Bernard Bouvier - Master of Marsannay: My Insider Source for Great Value Cotes de Nuits Burgundy

  Bernard Bouvier outside his cellars

If you haven't heard of Marsannay, you should get to know it. It's an appellation in the northern Cote de Nuits which produces expressive Pinot Noirs for a sane price. That means you can do what we all want to do - uncork one on a regular basis.

Bernard Bouvier is one of Burgundy's prodigies; he is a genius of a young winemaker.

Here is what La Revue du Vin de France said.

"In rejecting the machine harvesting of his parents, banning chemical treatment, and slashing yields, Bernard Bouvier has quickly established himself as one of the most brilliant winemakers of his generation."

When I tasted Bouvier's Marsannay Longeroiesin a two starred Michelin restaurant in Pernand Vergelesses, I made an appointment immediately to go see him. The wine was rounded and an unctuous beauty. It emanated the kind of Pinot Noir expression that you find in much more expensive wines.

Allen Meadows in Burghound writes:

Marsannay red is almost always brilliantly colored with an earthy and often herbal nose of both red and black fruits often described as having a decided resemblance to fresh cherries, dried plums and sometime blackberries. The reds are supple and generally not particularly tannic though they will age surprisingly well. Good examples will keep for five to ten years and more importantly, are worth the trouble to do so."

I'm telling you. This is a wine to get engaged with.

Bernard Bouvier's Marsannay Longeroies is 100% Pinot Noir with very intense purple color. It is youthful and tight with some peppery notes alongside those signature cherries and plums. The wine is very structured or as the French would say, charpenté.

Read what Burghound (Allen Meadows) says of the 2006 vintage:
"At their very best, the Côte de Beaune '06s are classic Burgundies that mirror the finest wines from the Côte de Nuits. This is to say that they are exceptionally aromatic and elegant with the best transparency to the underlying terroir since the 2001s, all wrapped in admirably persistent finishes with fine detail and a more pronounced sense of minerality than most vintages possess. They really are gifted in terms of their transparency, indeed the finest examples are what I would call crystalline and because they are moderately concentrated, neither light nor dense and moderately ripe, neither surmature or under ripe, there is relatively little to get in the way of this clarity, save of course for clumsy or inept winemaking." - Allen Meadows, Burghound

The Bouviers have owned their land for four generations with each generation adding to the holdings. Bernard Bouvier has perhaps done more than anyone to put his wines in the Burgundy high echelon. He is tireless and ambitious and we are catching him at the brilliant moment of his ascent.

Bernard doesn't have a lot of interest in the spotlight and is more interested in finding ways to preserve tradition by integrating it with modern technology, but when you taste these wines, they will strike you as being so far ahead of their appellations that time will tell how long we can keep Bernard's head a normal size.

My advice to you is to try Bernard's Bourgogne Rouge in a mixed case with the Marsannay Longeroies. Bernard's Bourgogne Rouge is grown right on the border of Marsannay in the village of Chenoves on a very special parcel of land. Bernard uses some oak, but nothing new to avoid overwhelming the fruit. It is probably the most concentrated Bourgogne Rouge I've tasted.

Have a glass of Bouvier's red Burgundy tonight and add Marsannay to your Burgundy lexicon! Cynthia Hurley