The Aligoté Defense Rests

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/dining/drinks/wine-school-aligote.html

Version 0 of 1.

We believe in the virtues of an open mind here at Wine School. Yet we would be less than honest if we did not concede our own struggles with practicing what we preach.

Certain styles have proved difficult for me to appreciate with meals. Big, fruity reds, for example, that are high in alcohol and give the impression of sweetness, tend to overpower most foods. They are better for people who enjoy wine as a cocktail than for those seeking an agreeable partner at the table.

I don’t apologize for that. I will acknowledge that I ought to revisit certain wines that have not spoken to me in the past. Rather than write off, say, amarone and zinfandel entirely, I may find that some examples are not quite so domineering. Depending on the producer’s intent, some of these wines may be made in a style more appealing to me.

Still, many people — once they have decided to forsake a certain type of wine — refuse to go back. I never argue the specifics of taste. What you enjoy and what you abhor are entirely up to you.

But at Wine School, we believe relentless curiosity is awarded. You will find more styles to embrace, and more flavors that convey wine’s vast wonders and complexity.

For the last month we have been drinking aligoté, a white wine from Burgundy that is a flashing neon sign for the issue of reflexive dismissal. For decades, the conventional wisdom has been to banish aligoté from consideration as a distinctive, or at least interesting, wine. Minor, inconsequential, wan, harshly acidic are among the ways it is usually described — fit only as the base wine for a kir, an aperitif made by blending it with crème de cassis.

Is this really so? A few years ago I ordered a bottle of aligoté at a sushi bar and discovered, to my surprise, that it went beautifully with the meal. I experimented further and became somewhat obsessed with the wine.

It turns out that aligoté is just like any other sort of wine. You can find good examples, great examples, bad examples, even horrendous examples. This is true of every genre of wine, from the most exalted, historic category, like Bordeaux, to highly popular ones like New Zealand sauvignon blanc and rosé, to those on the polarizing vanguard, like natural wines.

If your experience is limited to a bad example, that may skew your entire outlook. Good examples may open your mind.

As usual, I suggested three bottles to drink over the course of the month, and naturally I intended them to be good examples of aligoté. They were: Paul Pernot et ses Fils Bourgogne Aligoté 2016; Michel Lafarge Bourgogne Aligoté Raisins Dorés 2015; and A. & P. de Villaine Bouzeron 2014.

Several readers chose to respond to the subject of aligoté apparently without drinking any of these wines.

“Only good for kirs,” wrote ericmarseille from La Cadière-d’Azur, France, who compounded the insult by adding that he prefers kir royale, which is made with sparkling wine rather than aligoté.

“Aligoté is far cheaper and not a usual choice in France,” wrote Agnostique from Europe, responding to the price of my three bottles, which ranged from $22 to $32. “There are so many better white wines to be had from multiple regions and cépages” (a French word for grapes).

Those statements have an element of truth to them. Visit any supermarket in France and you will find cheap aligoté, just as you will find relatively inexpensive grand cru Burgundy. These are wines that are badly made from grapes grown with more regard for quantity than quality. These are the conventional wines that gave us the conventional wisdom.

Are many other white grapes better than aligoté? That’s a loaded question. It’s a lingering 19th-century habit to think of grapes and wines in hierarchical terms, to separate the so-called “noble” grapes from those that, by contrast, must be commoners.

It’s far more productive to think both in terms of potential and of occasion. The potential of grapes like chardonnay, chenin blanc and riesling has been deeply explored, and we can conclude that these are superb grapes that can make some of the most sublime wines in the world, as well as great everyday bottles. And still so much more remains to be learned about them.

What about grapes like aligoté? Do we know how good it can be if they were planted in the best sites rather than in what remained after the best sites are used for chardonnay? If they were farmed and vinified with the same care given to chardonnay, might they cost a little more than those cheap bottles in the supermarket racks?

It turns out that some exploration is underway. Sylvain Pataille in Marsannay has been making single-vineyard aligotés, from excellent sites, that are glorious. Domaine Ponsot for years has tended aligoté vines in a plot above the grand cru Clos de la Roche Vineyard in Morey-St.-Denis. The wine, Clos des Monts Luisants, sells for more than $125 a bottle, which must gall Agnostique.

But what if most aligoté simply made pleasing everyday whites. Is that a bad thing? Sometimes, that is exactly the wine you want, and on those occasions none are better.

“These are wines of character and quality, and it is quite a shame not to experience the best of them,” wrote Chambolle of Bainbridge Island, Wash. Well said.

Not surprisingly, the best growers and producers in Burgundy seem to make the best aligotés. They respect its history in Burgundy, and even if they may have varying opinions of its potential, they make exceptional wines that reflect the esteem they have for it.

The three wines I selected were all different vintages, which added an extra variable. The ’16 Pernot was penetrating and incisive, with a deep, rich aroma and flavors of herbs and tart citrus. The ’15 Lafarge was rounder and saline, though without the energy of the Pernot, while the ’14 De Villaine Bouzeron was rich, full and lip-smacking, with both energy and salinity.

All three of the wines had a depth of texture that seemed to unfold in the mouth, always a characteristic of good aligoté.

Two of the bottles carried the appellation Bourgogne Aligoté, a reminder that the Burgundians themselves have deemed aligoté unworthy of carrying a more specific designation of place. The two exceptions to that are the expensive Ponsot, which is called a Morey-St.-Denis premier cru, and aligotés from Bouzeron, a village in the Côte Chalonnaise.

“It’s the only place where the vignerons didn’t hear the siren call of chardonnay,” Pierre de Benoist, who runs the De Villaine estate, told me when I visited him last year.

Of those readers who actually tried the aligotés, the response was largely positive. Vincent in Paris drank a 2015 Joseph Voillot with cheese and radishes. He called it “larger than what you would expect from an aligoté,” and “a wine of pure pleasure.”

Diane Denesowicz in Austin, Tex., said a 2014 Château de la Maltroye was perfect for drinking after coming in from the 98-degree Texas heat, while George Erdle in Charlotte, N.C., said his dining group was “surprisingly impressed” with the three wines.

One reader, Jamie Burgess of Dijon, France, took me to task for my own dismissal of kir, saying, “A little kir never hurts,” and emphasized that in a proper kir an eighth part of cassis most be poured into the glass first, after which the wine is added.

And Martina Zuccarello of New York found an aligoté made by Patrick Piuze, a fine Chablis producer, from grapes grown in Chablis.

“I found a richer, rounder wine that, yes, had the bright acidity but even more whose minerality and energy was the loudest,” she wrote. I will have to seek that out.

Amid the social media chatter regarding aligoté, I discovered a new criticism of it: This unfashionable grape is now being disparaged as trendy. As a result, the criticism goes, it is no longer inexpensive, which apparently was its sole virtue.

So has aligoté now joined Sicily, the Jura, grüner veltliner and other regions and wines that can be dismissed for becoming more popular?

One more reason to keep an open mind and decide for yourself.

Follow NYT Food on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Get regular updates from NYT Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice.