Some abbreviations and definitions are included at the end of the article to save overweight parentheses and there’s more detailed information on most of these terms in your online Oxford Companion to Wine.
The story so far: the basis of wine classification
There are two fundamental types of classification in Europe: classification of the vineyard site and classification of the wine. The latter may be based on an estate and its wine(s), thus more like a brand, or on some physical aspect of the wine such as harvest ripeness or length of ageing. Burgundy’s premiers crus and grands crus are...