Premier Cru

Premier Cru is a classification you will mainly come across in Bourgogne in France, where it denotes a level between ordinary village wine and the top category, Grand Cru. In practice it is all about the soil: Premier Cru wines come from specific, carefully delimited plots (called climats in French) that over time have proven to give wine with more class than the surrounding areas. So you can think of it as a quality tier tied to a very concrete patch of ground, not to a producer or a brand.

It matters for what you taste. Premier Cru wines usually have more concentration, more structure and a finer unfolding than village wines from the same appellation, and many of them can be aged for a number of years, so they develop depth over time. In Gevrey-Chambertin in Côte de Nuits, for example, they are made from Pinot Noir from more than twenty-five named plots, and some of the best are often considered to be on a par with Grand Cru.

You recognise the classification on the label, which typically shows the name of the appellation followed by "Premier Cru", often with the name of the plot afterwards, as in Gevrey-Chambertin Premier Cru Clos Saint-Jacques. A widespread misunderstanding is that Premier Cru is always the tier above Grand Cru. In Bourgogne it is the opposite: Grand Cru sits at the top, and Premier Cru just below.