Place du Pasquier de la Fontaine, Côte-d'Or
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For most of its history, Burgundy dressed for work. Its winemakers wore blue overalls and muddy boots, made their wine in cellars behind ordinary village houses and saw no reason to put a sign on the door. Glamour lived elsewhere. Bordeaux had the turrets, the gravel drives and the châteaux built to dazzle visitors. Burgundy had farmers, and the farmers were perfectly happy with that.
Then the world changed its mind. Somewhere along the way, the most coveted bottles on earth started coming from these modest villages, and names like Romanée-Conti, Leroy and Coche-Dury began to be traded like old masters. Wine lovers now cross oceans to stand in front of a plain farmhouse door. Behind it, quite often, someone in overalls is still hosing down a press.
The surest sign of the new order arrived in Puligny-Montrachet, a village of a few hundred souls and almost as many famous vineyards. COMO, a hotel group better known for retreats in Bhutan, Bali and the Maldives, took over the old village inn on the square. Ten years ago it would have seemed an eccentric idea. Today it looks almost inevitable.
COMO has not tried to turn Puligny into Bali. It has done the opposite and moved into the village. The three white stone houses of the old inn still face the square, dressed by Paola Navone in honest local clothes, and the best touch waits in the dining room, where one entire wall is woven from willow like the inside of a giant harvest basket. Somebody here did their homework.
Dinner, cooked by Romain Versino with produce from close by, is very good. The cellar steals the show anyway. Thirteen hundred wines line it, and the head sommelier's tastings and cellar visits can open doors that stay firmly shut to most passing visitors. For anyone who has spent years reading labels and dreaming of the names on them, this is where the labels finally get faces.
Puligny turns in early, and evenings happen at the hotel. Beaune is twelve kilometres up the road for anyone in need of bright lights, or at least a few more of them. Purists may find the polish of a global brand a shade too smooth for a village of tractors. Everyone else will simply be glad of it. It makes a base for wine lovers who want mud on their boots by day and very good linen by night.
A few minutes' walk from the square lies Le Montrachet itself, perhaps the most celebrated white-wine vineyard on earth. Visitors arrive expecting a cathedral. They find a low stone wall, a modest gateway and vines that look exactly like everyone else's. That is Burgundy all over. Fame has come knocking, the money has followed, and the region still knows how to act normal. It has simply let a few very comfortable beds into the village.
In the cellar
Since head sommelier André Berthier arrived in 2004, the list has grown from 400 to 1,250 references, about 95 per cent of them from Burgundy.
The hotel faces the Place du Pasquier de la Fontaine, the square at the heart of Puligny, and is spread over three buildings: the Main Building, La Résidence and Villa Christine. Selected Clos rooms in the Main Building look onto the square itself. The Le Montrachet vineyard begins a few steps beyond the village houses.
The restaurant, Le Montrachet, sits under high beamed ceilings between limestone walls, and one wall is woven from willow from floor to ceiling. Large white globe lamps hang over the tables, and tall French windows open to the terrace. Chef Romain Versino has run the kitchen since 2018, with cheese from Beaune and eggs from Rully.
Head sommelier André Berthier joined in 2004 and has taken the list from 400 to 1,250 references, about 95 per cent of them Burgundian, from small growers to the best-known domaines. The hotel's own Montrachet tasting, held weekly, pours a flight of familiar Burgundy names with gougères; private tastings further up the Côte are booked separately.
Clos rooms, 24 to 28 m² for two, are in the Main Building, and some of them overlook the square. Toile wallpaper and curtains in blue, green and grey, a high padded headboard and a desk set the tone. Bathrooms have a separate shower. For a bathtub, a balcony or a sofa bed, look at the Deluxe Manoir and above.
At a glance
Where
10 place du Pasquier de la Fontaine, 21190 Puligny-Montrachet, Côte-d'Or; facing the village square in the Côte de Beaune, a few steps from the Le Montrachet vineyard; Beaune about 20 minutes by car, Dijon and Mâcon under an hour, Lyon about an hour and a half, Paris about four hours; Chagny and Beaune stations under 15 km; TGV Paris Gare de Lyon to Le Creusot about 1 h 23, then about 40 minutes by taxi
Why this one
A village inn, steps from Le Montrachet.
1,250 references, nearly all local.
The dining room's woven centrepiece.
The Edit Notes
The hotel is spread over the Main Building, La Résidence and Villa Christine, and the categories are not shared evenly. The Clos rooms are in the Main Building, some of them looking onto the square; the Montrachet Suite and the two-bedroom COMO Suite are in Villa Christine. Some rooms in the Main Building and Villa Christine are reached only by stairs, while the two wheelchair-accessible doubles are in the Main Building and La Résidence. Ask which building before confirming.
The entry category, the Petit Clos of 20 to 22 m², is sold for a single guest, even though it has a 160 cm bed. Couples start with the Clos, from 24 m². A family of four needs a Deluxe Manoir or a Manoir Suite, where selected rooms take two children on a sofa bed, or the COMO Suite in Villa Christine, which has two bedrooms and a dining area for four. Babysitting can be arranged at extra cost; pets are not accepted.
The hotel's Montrachet wine tasting, a flight of well-known Burgundies with gougères, is held on Fridays, and the cooking class with Romain Versino and Adrien Lacombe on Thursdays. A stay that takes in both needs those days. The rest of the wine calendar runs outwards: half or full-day tours in the Côte de Beaune and the Côte de Nuits, about 40 minutes north, and a private tasting in Vosne-Romanée, all booked through the hotel in advance.
Puligny has no fast-train station. The quickest route from Paris is the TGV from Gare de Lyon to Le Creusot, about an hour and a half, then roughly 40 minutes by taxi; the regional stations at Chagny and Beaune are both under 15 km away. Without a car, the hotel runs a return shuttle to Beaune on Wednesdays and Saturdays, booked at least 24 hours ahead. Drivers get parking at the Main Building and Villa Christine, with two EV charging points.
The price question
The money buys a bed on the square of one of Burgundy's best-known white-wine villages, a serious cellar and a kitchen that sources close to home, under an international group's standards of service. It does not buy a resort: there is no spa, the pool is a summer pleasure, rooms range from 20 to 74 m², and the entry room is for one. The real comparison is a village inn with a very good cellar, not a country estate.
Book it for two or three nights of wine, with a Friday for the hotel's tasting and the room's building chosen in advance. Travellers who want a spa, an indoor pool or a large estate in winter will find more under one roof elsewhere in the Côte.
Les Sources de Vougeot
Forty-nine rooms and suites in the moated Château de Gilly at Gilly-lès-Cîteaux, a former residence of the abbots of Cîteaux close to the Clos de Vougeot, with two restaurants and a Caudalie spa in the fourteenth-century cellar.
Hostellerie de Levernois
Thirty-nine rooms, suites and villas in a white house on the Bouzaize near Beaune, in a park of century-old trees, with a gourmet restaurant, a bistro in a 1750 kitchen, a Sisley spa and indoor and outdoor pools.
The Extra Edit
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