It’s been a while since I saw the chaps of Pierre Bourée, but last Saturday I visited for the first time their WiFi enabled and air-conditioned ‘Table de Pierre Bourée’. Heading North it is on your right-hand side, just before the main traffic-lights of RN74 in Gevrey, though it has one problem – it’s hard to spot as you head-by because of the cars parked on the pavement in front. It seems to have another function in the village too – the day I was there, first one person came to ask if there was a hairdresser nearby, later another asking the whereabouts of the doctor – clearly you have to multi-task in Gevrey!

Inside is very nicely done for a ‘simple’ eatery, and if you choose to go through the back door and down the steps to the cellar you’ll find racks of bottles you can buy and a coopering and bottling display.

As for food, it’s one menu – a Burgundian menu – gougères that were just a little better than I can make(!), the best jambon persillé that I can remember eating and beef bourguignonne. A quartet of local cheeses, but is Brillat-Savarin local? – I don’t know. Dessert is actually your choice of ‘grand cru’ coffees – my choice was Ethiopian ‘Moka’. So how much do you pay? – well it depends on how much and what you drink.

The wines are all kept at 14°C in a wine refrigerator, and my choice was the ‘simple’ accompaniment of five wines for a tariff of €29, as follows:
2005 Pierre Bourée, Bourgogne Blanc
Medium yellow. Deep aromas, quite forward and with good depth. Whilst it’s a little plump, the balance is very good. It’s far from steely but it’s nicely clean.
Rebuy – Maybe
2004 Pierre Bourée, Marsannay Blanc
Made from purchased grapes. The nose is just that little bit finer and again with good depth. This is very tasty and has a nice lift to the acidity in the mid-palate. I liked.
Rebuy – Yes
2006 Pierre Bourée, Bourgogne
The only 2006 red that’s currently bottled. All the gapes come from the Côte de Nuits, mainly a mix of Gevrey and Brochon. The colour is medium-pale. A strikingly perfumed, wide nose – even at this level the stems are included. The taste is far from concentrated, but it is very interesting and wide. This is unlike any other bourgogne I can think of – really very pretty.
Rebuy – Yes
2002 Pierre Bourée, Côte de Nuits Villages
From purchased grapes. Medium-pale colour. Sweet stemmy perfume – and it IS perfume – lovely. Silky, subtle, delicate and complex. Super for ‘what it is’ and very clean. I bought some.
Rebuy – Yes
2004 Pierre Bourée, Gevrey-Chambertin
The nose once more brings the stemmy perfume, edged with slight cedar, width and depth. Fuller, with ripe fruit. The acidity is a little forward and initially seams not so well integrated, but with the food is absolutely fine. This is showing much better than when I tasted it about 2 years ago.
Rebuy – Maybe

In summary; it’s a nice place to visit and the food tastes super – even though there’s only one choice – though they did tell me that a group rang ahead and said it wasn’t quite Burgundian enough, so could they please add a snails course! Although they are only open from 11am-4pm, larger groups could ring ahead and enquire about the possibility of an evening opening.

In the end though, it’s not simply the food or the place that I would recommend it for, it’s the wines. You owe it to yourself to try these perfumed and complex reds to see if they are to your taste – when done well at the entry level, there’s really nothing quite like them.

Many 2005’s are a shadow of where they were 6 months ago, so despite not all being in bottle yet, it’s lucky that some are now filtering through:
2006 Antonin Guyon, Pernand Vergelesses
Medium, medium-plus colour. The nose is reasonably wide but with a good depth of powdery cherry fruit. In the mouth there’s a really super balance between the sweet, ripe fruit and the flowing acidity, so much so that tannin is an after-thought. The finish is narrow but sneakily long and shows a faint creaminess. A lovely wine and excellent value.
Rebuy – Yes

2005 Domaine Louis Boillot et Fils, Gevrey-Chambertin
Medium-plus colour with plenty of purple at the rim. High tones of violets over blackberry fruit and faint earth. In the mouth it’s got reasonable concentration but lovely flavours of black cherry jam edged with faint oak toast. Fine balance and a subtly penetrating length. Not the ‘flash’ of many 05’s, and far from the best value too – but it’s still a beauty!
Rebuy – Yes

Another long-weekend – shame it’s almost the last of the year (with public holidays) despite us being only in May. Not much wine drinking, more chauffering but I’m looking forward to this week and 10 scheduled visits in the Côtes Thursday to Saturday…

2000 Nicolas Potel, Savigny 1er Les Peuillets
The colour is becoming quite mature. On the nose it’s instantly about warm confiture with a powdery core of red fruit. Soft, relatively concentrated and shows a good burst of interest in the mid-palate and decent density – it needs just a hint more acidity for me but the length is good. Overall an interesting and tasty if not covetable wine.
Rebuy – Maybe

2005 Roger Belland, Santenay 1er Commes
A cork amalgum seal. Richly coloured. A super nose – immediately dark and wide with a faint twist of dark oak, then in an instant has lovely red-edged fruit and a dried cranberry note – yum. The palate is actually much more acid-forward than when tasted in November – it’s a harder drink now. I chose to leave it stoppered for 2 days (actually I didn’t plan 2 days, but I was ‘out’ the following night!); on the third day the aromatics still deliver with just a hint of lactic but very nice – more importantly the balance on the tongue has improved a lot. This was a good buy, but will really need at least 8-10 years of slumber.
Rebuy – Yes

2006 Jean-Pierre Charton, Mercurey 1er Clos du Roy
A good medium-plus colour. High-toned, faintly blue fruit aromas that slowly take on more width. Cool, high-toned, but slightly black-shaded fruit. Forward acidity and minimal tannin. Fresh, medium-weight and very well made – I’d leave this in the cellar for another 2-3 years, but has a lovely freshness now…
Rebuy – Yes

Ah, a warm weekend at last. So warm in fact that the vine in my garden started to burst its buds; that’s about five weeks later than the precocious Spring of 2007 – likewise it’s a more ‘normal’ Spring-time in the Côte d’Or – I’m looking forward to visiting in 2 weeks.

Did I mention it was warm? – Better open up something white…
2001 La Buxynoise, Montagny 1er
Eleve en fûts de chêne in bold type on the label. Medium yellow colour. A subtle and quite sophisticated nose that has very faint brioche and very nice yellow-skinned citrus fruit. In the mouth it’s round and soft but with super acidity that leaves the flavour lingering. Great value, I could drink this all summer long, alfresco…
Rebuy – Yes
The acidity seems a little more shrill on day 2 – so drink on day 1 😉

Clearly the 2005 bourgognes have spoiled us – intermediate age wines like these wither in the shadow of those 05’s – but like the recent Côte de Chalonaise, these really need to be judged in about another 3-5+ years time when they have started to show some more maturity.
2001 Ghislaine Barthod, Bourgogne
Medium colour. A soft red fruit nose with a faint cedar top note, slowly develops more density to the red core and eventually a little redcurrant. Well textured with plenty of forward fruit and again a faint edge of cedar – but at this level it’s additive – I do though find the overall profile slightly jammy. A simple but balanced and quite tasty luncheon bourgogne that never quite gets the pulse increasing.
Rebuy – Maybe
2002 Ghislaine Barthod, Bourgogne
Just a little darker in colour. The nose goes darker and deeper; a hint riper and no cedar but clearly a few diffuse alcoholic overtones. In the mouth it’s fuller with an edge more tannin and acidity that is slightly tart – it’s not a problem, just it’s personality. On the back of the acidity is a little burst of intensity on the mid-palate before fading into the finish. Less smooth than the 2001 but more material. I look forward to making another comparison in a few years.
Rebuy – Maybe