2013 Domaine Andre Bonhomme Vire-Clesse 750 ml

A Toast to Paris … A Night to Remember and Forget

We only set foot in the World Trade Center once. We had a meeting with an insurance company after a boat carrying a container full of Champagne capsized in the Atlantic. The date was September 10th, 2001.

Last Thursday, after spending three wonderful nights in Paris with our daughter, we boarded a flight for Newark. G, who is earning her Ph.D. in the south of France, stayed behind.

We spent much of Friday afternoon and evening on the phone with G as she sat in a friend’s apartment in the 14th arrondissement, listening to the radio — not wanting to watch TV or the internet. It was a night we’ll always remember, but would like to forget.

Today, life goes on in France. But much like after 9/11 in N.Y.C., for the foreseeable future, Paris is not the same.

Over the weekend, we popped corks on a disproportionate number of old vintages. All were made in France by winemaker friends we first met in the early 1980s. As we swirled a gorgeous bottle of the 1959 Domaine André Bonhomme Viré-Clessé — still so pure and lively 56 years after that historic harvest — we retold the story of our first introduction to M. Bonhomme’s exquisite white Burgundy, the story of the “Sommelier’s Wink.”

Tonight, regardless of your political persuasions, do us a favor. When you pull a bottle from the cellar, let it be French. Before you sip, make a toast. To Paris. To France. Our old friends never ask for much, but right now, they need all the help they can get.

Lunch at Taillevent 1983 … The Sommelier’s Wink

It was the summer of 1983. The greenback was strutting its stuff against the French Franc, touching 10 francs to the dollar when we purchased round-trip tickets from JFK to Paris Orly. Given the favorable exchange rate, we booked a table at Taillevent, thinking that we’d never again be able to (almost) afford lunch at Jean-Claude Vrinat’s 3-star in the 8th arrondissement.

As our first wine love was Burgundy, we spent 20 minutes with M. Vrinat’s “Bible,” a thick tome featuring well over 1,000 selections, including dozens of First Growth vintages and a page devoted entirely to Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. As our eyes danced over the white Burgundy section, the sommelier stopped by the table.His wine IQ was high, but as it turned out, his EQ was even higher. He took one look at our frayed lapels and the creases on our button-down shirts and pointed to the first white Burgundy on the list, a 1978 Mâcon-Viré from a small grower in the Mâconnais, André Bonhomme.

“The label may say Mâcon-Viré. But Monsieur Bonhomme’s Mâcon-Viré is better than most village Meursault — and is one-third the price!” We looked up. He caught our eyes, and most unforgettably, he winked!

Two days later, courtesy of Taillevent, M. Bonhomme invited us into his small, tidy cellar on the outskirts of the tiny hamlet of Viré. André explained that he owned and tended just over 11 acres of hillside Chardonnay, all planted on the same limestone that we already knew so well above Meursault, Chassagne- and Puligny-Montrachet. As we’d soon learn, Bonhomme was fastidious in every way. He uncorked bottles carefully, without a pop. He poured just three fingers of Chardonnay in INAO glasses, then became a quiet, receptive observer. We began with Taillevent’s 1978, then worked back in time. That first tasting lasted over three hours, concluding with a brilliant 1959!

At last count, since 1983 we had visited one of white Burgundy’s most extraordinary cellars 23 times. Sadly, a couple years ago, after a long illness, André Bonhomme passed away. From the marvelous white Burgundy vintage of 2013, Aurelien Palthey, André’s grandson, crafted an exquisitely mineral Viré-Clessé that would have had M. Bonhomme smiling ear to ear.

Brilliant, pale green. Piercing aromas of apple, pear, and orange pith, gently touched with new-wood vanilla.Tightly wound, rich, and precise on the attack, filled with a mineral mix of apple, pear and orchard pit, and white peach, finishing with stunning limestone-infused vibrancy. Drink now for its juicy youthfulness or lay down until sometime in 2025! This is a sensational new release from one of our oldest friends in Burgundy, a Chardonnay that truly is “like Meursault at 1/3 the price.”

$32 on release. $21 this morning. 100 cases just hit port — ALL earmarked for WineAccess. Salud!