Need Advice From Those Who Are Knowledgeable About Burgundy Wines...

Not sure where you are located, but I am in a similar boat. I go into Martins and tell them what you like and your price point, and they will steer you.

Fun Bunch had some good input already

But if you're traditionally minded when it comes to wine, Wine Berserkers is probably the best place on the internet for that and has a wealth of content you can peruse on what'd decent in France at a given price point, what American winemakers are still restrained, etc.

Like Fun Bunch said, go Oregon. Plenty of excellent earthy PNs for at or under your price point.

The bottle you enjoyed, a generic Bourgogne Rouge, is in the lowest rung of Burgundy’s four-tier ranking system (and there are really rungs within these rungs as well). That doesn’t mean it’s bad; it just means it’s not going to be as mind-blowing, terroir specific, or age worthy as one of the vineyard-specific, village-specific, or cru wines (which, as Fun Bunch mentioned, can be prohibitively expensive). However, these wines are enough to let you know you like Burgundy, which you appear to have found out at this point. In other words, they are a great baseline, but there’s a lot more magic to be discovered as you scale up from there.

You won’t find many steals in terms of prices, but good geographically-defined Bourgogne Rouges or village wines or premier crus from less prestigious appellations or from outside of the Côte d’Or (i.e. Mâcon and the Côte Chalonnaise) are worth the slight premium to new world Pinot Noirs. To each their own, but to me, wine from Oregon just isn’t as interesting as wine with generations of history from the most complex wine region on the planet. Burgundies are just more fun, but it’s up to you as to whether that’s worth a premium or not.

Your local specialty wine store is going to sell these at a premium, so maybe go with a high volume retailer until you know what you like enough to start justifying paying for rarer options from the specialty stores.

Just filtering for wines from Burgundy selling for less than $40 on Total Wine’s website, I see:

Domaine Laurent Dufouleur Mercurey Les Loueres, 2022 (village-level from the Côte Chalonnaise)

Edouard Delaunay Bourgogne Hautes Cotes De Nuits Charmont Rouge, 2022 (this is not quite a village wine but instead like a Bourgogne Rouge+ and allowed to use the Hautes Cotes De Nuits label).

Ropiteau Hautes Cotes De Beaune, 2021 (also something like a Bourgogne Rouge+, but from the Cote de Beaune instead of the Cote de Nuits).

Domaine Boyer Bourgogne Pinot Noir Les Chazots (still a Bourgogne Rouge, but using grapes confined to the Les Chazots vineyard).

Also, vintage and producer matter a lot, but I’d focus on that later and start drilling down more into the “where” of the Burgundies you are drinking before the “who” or “when.”

I'll mention that once you taste an aged Burgundy it's a different ballgame. The problem with aged wine is that it becomes $$$$$ very quickly. Still, it is nice to experience what age does to wine meant to be aged to have a point of reference.

This goes for any of the great wines meant for aging. Chardonnay, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Brunello, Super Tuscans, Barolo, Barbaresco, etc.

I don't mean to hijack your thread, but whenever I think of Burgundy I think of the great New Orleans restaurant, LeRuth's. The first time I tasted a burgundy was at LeRuth's in 1978. or 1979. Puligny-Montrachet and Aloxe-Corton were his house wines! I was 23 or 24 at the time and it was a revelation

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I'll mention that once you taste an aged Burgundy it's a different ballgame. The problem with aged wine is that it becomes $$$$$ very quickly. Still, it is nice to experience what age does to wine meant to be aged to have a point of reference. This goes for any of the great wines meant for aging. Chardonnay, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Brunello, Super Tuscans, Barolo, Barbaresco, etc.

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Fully agree with you here. Ability to age is almost as much a “where” consideration as a “when” consideration (i.e. was it a good year or not for making the wine in question), particularly in Burgundy with its continental climate. There is significant overlap. The quality of the producer (“who”) also plays a role, as some are simply more skilled in creating wines built to last.

It all works together, but I feel like, particularly in Burgundy, a starter must first get acquainted with the terroir (horizontal considerations) before drilling into vintage and producer (vertical considerations). Ultimately, they should all be tied together.