Domaine Bouard-Bonnefoy’s Saint-Aubin 1er Cru "Les Charmois” is the sort of wine sommeliers like us spend our whole careers hunting for. Put simply, it’s white Burgundy that goes toe-to-toe with some of the biggest names in the category–PYCM, Lamy, even Roulot–at a fraction of the price. There’s nothing like white Burgundy, both in its capacity for soulstirring complexity, and in its tendency to skyrocket in price overnight. The only solution for us mere mortals is to find overperforming producers before the wider world catches on. Even tasting hundreds and hundreds of wines each year, we’re lucky if we find just one wine that fits that bill. Fabrice Bouard’s mineral, deeply concentrated, and outrageously complex “Les Charmois” does so with flying colors. Before we know it, this is likely to cost twice as much. So if you’re a white Burgundy lover, stop whatever you’re doing and start loading up!
Perhaps the first reason Bouard-Bonnefoy’s wines aren’t yet in the Burg collectors’ spotlight is that fleetingly little ever gets exported. They’ve always been sold primarily to friends and locals first. Fabrice Bouard and his wife Carine Bonnefoy aren’t particularly interested in garnering international acclaim. They took over the estate from Carine’s family in 2006, her father being one of the most respected growers in the village. Since the couple took control, they’ve changed practically nothing. They still press their grapes on a vertical wooden press, an inefficient but very gentle way to handle the fruit, and still bottle, label, and cork every single bottle by hand. Wines aren’t fined or filtered. Over the past few decades, Burgundy has outgrown its reputation as a humble region populated mainly by passionate, somewhat insular, farmers. Fabrice and Carine, though, keep that tradition alive.
Of course, it helps that they own some pretty special vineyards. Their holdings center primarily around Chassagne-Montrachet, which might make their two Saint-Aubin sites seem at first to be outliers. But “Les Charmois” can essentially be thought of as an extension of the Chassagne Premier Crus. It’s got classic limestone soils, and sits on a gentle slope facing fully east. While Saint-Aubin isn’t generally spoken of with the same praise as Puligny or Chassagne, a few sites have always been singled out as qualitative overachievers. “Les Charmois” is just such a site. Being at a little higher altitude, we might even argue that it’s in a better position than the Chassagne Premier Crus. Its elevation means that, even as vintages become warmer with each passing year, the wines of “Les Charmois” retain the freshness and mineral density we so prize in elite white Burgundy.
Domaine Bouard-Bonnefoy’s Saint-Aubin 1er Cru "Les Charmois” is tightly coiled right now, so we do recommend a decant if you’re drinking right away. It pours a luminous yellow with silver flecks, and with one whiff you know you’re dealing with top-notch Burgundy. There’s a seemingly endless array of rocky tones, from crushed chalk to oyster shell to wet river rocks, fleshed out by golden apples, white peach, fresh custard, roasted almond, and lemon zest. Above it all floats the struck flint, almost matchstick-like aromas you find in practically every coveted white Burgundy these days. Francois keeps the new oak to a reasonable 20%, but even that is barely noticeable, simply adding a little textural roundness and faint baking spice complexity. The palate is, above all else, dense; there’s such a compaction of mineral and orchard fruit flavor here that it’s almost hard to wrap your head around. Scintillating acidity only enhances this feeling of verticality and depth, and promises a very long life ahead. Anyone who knows Burgundy will know this is almost as good as it gets. Thankfully, it’s far less expensive than anything on a similar level. Act fast while that’s still the case!
