Description
Boyer-De Bar, “Les Peyrarols” Chardonnay
Where Vincent Boyer goes, we follow. That includes the Languedoc. It might not be the first place you think to look for world-class Chardonnay, but one sip of Boyer-De Bar’s “Les Peyrarols” and you’ll know you’re in skilled Burgundian hands: The ripe, juicy stone fruit screams “South of France,” while the breezy minerality and crisp tension call to mind Vincent’s home base in Meursault.
It’s so undeniably delicious you might think it’s just meant to be a chuggable quaffer, but this is no cast-off or second thought for Vincent—it’s fermented and aged identically to his wines in the Côte de Beaune. Think of it as the B-side that hits just as hard as the chart-topping single, but in a different register. Today, you can get Chardonnay made by a Burgundian master, just like his Burgundian masterpieces, for a very un-Burgundian price. This is a bottle to go deep on, not necessarily to age (though we’re sure it’ll do that just fine as well) but because you’ll want to open a bottle of this every night of the week. And at this price, you can!
While Boyer’s estate in Meursault has been in operation for four generations, it was really when Vincent took the reins 15 years ago that the wines entered the upper echelons of the Côte de Beaune. He eschewed the use of any cultured yeast in the cellar, converted the family farming to organics, and strictly reduced yields to produce concentrated yet fresh bottlings from the best sites in Meursault. Vincent is especially talented at maintaining a sense of verve and mineral freshness in his wines, despite the ever-warmer vintages he faces. That’s a talent that came in handy when he shifted his focus to the Languedoc.
In 2019, Vincent teamed up with Emmanuel Lucas De Bar, a childhood friend who owns vineyards in the Hérault region of the Languedoc, to form the Boyer-De Bar label. It allows Vincent to flex his considerable winemaking muscles by working with different varieties and terroirs. Their Chardonnay comes from the “Les Peyrarols” vineyard, a north-facing—and therefore cooler—slope imbued with the same admixture of clay and limestone that makes his Meursault vineyards so special.
It’s made not just with the exact same regimen as his Meursault-village bottlings, but in the same cellar. The fruit is trucked north to the domaine, where it’s fermented spontaneously, transferred to neutral French oak for one year, then aged a further six months in concrete eggs. There’s a stylistic throughline between Vincent’s Burgundy and Languedoc wines, with one key difference: Whereas his Meursault bottlings are heady, thought-provoking experiences, his Boyer-De Bar Chardonnay is a blast of drinky, sun-soaked joy!
The 2019 “Les Peyrarols” Chardonnay pours a luminous yellow-gold. One whiff and its origins are clear: This is wide open, fruit-inflected goodness begging to be drunk with abandon. Juicy white peach, white cherry, pear skin, Meyer lemon, orange pith, jasmine, and a hint of cinnamon oak sit alongside a subtle salty minerality. The palate is amply medium-full, continuing the just-ripe stone fruit and sweet citrus notes. The acid here keeps all the Mediterranean warmth in check, bringing tension and a throughline of lemon and sea spray that keeps the whole package supremely refreshing. This stuff screams out the gate, and served at 50 degrees in all-purpose stems, it’s a complex yet thirst-quenching weekday beauty. As the weather turns cooler, I’ve been opening this left and right, because it strikes the perfect balance between the body and fruit I crave in colder months with a freshness I can’t get enough of. I suggest you follow suit!
