Comblanchien

Comblanchien lies in the southern part of the Côte de Nuits, between Prémeaux-Prissey and Corgoloin, some ten kilometers from Beaune. It is the village of stone: the compact Upper Bathonian limestone that bears its name forms the backbone of the whole Côte and is extracted from the quarries above the village, a marble-like stone used on great building sites such as the Paris Opéra. The same hard rocks, unfit for cultivation, crown the vineyards with dry grassland and sparse woods.

The commune has no appellation of its own: its wines are released as Côte de Nuits-Villages, the appellation created in 1937 under the name Vins fins de la Côte de Nuits, renamed in 1964 and since 2026 limited to Comblanchien, Corgoloin, and Prémeaux-Prissey. Here the slopes, gentle and regular, do not reach the rim of the plateau; higher up the brown soils are low in limestone, lower down a thick layer of pebbly debris precedes the brown earths at the foot of the slope. Pinot Noir gives reds of velvety tannin and fresh fruit, cherry and currant, which after a few years gain licorice and forest floor; the appellation's scant Chardonnay grows mainly on the lean, stony soils of the slopes overlooking the village and gives lively, mineral whites.

The village grew in the thirteenth century with the acquisitions of the Dukes of Burgundy, lived from the mid-nineteenth century on its quarries, and was largely burned down in 1944. The lieux-dits that may appear on the label include Le Vaucrain, Aux Boulardes, and Belle-Vue. The available bottles from this area, when there are any, appear below.