Burgundy Circle is a private wine circle for women — an intimate, Atlanta-based community with its heart in Burgundy. A season-long course in the region's wines, led by sommeliers and seasoned wine professionals, culminating each spring in an immersive week in Beaune.
Burgundy Circle is a small, private circle of women, Atlanta-based to start, who share a love of wine. In our founding year we gather on Wednesday evenings, every six weeks, at wine shops around the city, led by sommeliers and seasoned wine professionals, building toward the highlight of the year: an immersive spring week in Beaune, at the heart of the Côte d'Or.
Each spring the circle travels together to Beaune for an immersive week among the domaines, cellars, and tables of Burgundy.
Through our founding year we meet every six weeks for a course in Burgundy — six evenings that build one on the next, each led by a sommelier or seasoned wine professional.
Membership is intentionally limited and by application, so every gathering feels like a table among friends.
We keep the circle deliberately intimate. Rather than a large membership, Burgundy Circle begins as a founding cohort of women who will shape its first chapter together. Membership is by application and referral.
Membership opens by application and a short conversation. We would be glad to tell you more.
Burgundy Circle was founded in 2026 as a private wine circle for women — an Atlanta-based community with its heart in Beaune. It began with a simple belief: that wine is best understood in good company, and that the pleasure of learning it together is worth building something around.
What we offer is not a class or a club in the ordinary sense, but a circle — small by design, personal by intention. Through the year we taste, we travel, and once each spring we gather in Burgundy itself, where the wines we love are made.
We celebrate the growers and the ground. Every wine we share tells the story of a specific slope, season, and hand.
We would rather host a small circle beautifully than a crowd anonymously. Every gathering is meant to be shared, not merely attended.
Knowledge, access, and great bottles are meant to be passed around the table, never hoarded.
Our gatherings are hosted at wine shops around the city and led by sommeliers and seasoned wine professionals — people who spend their lives with these wines and open that expertise to the circle. In spring we carry what we've learned to Beaune.
Our founding year is built as a course — six evenings that build one upon the next, moving from first principles to the great crus and culminating in a week in Beaune. Each is hosted at a wine shop around the city and led by a sommelier or seasoned wine professional, on Wednesday evenings from 6:30 to 8:30, with cheese and charcuterie throughout.
An immersive week in Burgundy — domaine visits, private tastings, cellar dinners, and the wines of the Côte d'Or, shared together at the source.
The Founding-Year Curriculum · Wednesdays, 6:30–8:30 PM
How to taste with intent and how Burgundy is built — then Chardonnay at its source, from steely Chablis to the Côte de Beaune. The vocabulary and method the rest of the course rests on.
Pinot Noir and the Côte d'Or — the Côte de Nuits and the Côte de Beaune side by side, and what makes these the world's benchmark reds.
The heart of the course — Bourgogne, Village, Premier Cru, Grand Cru, tasted up the ladder — and why a single stone wall can change everything.
A guided drive through the great communes — Gevrey, Vosne, Meursault, Puligny — signature villages compared glass to glass.
Burgundy's wider map and its finest values — Chablis, the Côte Chalonnaise, the Mâconnais, and the Gamay of cru Beaujolais.
Domaine versus négociant, reading a label, how vintages differ — and a synthesis tasting that readies the circle for Beaune.
Membership is by application and limited to a small founding cohort of women. Tell us a little about yourself and we will be in touch personally.
1 Place au Beurre
21200 Beaune, France
404-786-0597
hello@burgundycircle.com
A private circle for women, by application and referral. New inquiries welcomed year-round.
This room is for members of the Burgundy Circle. Enter the circle's passcode to see upcoming gatherings, RSVP, and your member resources. Don't have it? Write to hello@burgundycircle.com.
This is your room — a private space for members of Burgundy Circle. Everything here is for you: our calendar, prep for each evening, a growing shelf of references, and the things worth knowing before Beaune.
Our one guiding idea: you don't need to arrive as the expert. Curiosity earns your seat. No question here is too basic, and no one is keeping score. We learn Burgundy the way it's best understood — together, around a table, by asking the next question.
Six evenings across the founding year, Wednesdays 6:30–8:30, each hosted at a wine shop around the city and led by a sommelier or seasoned professional, with cheese and charcuterie throughout. Each evening builds on the last — from first principles to the great crus — and leads to an immersive Spring Week in Beaune.
Come with one question you've always wanted to ask — that's really all. The rest is conversation.
We chose "Burgundy Circle" because a circle is how we want to learn — together, through questions and conversation, with no head of the table and no need to arrive as the expert. Curiosity earns your seat.
After choosing it, we found a lovely coincidence: a real Burgundy Circle existed in early-eighteenth-century France — a small group of educators, advisers, and reformers gathered around the Duke of Burgundy to exchange ideas about a different future. Our purpose is entirely our own, but we love the resonance of a small circle built around ideas and conversation.
Burgundy runs as a thin ribbon from Chablis in the north down toward Lyon, with its heart on the Côte d'Or — the "golden slope" just south of Dijon, where the Côte de Nuits (great reds) gives way to the Côte de Beaune (great whites and fine reds).
A stylised guide to how the regions and villages line up, north to south — not drawn to scale.
Burgundy is classified by place, not by brand — the more precisely a wine names its origin, the higher the tier. (Figures are approximate, region-wide.)
A tip you can taste: Pommard vs Volnay (power vs grace in red) and Meursault vs Puligny (richness vs precision in white) — neighbours that make "terroir" tangible.
Most labels tell you four things. Once you can find them, you can place almost any bottle:
Champagne is a place, not a synonym for sparkling wine. Only sparkling from the Champagne region of France — made by the traditional method, with its second fermentation in the bottle — may be called Champagne. Everything else is sparkling wine by another (often lovely) name.
Burgundy is a patchwork of tiny appellations, so vintage character shifts year to year and even village to village — treat the calls below as general guidance, and remember that skilled growers make lovely wine in "lesser" years. One reassurance for white buyers: the premature-oxidation ("premox") problem that shortened many late-1990s and 2000s whites is now largely understood and addressed, so recent whites cellar far more dependably — though provenance still matters.
| Vintage | Character | Reds | Whites |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 ★ | Classic, pure, finely balanced | Cellar / classic | Drink now |
| 2011 | Softer, forward, earlier-drinking | Drink now | Drink now |
| 2012 | Tiny crop, concentrated reds | Approachable | Drink now |
| 2013 | Cool; bright acidity, structured | Approachable | Drink now |
| 2014 ★ | Fresh, precise; benchmark whites | Approachable | Drink now / hold |
| 2015 ★ | Ripe, deep; great reds | Cellar / classic | Drink now |
| 2016 | Frost-reduced, elegant, high quality | Hold | Approachable |
| 2017 ★ | Generous, charming; lovely whites | Approachable | Drink now / hold |
| 2018 | Warm, ripe, opulent | Approachable | Drink now |
| 2019 ★ | Concentrated yet fresh; excellent both | Hold | Hold |
| 2020 ★ | Energetic; superb whites | Cellar / classic | Hold |
| 2021 | Frost-hit, cool, classic; elegant | Approachable | Approachable |
| 2022 ★ | Sunny but balanced; very good both | Hold | Hold / approachable |
| 2023 | Abundant, pure, fresh, drinkable | Approachable | Approachable |
★ marks the most celebrated recent years: 2015 and 2019/2020 for reds; 2014, 2017, 2020 and 2022 for whites; 2010 as an all-round classic. As of 2026, 2023 is the most recent vintage broadly in bottle. Calls are approximate — reasonable critics differ by a band, especially for reds around 2010 and 2015.
You don't need a grand cellar to enjoy Burgundy properly — a thoughtful two dozen bottles is a joy, and will teach you more than any book. A few principles:
The names can feel like a wall when you start. Here are producers worth knowing — a handful of legends you'll mostly admire from afar, and a longer list of excellent growers you can realistically find and enjoy.
Grand Cru is the summit of the Burgundy ladder — roughly 1–2% of all the wine, from a small number of legendary vineyards so distinguished that each is its own appellation. There are 33 in all: 24 in the Côte de Nuits (almost all red), 8 in the Côte de Beaune (mostly white), and 1 in Chablis.
Pinot Noir (red) Chardonnay (white) both
A note on the number: Chablis Grand Cru counts as one appellation (it holds seven climats). The total reaches 33 only if "Charlemagne" is counted as its own AOC alongside Corton-Charlemagne — in practice it's no longer used, so some references say 32. Either way, these are the wines.
Whites show best lightly chilled, around 10–13°C — cool enough to refresh, not so cold that it mutes a fine wine (over-chilling hides Meursault's richness). Reds are lovelier a touch cool, around 14–16°C, below a warm room; twenty minutes in the fridge before pouring a red does wonders.
A wide, generous bowl — the classic "Burgundy" shape — gathers Pinot Noir's perfume and flatters the whites just as well. One good universal glass is all you need; the size of the bowl matters far more than the price.
A young red enjoys a short decant or a good swirl to open up. Older wines are fragile: open them gently, and it's often best to pour straight into the glass and let them unfold rather than risk a vigorous decant. With age, less is more.
A Burgundian rule of thumb: what grows together goes together. A few natural matches —
To eat the way Burgundy does: gougères (warm cheese puffs), œufs en meurette (poached eggs in red-wine sauce), jambon persillé (parsleyed ham), escargots de Bourgogne, coq au vin and bœuf bourguignon, the great washed-rind Époisses, and, of course, moutarde de Dijon.
A record of every wine the circle opens — what we tasted, with a few notes to remember it by. It grows with each gathering, so the year reads back as one long conversation in the glass.
The founding year culminates in an immersive week in Burgundy — domaine visits, private tastings, cellar dinners, and the wines of the Côte d'Or at the source. Dates and details will appear here as they firm up; to hold a place, write to hello@burgundycircle.com.
A starting list for Beaune — please confirm days and reservations before you go, and add your own discoveries. (Links open each place's own website, or a map where we don't yet have one.)
One more Michelin-starred table worth a look: Le Carmin — confirm opening days before booking.
A cellar visit is a privilege, not a shop stop — and it's exactly the kind of unhurried, question-led encounter the circle is built around. A little grace goes a long way:
Many top domaines receive only the trade or by personal introduction — part of what the circle's relationships are for.
Burgundy rewards slowness. This is our handbook for living beautifully here between tastings — spas and thermal waters, yoga in the vines, recovery after long walks, and quiet places to think. We've grouped it six ways: Restore, Move, Recover, Nourish, Reflect, and Connect. Every place here is one we've confirmed; each link opens the venue's own page.
Luxury spas, thermal waters, and hammams for a true half-day of recovery.
Yoga and gentle movement — several with a vineyard or retreat feel — and the simplest pleasures of all: walking and cycling the vines.
For members here a little longer — cryotherapy and skilled hands after long walks and rides.
Eat and restore the Burgundian way.
Quiet corners to read, think, and simply be.
The loveliest days here are shared. A template for a restorative day together:
Morning — gentle yoga in the vines at Yoga Maga. Midday — a long market lunch or a picnic among the vineyards. Afternoon — a spa half-day at Le Cep, or a massage. Evening — a glass of Burgundy as the light turns gold on the limestone, and dinner only when you're hungry. There is no rush in Beaune.
The founding-year calendar. RSVP below — one per gathering — and you'll see who else is coming, right here.
Wed · 6:30–8:30 PM · Cellar 13
Wed · 6:30–8:30 PM
Wed · 6:30–8:30 PM
Wed · 6:30–8:30 PM
Wed · 6:30–8:30 PM
Wed · 6:30–8:30 PM
An immersive week in Burgundy — domaine visits, private tastings, and cellar dinners.
Let us know which evenings you'll join — one RSVP per gathering. Your first name appears in the list above soon after.