Originating in more than 50 year old vines from parts of the same slope that birth their La Bourgeois bottling, the Bourgeois' 2010 Sancerre Etienne Henri ferments and ages in 300-liter barrels (again, one-third new), whence it was bottled last December but will not come onto the market before next year. (This bottling is not essayed every year, and a decision had evidently not yet been rendered about a possible 2011 at the time of my visit.) For whatever reason, the wood is much more noticeable here than in the corresponding La Bourgeois bottling, and besides making for resin, lanolin, and vanilla notes, it enhances the awkward bifurcation between a candied expression of herbal essences and tart lemon, not to mention slightly dries a finish that would benefit enormously from additional primary juiciness to assuage its considerable bitterness. Perhaps this will knit itself with time, but I am not going to hazard any guesses about its evolution, especially given the disappointing performance of other Bourgeois cuvees that I tasted with age on them.
Jean-Marie Bourgeois, son Arnaud, and nephew Jean-Christophe are only the three most conspicuous members of the extended Bourgeois family - each with his or her specialty, I was told - who oversee nearly 200 acres of vines in 70 villages of Sancerre and Pouilly (at one point comprising nearly a thousand named family plots, though today concentrated into 'only' 120 major parcels), not counting contracts covering vastly more acreage; the 52-acre Domaine Laporte (owned by Bourgeois since 1986, and covered separately in the present report); myriad holdings in less prestigious sectors of the Eastern Loire; and an estate " Clos Henri " in Marlborough, New Zealand. If that sounds overwhelming, believe me, so is the array of wines they presented to me in April, even after concentrating entirely on the two prestigious appellations and skipping the odd cuvee here and there. Time spent in the vineyards with the present generation made clear their degree of dedication and willingness to do things in a labor-intensive (and to a significant degree organic) way. Forty percent of the Bourgeois' total acreage - including all of that planted to Pinot - is harvested by hand. There is an ambitious and long-running program - indeed, apparently almost continuous since the estate's 1950 inception - of massale selection and site-matching. And you certainly can't deny that this family is inventive, in for example experimenting as they explained to me with a "musical treatment" of vines being tested to ward off esca. (That's right: the vines are bombarded from loudspeakers!) Forty-two acres of Bourgeois vines are in Chavignol - a third or more in the Monts Damnes - as are an array of sophisticated gravity-fed winemaking, vast cellaring, and fashionably appointed selling facilities, mingled with various family members' homes, so that I began to imagine that nearly the whole west side of town is in Bourgeois hands. Special attention is paid to gentle pressing, long-settling, but thereafter the retention and utilization (including stirring) of lees, whether it's for a tank- or barrel-rendered cuvee. I wish I could report that the wines consistently reflect the intense earnestness and articulacy that was evident from my interactions with the affable principles of this estate. The generic and less expensive single-site bottlings I tasted were unexciting and on occasion - even from 2011, though especially in 2010s where Arnaud Bourgeois acknowledges that "the level of malic acid was high" - grassy, green apple-y and marginally under-ripe-tasting. The estate's top-priced bottlings were often pronouncedly bitter and distorted by the influence of oak. The latter group represents wines the team here envisions for long keeping, but the numerous back vintages I tasted - all of which, incidentally, are still for sale as library releases at a slight price premium - suggested fruit rendered fragile and potential floral
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