of the Middle Ages, the main street of this village was an international frontier: La Grande Rue in Chitry-le-Fort divided the lands of the Count of Tonnerre, in Champagne, from those of the Count of Auxerre, in Burgundy. The fortifications the name refers to are long gone; the geology is not. Chitry sits in the Yonne, a short drive from Chablis, and its hillsides are Kimmeridgian chalky marl — the same fossil-packed limestone that runs under the Chablis grand cru slope. Nineteenth-century Chitry was sold under the name Chablis outright, and in 1929 the wines were formally granted the title Bourgogne des Environs de Chablis. Today Chitry is one of four viticultural communes of the Auxerrois, and the wines carry the name Bourgogne Chitry. The terroir suits Aligoté so well that it accounts for roughly forty percent of everything planted here.

The Wine

Pinot Noir, hand-harvested at deliberately modest yields, about eighty-five percent destemmed with the remainder left whole-cluster, given a couple of days of cold pre-fermentation maceration and then fermented mainly in fiberglass vats cooled by a drapeau d'eau — a water-chilled plate dropped straight into the tank, which is about as unglamorous and effective as temperature control gets. There is no attempt to build a big wine here. The result is pale in color, high-toned, fruity and refreshing, the Yonne expression of Pinot Noir rather than a scaled-down Côte d'Or. The 2025 season in northern Burgundy started absurdly early after a mild winter, then a June heat wave during flowering caused coulure and millerandage and cut the crop. August heat accelerated ripening further, and picking in the Chablis vineyards began as early as the eighteenth of August, before early-September rain split the harvest into two passes. Fruit came in healthy, and freshness held.

The People

The Giraudons have been farming and making wine in Chitry for centuries, which in this part of the Yonne is a statement about persistence as much as pedigree — this was Chablis's overlooked hinterland for most of the last hundred years. Marcel Giraudon works 18.5 hectares alongside his children Aurélie and Thibaut, six of those hectares planted to Aligoté, all of it farmed and vinified along resolutely traditional lines. A good measure of the man: for years he bottled the estate's serious, age-worthy rosé in dark green glass specifically so that shoppers who only wanted something pink would not be tempted to buy it. He was not trying to sell more rosé. He was trying to sell it to the right people.

Food Pairing

Jambon persillé, the Burgundian ham-and-parsley terrine, where the wine's acidity slices through gelatin and fat that would smother something richer. A charcuterie board with cornichons and grainy mustard — light tannin and bright fruit keep pace with cured pork instead of overpowering it. Roast trout or salmon served with the bottle at cellar temperature, since a pale Pinot with this little tannin handles fish without a fight. And a warm mushroom tart, matching earth to earth. Pull it from the fridge twenty minutes before dinner and pour it like a house wine, because at this price that is exactly what it should be.