Bergères-lès-Vertus

Bergères-lès-Vertus closes the Côte des Blancs at its southern end, with vineyards that wrap around Mont Aimé, a forested medieval-fortification hill on the commune line that marks the geological end of the chalk strip. The east-southeast main slope curls south at the foot of the cordon, on terrain that is almost entirely Chardonnay. The village has historically supplied Chardonnay to several major houses, and there is no marquee resident estate; a cooperative on the slope of Mont Aimé groups more than a hundred small growers. Bergères is geographically the southernmost stop on the most famous Chardonnay road in France, and the quiet hill that bookends it has been used as both a vineyard reference point and a historical fortress site since the Middle Ages.