The Grower: Éric Darles, Irancy

0:00ÉricMe, on the contrary, I like tannins. As they say, you make the wines you like. There are the lab analyses, but not only: there's my eye and my nose too. We've managed to trace it back to sixteen hundred and something.

0:21MarcelSeventeenth century, as far as I can go back.

0:24ÉricYes, I took over my father's estate, but my father had a small one. And I came in young, of course, and I wanted to build it up. He sold few bottles. I built up bottle sales. I doubled the vineyard area and multiplied bottle sales by four, by five. Right now I've got a bit of help, but nobody on a permanent basis. I have no permanent staff. This is the Boudardes 2019.

0:58MarcelBoudardes refers to a small plot called Boudardes. So it's one of Éric's, just a small plot of Éric's somewhere around here. Maybe it's time to see the map. Let's see the map.

1:13ÉricYou can see it from the contour lines: Irancy sits in the bowl of an amphitheatre. Irancy is at the bottom of its basin, and the vines form a circle all around it. So south is that way. All of this faces due south. The Palotte plot faces this way, Boudardes is there. Both face due south. Same exposure, but not on the same slope.

1:40MarcelAnd where does 'Boudardes' come from?

1:42ÉricThat's the name on the land register. I didn't invent it. It's a name that got worn down over time. In the old records it was 'Boudardes', then 'Boutardes', maybe a 'boutade', a joke. Here, these are plots... that are very steep, left wild, that we deliberately chose to leave wild to keep some biodiversity, because that matters. And besides, as it's so steep, if you classify this as Irancy, tomorrow it gets planted, first storm, it all ends up in the village. A disaster.

2:26MarcelBrilliant. This map fascinates me.

2:29ÉricBecause we're heading into summers that are drier and drier, hotter and hotter, drier and drier. This year was the peak. With grass between the rows, the grass drinks first. If a little shower comes, the vine gets none of it. The grass thrives. Normally in February there's always a drier spell when we can get in the rows. Then it's more of an earthing-up pass, with what we call disc hillers. Discs with fingers that work the soil under the row and earth it up a little. Which buries the grass that grows under the row. The intercep, what's that? It's a blade that goes in like this, and the intercep works right in, under the vine stock. Because that's always the hardest part to get to. When I was a boy, we picked at the end of September, even early October. I've picked in early October. Today, early October is no good: it'd all be rotten, there'd be nothing left to pick. For a few years now we've started in August, which is already exceptional. Even more exceptional this year: we finished in August. That has never happened. The first time we picked in August was 2003, the first historic heatwave, 2003. Now we start and finish in August. But look what it gives this year: a third of a crop, even working all the soil, without any grass. Three years running, now. Where it sits is very well exposed, but it's also very prone to frost. So I prune it as late as I can, and tie it down as late as I can. And this year, when the frost came, pruned just two or three days before. So no budburst yet, and we tied the canes down a bit later. So you must know your plots and have years of experience, and know how the plant works. Irancy, above all, is a wine to keep. I was brought up on wines of 20, 30, 40, 50 years old.

4:55MarcelOn the bottle!

4:57ÉricAlmost. So I can't see myself making an Irancy to drink within two years. Not possible. For me, an Irancy is a wine to keep, a wine you can hold for a long time. Twice a day, pigeage. That means twice a day, we push the cap of marc back down into the fermenting wine to encourage a kind of infusion, really. I won't work all year making fine grapes and fine wines, then hide it behind a screen of oak. That's out of the question. Whereas with slightly older barrels the oak is finer and softer, and it never masks the wine. There's a micro-oxygenation that happens through the barrel. We call it the angels' share: the wood drinks.

5:42MarcelThe wood drinks, but in French it sounds the same. The wood is 'bois', to drink is 'boit'. C'est le bois boit.

5:50ÉricWhich means we have to keep topping up the barrel so it doesn't oxidise.

5:55MarcelWe don't want the wood to give the taste, You don't want to drink a plank.

6:00ÉricCésar brings more body, more tannin, that's for sure, but it's part of our identity too. That's why Irancy is the only red appellation in Burgundy, a red village appellation where César is allowed. All the others, every Côte d'Or appellation, is 100% Pinot Noir.

6:23MarcelIt reminds me of the Syrah from the northern Rhône. Smoky. Smoky as well, but also red fruit, like cherry.

6:32MattYou don't see this much in England. If somebody does it in England, you think: who do you think you are? But now I'm going to be one of those people, because you get so much more flavour.

6:46MarcelThe air you breathe carries the aroma, the volatile aroma, up to the spot in here, inside, that sends the message to your brain.

6:58ÉricTannins that are starting to melt, and finer tannins than in the last one. That's the signature of Boudardes: very fine, very elegant tannins. Not the age of the vines either. It's more the terroir side, the part of the earth you can't touch, or see, or measure. It only shows in the wine. That's our measuring tool. If I take you to the Boudardes plot, or to Palotte, you'll tell me straight away, and I'd say the same: a stone is a stone. And you'd be right, except that underneath, things happen differently. And what I'd say about a Boudardes 2019 is that it's a wine you can start to enjoy, because it's just starting to soften.