Caves Jean Bourdy - Jura, France

Jean-François Bourdy, from one of our early visits.

CAVES BOURDY: A WINE UMBILICAL TO PLACE AND TIME

At times words cannot bring us to a place; all their combinations and each of their syllables are rendered as incapable. One of these places on these grounds of our earth: Caves Bourdy, in Jura’s half a hamlet-sized village of Arlay, southwest of Arbois and northeast of L’Étoile.

If time is an umbilical to what has already occurred, roots of vines are similar cords and chords to our earth connecting the ground and the grape to time. Man, at times, is the agent coercing the voice of the grape and ground to tell of the place and speak of time. Speak they can- these grapes- so long as man stays out of the way and adds nothing beyond care and a thoughtful nurturing.

Caves Bourdy is not trapped in time, it is time, and as such, words cannot bring us there. You have to go there to be there, it is past imagination. The grapes are vocal, you can hear them. They go back: fifty years, a hundred years, one year. The viticulture and farming are not so non-interventionist that nothing is done, yet not so much is done that the voice (the flavor, the taste, the expression, the personality, the nuance, the identity– of both the grape and the ground, that cord to the grasp into and hold onto the earth, and that chord of taste of the fruit from the vine through the earth) is not allowed to sing a truthful song. If this seems evasive, then, like time, taste for yourself how place is present in the glass filled of wine made from this ground... You’ll know.

The Domaine structures, partly back many centuries.

HISTORY IS A CIRCLE

There is plenty of history here. A chardonnay from the 1930’s? Not a problem. Côtes du Jura from the twenties, how many you want? Our two 2011 visits to Caves Bourdy in Arlay, the small town once long ago the center of wine trade in the Jura, were among the greatest we have had in an increasingly long and impressive list of visiting wineries, collectively gaining on forty five years now.

Visits like our first one over ten years ago are discoveries - for us, not by us - like seeing Sandi Skerk the first time in 2008 or that 1990 visit to Domaine JL Chave in Hermitage are highlights. With our level of wine passion - meeting and tasting with Jean-François Bourdy, current owner and guardian of the historic Caves Bourdy – getting to know the wines, the man and the place left us in a kind of awe. It is not so much that this is a place of remarkable world fame - like we were seeing the President of France, or a celebrated rock star - though Bourdy is a “rock” star of sorts - but that such NEW kinds of wonders and passion and uniqueness of place has eluded us until back then. This is the story of both an historic property and jewel in the wine world, and of a special place for wine that is not duplicated, nor tries to duplicate anywhere else.

From a tasting that Jean-François hosted at the shop a few years ago.

Our little history, E&R’s, of this history begins a short while back on July 27, 2011. The history of the winery, Caves Bourdy, begins earlier—in about 1450 with the digging out of a cellar from the rock in the area near present day Arlay. The Bourdy family live there today still, the premises including their home, the winery, a museum and associated buildings. It all comes as a surprise as you walk in the unassuming gravel entry way. The drive in from the now wine capitol town of Arbois brings you through small roads curling atop and across a landscape created as if a giant handfull of rocks and forest and vineyards simply flung a whole twenty mile scoop onto the earth eventually dotted with small roads, old houses, farms, orchards and wildlife. The feeling nothing much has changed in a few hundred years is hard to not have.

The winery is like a time capsule long before the time capsule idea came about. Besides us, the only thing new inside is the light coming in as we opened the door. Details emerge as we spend the afternoon tasting with Jean- François (JF). The foundation of the current winery goes back over five hundred years with JF as a fifteenth gen- eration caretaker. In this day of wineries with laboratories on the premises and blending oak dust into wines, it is nearly a shock to learn that not much at all has changed going back to 1475. Jean-François tells us:
“Arlay was the main city for wine with grapes being grown here 2000 years ago. Wine is made essentially the way it was hundreds of years ago. Ours is the real tradition, no new trends, no modern wines...exactly the way it was 200 years ago.”

Though the cellar has resting bottles from the 1780’s, not all at Caves Bourdy is old. In 2008 the winery got its Demeter certification, proving that its farming and winemaking is done using wholly organic (biodynamic) principles. (This will be on the labels beginning with the 2010 wines.) JF makes it clear that his wines are built to age. In fact, they need to be aged a few years to begin to offer their most true expression and to show the tradition of the Jura region. For example, Caves Bourdy notes that their red Côtes du Jura blend, delicious when young, can age beautifully for 50-60 years. (If you have the funds you can buy a bottle of 1915 Poulsard red at the winery!) The continental climate’s warm summers and cool winters, their farming practicies, and the fact that they use only traditional grapes, barrels and bottles, helps explain why JF notes of his wines: “when they are very young they have lots of grip and you MUST wait to drink them.”

Caves Bourdy is particular about a number of things beyond the philosophy of only producing wines for pleasure. For example, JF notes, “we never sell a grape or a variety, only the name of the place, we have no different cuvees. I don’t sell chardonnay, I sell Jura”. While this may sound quaint nowadays- almost false and marketing driven- the fact of the matter is it is a fact. Visitors and tasters both will understand when they try the wines. A rare place it is, Caves Bourdy. And a rare man is he, Jean-François Bourdy.

When in stock, wines from this producer appear below. Click on each wine for more detail.