It is wonderful with food. It’s great with shellfish and other seafood, and Mr. Pataille said it goes particularly well with chicken in cream sauces. I love it with pasta sauces, like pesto or white clam sauce, that would ordinarily point to an Italian white.

“It’s a mouthwatering wine,” said Frédéric Lafarge, whose family, best known for its superb Volnays, has made aligoté for generations. He called aligoté “a local wine, very particular to Burgundy.”

The grape has been grown in Burgundy for centuries. Back in the 19th century, before the phylloxera aphid destroyed European grapevines, aligoté was often intermingled with chardonnay in the best vineyards. When growers replanted, they mostly replaced aligoté with chardonnay, though aligoté was still found in the grand cru Corton-Charlemagne vineyard up until the 1970s.

The cultural connotation of aligoté may have particular meaning today in a region where newfound fame and wealth may in the long run overwhelm a culture built on the image of the community of vignerons, the small farmers who tend the vines, make the wines and know the land inside and out.

Jean-Marc Roulot, best known for his Meursaults, has about two acres of aligoté planted on the plain, which he maintains even though he could probably make more money if he grew chardonnay there. But the aligoté vines were planted decades ago by his grandfather.

“There is no question of doing something else,” Mr. Roulot said. “They are in all the family stories.”