The Côte Chalonnaise: from granite to limestone and marls The Côte Chalonnaise forms part of the north-east face of France’s granite Massif Central. The Bressan trough was formed in the upheavals of the Tertiary era. Multiple faulting broke up the southern section of the Burgundian Côte. In the north of the district are east-facing Jurassic limestone formations. Beyond the fault line of Bissey, Jurassic limestone dominates (Rully, Mercurey and Givry), but in other villages Liassic and even older Triassic strata appear on the surface.To the south of the granite block of Bissey, the slopes face either east, or west towards the first hills of the Mâconnais. Here in a few places quartz-rich Triassic sandstones meet the alluvial soils of the Saône river-plain. The soils appear marlier, topped by the Bajocian limestone ridge. The base of the hills is covered with sand and areas of clay with flint. Some of the soils are Liassic/Triassic assemblages with a high proportion of clays. Others are Mid and Upper-Jurassic assemblages where beds of hard limestones alternate with softer marls, and these yield lime-rich brown soils and rendzinas, deep in places and mixed with clay. The best Chardonnay-derived white wines are produced from clay-limestone soils with easterly, south-easterly or southerly exposures, as at Rully and Montagny. The best reds (Rully, Mercurey, Givry) from the Pinot Noir are found on less clayey calcium-rich soils. The Gamay, a white-juiced black grape, prefers granite soils. On the lower slopes, pebbly alluvium overlies the limestone, yielding leached-out brown soils which favour both the Gamay and the Aligoté. In the Mâconnais The hills of the Mâconnais form a linked series along an axis from north-north-east to south-south-west, separated by parallel faults. Bordered on one side by the River Saône and on the other by the Grosne, they present a series of sharply-defined wooded summits looking down on sheltered depressions where the vine flourishes. Variations in landform lead to a diversity of soils. Rendzinas and brown limestone soils suit the Chardonnay. Flinty, clayey or sandy soils, often mixed with sandstone pebbles, are more suited to the earlier-maturing white grapes and to the white-juiced black Gamay, which grows as well here as it does in the geologically similar Beaujolais vineyards.With its foundation of limestone identical to the Côte, the rock of Solutré, home of Pouilly-Fuissé, is a Bajocian escarpment that owes the sharpness of its profile to the hardness of the fossilised corals of which it is composed, resistant to erosion. The vines grow around the base of this rock on reddish Liassic marls washed down from above and covered with limestone scree. |  |
|
||
    |
|
|
