(Forbes) - OK, it’s true a few other regions make great wine too, but the greatest Burgundy, properly aged is sublime. It thrills the senses and makes all seem right with the world.

But it is fiendishly complex to navigate, as mind-boggling as Harry Potter’s three dimensional chess.

There are plenty of people to blame for this confusion. The French revolution divided up the big estates of the aristos and sold them off. Then there are the French inheritance laws which require landholdings to be divided and divided again amongst heirs.

So there are a lot of owners in Burgundy. A single vineyard of a few hectares can have a dozen different owners. Some make and bottle their own wine. Some sell their grapes to a négociant, and some simply rent their four rows of vines to a winemaker and live the high-life as a rentier in the Eighth. Well, they need  a little more than three rows for that, but you get the idea.

Then there’s History. Wine has been made in Burgundy since at least Roman times, and traditions and practices evolve over 2,000 years, so as illogical as they might seem today,  they become set in stone.

There are 740 different names permissible on a Burgundy label, and with thousands of growers, thousands of winemakers and hundreds of négociants, it’s not surprising things get a little baffling. It’s the most fragmented of wine regions.

Just take the name “Montrachet”, the famed white wine vineyard .

It straddles the boundary between two villages that were known, till 1879, as Puligney and Chassagne-le-Haut. But in order to enhance the image of their simple village wines, each appended the prestigious name Montrachet to their own. Hence today we have Puligney-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet.

Who says the French don’t understand Capitalism?

A little explanation might be helpful here. A very little explanation, I promise.

There are four official levels of quality in Burgundy.

Grant Cru wines come from the very best single vineyards, and only the vineyard name appears on the label.

Premiere Cru wines also come from single vineyards, but those not so highly rated.

Then there are village wines – that is wines that contain grapes from vineyards within the meticulously demarcated confines of that particular village, but don’t qualify for the more exalted appellations.

Finally there are 23 regional appellations.

This is the official system. It boasts all the anomalies, mysteries and contradictions of an esoteric religion, and new Burgundy fans tend to obsess on it. It is, after all, the rule book of quality.

And that’s true as far as the sacred Burgundian creed of terroir is concerned.

But there’s a joker in this mix — the winemaker.

You can drink three wines from the same appellation and the same vintage made by three different winemakers and one will be brilliant, one will be so-so but not worth the fuss or the exorbitant cost, and one an expensive disappointment.

And I have had far too many of the latter.

The secrets of good Burgundy are patience, the wine maker and the vintage. Forget the appellation and concentrate on drinking well aged wines from good vintages and the best winemakers.

Such are the travails of a Burgundy fan. So why do we persist?

Because the rewards, when we occasionally encounter them, are stupendous.

I experienced one such revelation at a dinner party at the house of a friend in England.

Our host was a Burgundy partisans, and to accompany the roast goose he produced from his cellar three bottles of closely related Grand Crus from the excellent 1990 vintage.

True to Burgundian form, two of these, while being eminently drinkable, did not touch the greatness of which Burgundy is capable. But the third, the Rouchottes Chambertin, Grand Cru, Clos des Rouchottes 1990, Domaine Armand Rousseau, did.

This was wine Heaven, utterly astounding. It glowed with dark cherries, ripe plums, raspberries and strawberries contrasted with the subtle pungency of spring morels, that impression of damp leaves the French call sous-bois.