(Vivino) - Ah, Burgundy. For even the savviest collectors, it's a region that is both expensive and elusive. We'll explore what it is about Burgundy that makes it so difficult to understand.

For starters, Burgundian winemakers have been perfecting their vineyards for centuries. In this respect, Burgundy as a region is quite similar to Bordeaux. Unlike Bordeaux, however, Burgundy is geographically spread across a narrow strip of land that runs some 60 miles north-south, with the best Grand Cru sites nestled along gently rolling slopes. This band is so thin, that at the very heart of Burgundy, in the Côte d'Or, it's less than 2 kilometers or 1.2 miles across. To give a sense of scale, Burgundy has roughly 25,000 hectares under vine while Bordeaux boasts over 120,000 hectares.

The Côte d'Or is home to Burgundy's most prestigious wines and is further divided into two major sub-regions: the Côte de Nuits to the north and the Côte de Beaune to the south, and it's here that ancient varieties, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay thrive. There are other sub-regions in Burgundy too, like Chablis, the Maconnais, Côte Chalonnaise, and Beaujolais.

Here's where things start to get tricky—really tricky. Over the centuries, Burgundian vineyards have been subdivided by a patchwork quilt of fences, walls, and property lines. This is due to subtle changes in terroir, which is the set of all environmental qualities affecting the vines. Earlier generations of vignerons observed that one plot of Pinot Noir might be subtly different from a neighboring plot. Astonishingly, there are over 400 documented soil types and exactly 100 AOCs. In fact, Burgundy has a higher number of appellations d'Origine Contrôlée (AOCs) than any other French winegrowing region.

Further complicating the picture, in 1804 stringent Napoleonic inheritance laws came into play, leading to ever more fragmented ownership. A single vineyard might be split between dozens of owners, each with a claim of perhaps a row or two of grapevines! That's why it's possible to find multiple wineries offering a Clos de Vugoets, whereas in Bordeaux, there is only one Chateau Lafite-Rothschild.

To paint it with a broad brush, in Burgundy, label classifications are geographically-focused while in a region like Bordeaux, classifications are based upon individual chateaux. And the chateaux are capable of growth—either in snapping up adjoining vineyards or by simply expanding outward. And while both regions have seen soaring prices in recent years, Burgundy will always be home to some of the world's rarest and most expensive wines due to scarcity alone.