Jean-François Bourdy's Decades tasting: One wine from every decade of the 20th century, back to 1904
E&R, Portland, OR
Tasted Friday, November 9, 2012 by David Paris (dbp) with 1,660 views
Introduction
I was originally introduced to the wines of Jean Bourdy through Jon Rimmerman of Garagiste. I remember being on the mailing list and receiving an email in 2008 regarding a tasting of Bourdy wines taking place in New York, with wines all the way back to 1865. What? Civil War-era wine? That exists, and I could try it? To that point I had never heard of Bourdy nor tried any of the wines, but I was so intrigued that I began looking at ways to get myself to that tasting. In the end I didn't want to take that gamble on something that was unknown to myself, so I passed. Since then though I've been a fairly deep buyer of Bourdy wines, honestly most in part due to the promise of exemplary ability to age them. Until tonight though, I had not actually had an aged Bourdy wine, only young ones. I love the wines of the Jura, and Bourdy's wines are the top of the list. They are also incredibly reasonably priced on release, making them one of the greatest values in wine in the world. There aren't many wines you can spend $19 on and expect them to age for 100 years... and that's not an exaggeration! Well, this was all theory until tonight, but I have enjoyed the young Bourdy wines I've had as well, so there's certainly no harm in continuing to buy them even if I weren't to reserve them for my 100th birthday.
I was very pleased to be offered the opportunity to taste these wines by E&R wine shop in Portland. After having experienced the young Bourdy wines in the past few years I have long thought about missing that ancient tasting in New York. The E&R tasting was frankly pretty darn close to the grandeur of that NY event, and in my own home town. Jean-François Bourdy made the trip from the Jura and offered continual commentary for the two hours that we tasted the wines, offering amazing insight to this ancient region that remains fairly untapped in the US. Jean-François wanted to make it clear at this tasting that this isn't something that he does all the time. Aside from the Garagiste tasting in New York, this present tasting was the largest collection of aged wines he has ever assembled in his life. Again, what an insane opportunity to be a part of this. Sure, they'll frequently taste ancient wines at tastings, but only a bottle or two...
The storied history of Bourdy is wild to think about. Jean-François is the 15th generation making wine at the family estate that dates back to 1475. He currently lives in the same, original house, and still makes wine out of that original 500 year old cellar that his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great great-grandfather did (it's true). I believe he said they currently hold 10 hectares. In 2005 they became Demeter certified Biodynamic. They did so not to meet any new trend, but to continue to make wines as they always have, and be acknowledged for that. There is no experimentation done here. They make wine the same way they did hundreds of years ago, and will continue to do so. When asked what types of things he does in the winery to produce the wine, Jean-François simply stated, "we do quite nothing." They only use old barrels to allow the underlying material to shine through. Currently all fermentation is done in stainless steel. The cellars of Cheateau Bourdy hold 13,000 old bottles, dating back to 1781.
Jean-François said "we never, never show the best vintages." Those are for him, and his family! They only publicly taste what they have a lot of bottles of. Anything they're down to 20-30 bottles of they keep for themselves; there must be 150+ bottles at the winery if they're going to drink publicly. For instance, they have 300 bottles remaining of the 1904 Blanc that we're going to have this evening! Crazy to think...
I gather that most of these bottles are frequently "reconditioned." At the cellar, they wind up recorking and refilling vintages ever so often. He doesn't expect these corks to last 100 years... but the wine inside should, with proper care. So perhaps the wines I buy from him will not last quite the length as these have with the attention that has been given to them.
Flight 1 (1 Note)
Flight 2
All these wines are very difficult to score as they are very different to what we traditionally score. They were all experiences in their own and it feels a little trite to score such history. However, a score also does do what I always say it does best and offer a relative enjoyment level vs. anything else I'd rather put in my mouth. Even if a wine here that's 90+ years old scores in the 80s, I am FAR more grateful for the experience of having this wine than the $17 Cru Beaujolais that I scored 91 last week... but if you were to give me either without context on a Tuesday night and not tell me what's what, I'd rather have that Beaujolais. That's where the score comes in... but I truly believe this tasting was one of those rare opportunities that come along in a lifetime.
Interestingly and perhaps a bit counter-intuative compared to the rest of the world, in the Jura we taste the red wines before the whites, because the whites are "much stronger" than the reds. I do not disagree with this assessment, as both in the way of complexities and texturally, the whites definitely had a heavier feeling to them than the lithe reds. Since 1936, all the reds are 1/3rd blends of the three allowed grapes: Poulsard, Trousseau and Pinot Noir, all co-fermented. It seems the modern trend in the Jura is to offer single varietal wines of these three, but Bourdy always blends them. Perhaps it's just the single varietal international trend that's causing people to do that these days. I think Bourdy is the one who knows where it's at, though...
Flight 3 - Côtes du Jura Rouge (3 Notes)
An interesting note about the bottles you see Bourdy's red and whites bottled in, which is entirely unique to the Jura. Jean-François's grandfather found a bottle of Jura red wine produced from 1219 that was in a bottle shaped like this. He brought it to a bottle maker to recreate it, and ever since they have been bottling their wines in a similar shaped bottle. For me it does add something extra to the special packaging of these wines.
Flight 4 (1 Note)
Flight 5 - Côtes du Jura Blanc (2 Notes)
When drinking these ancient bottles, Jean-François recommends opening them very similar to the practice I've followed for a while, the "Audouze method", proposed by François Audouze on the erobertparker forum years ago. Basically, Jean-François recommends the bottle be stood up before hand and the bottle be un-corked long in advance of pouring... up to half a day, and allowed just to rest open. No decanting, no nothing. Just rest. The wine should then be poured at "room temperature," the same for reds or whites.
The "cinnamon" in the 1973.
Flight 6 (1 Note)
Yes... this bottle is 108 years old (but perhaps the label isn't).
Flight 7 - Château-Chalon (3 Notes)
Onto the Chateau-Chalon wines... surely the longest lived white wines on the planet. One day I will try one of these from the 19th century, I'll see to that. An interesting question was posed as to what foods one would pair with these wines. He could have just said, "anything delicious and decedent," as his answer was the likes of Foie Gras, lobster, fish in a cream sauce, spiced Indian cuisine, old cheddar cheese, old parmesan... he said avoid blue cheese and the likes of camembert, and any sweet foods.
Flight 8 - Galant des Abesses (1 Note)
This "wine" is quite the intrigue. Basically a Macvin infused with 25 Indian and Chinese spices. This is produced from a secret recipe only known by the Bourdy's and dating back to 1579 (as stated on the bottle). It's not their recipe , but I believe they are the only ones who know and use this original recipe that Jean-François' ancestors found.
Closing
This was such an amazing opportunity to taste these wines together... previous to tonight, the oldest dry wine I had tasted was 1961... I beat that tonight... 6 times. You almost wonder if Jean-François is playing some grand trick on us with these wines... mixing a bit of that or this together, and then saying, "Alright, here's a 1926 Jura Blanc!" He is "re-conditioning" the bottles and corks, right? Not that I really think that, but coming from the traditional mindset of wine and how it ages, these wines are complete revelations and redefine what's possible with age. I said it time and time again the night of the tasting, but if you put most of these wines in front of very experienced tasters of aged Burgundy I'm sure the majority of them wouldn't expect any of them to be more than 10-20 years old. They really feel ageless. There is something absolutely magical about this property, or perhaps it's the Bourdy family... I'm not even sure what it is, but I do know it's magical, and defies what we've all learned to expect from aged wine (and this from a guy that already vastly prefers drinking wine older than himself).
NV Jean Bourdy Crémant du Jura 89 Points
France, Jura, Crémant du Jura
As we arrived we were greeted with a pour of the Crémant du Jura as we walked around and mingled. This was fresh and zesty on the nose, with quite expressive minerals and apples. Smells great. The palate is fresh again, and absolutely laced with minerals. Really nice acidity as well; tart and bright. The finish is a little funky at first, with odd acidity, but the odd stuff fades revealing fresher minerals and components of spiced apples. Really coats the mouth. The bitter acid at the end is a little detracting though.
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