Wine & Spirits - Summer 2023 - 8

Fined
& Filtered
AmONG RECENT SHIFTS IN
TASTE, BONNE EXPLORES
THE POPuLARITY OF
COTE ROTIE IN THE 1990S
AND CORNAS TODAY.
his intention to lean into every
contradiction, every paradox,
every trend and principle, creating
a portrait of the country in all
its turbulence and vitality, a wine
culture rooted in tradition, and
straining to break free. His 864page
work, with arrestingly candid
photographs by Susannah Ireland
and charmingly retro map
illustrations by Francesco Bongiorni,
took more than eight years
of research. Having traveled to 72
of the country's 96 départements,
clocking 30,000 km on its roadways,
he has created a comprehensive
picture of French Wine
in its current moment.
In his 2013 New California
The Newest
New France
Jon Bonné Tackles a Subject
Almost as Old as Wine Itself
By PATRICK J. COMISKEY
T
wenty-one years ago, the British wine writer
Andrew Jefford published The New France (Mitchell
Beazley, 2002), bringing his discerning palate and
formidable intellect to bear on that celebrated wine culture.
Region by region, Jefford deconstructed the country's
terroirs, highlighting its wines and winemakers with
wit and deft observation, for a vivid snapshot of the place
in its time.
Often the most revealing section of each chapter was
the one Jefford called " Flak, " the contradictions, controversies
and paradoxes he couldn't quite reconcile. It was
an acknowledgment that parts of this ancient culture, bolstered
by tradition, bureaucracy and pride, would elude
him, even as it remained the source of some of the greatest
wines in the world.
From the first sentence of his masterful two-volume
set, The New French Wine, Jon Bonné embraces the flak.
With that sentence- " C'est compliqué " -Bonné lays out
8
WINE & SPIR IT S
Summ ER 2023
Wine, Bonné performed a similar
feat, chronicling a perceptible
shift at the end of the Parker era,
marking an inflection point and
a trend toward diversity in California
wine that is still evolving
today. For the New French Wine,
there's considerably more heavy
lifting.
Bonné lays out his subject in
two volumes: The Narrative and
The Producers. His producers
volume-with more than 830
portraits-is arranged beneath
two rubrics: " Names to Know, "
or worthy additions to the canon,
and " Benchmarks, " those legacy
wineries that also seek to push
the culture forward. " Change, "
he writes, " is an inclusive force. "
This half of the book alone is an
invaluable resource for new wines
to try. But the book's heart is in
The Narrative.
Like Jefford's before him, Bonné's
narrative proceeds geographically,
focused on the producers
who are driving each region in its
forward movement. He does this
with an astute eye for the sort of
details which describe the country
à la minute, whether it's the
graffiti on a bench overlooking
La Tâche, in the heart of VosneRomanée,
or stuffed animals
strung along the concrete tanks
at Pétrus. That eye extends to the
country's changing landscape,
economy, its political and social
ethos, demonstrating how French
Wine is more than just the product
of a location-it's the product
of French culture, a mindset
that both burdens and liberates.
To his regional chapters he adds
six interstitial sections covering
patrimony, mythmaking, the rise
and fall of the appellations, natural
winemaking, farming, and,
most critically, the climate.
Citing historic
texts, documents,
antique inventories and
reports, Bonné makes it clear that
it's impossible to know France in
its current zeitgeist without a
thorough examination of what's
gone before.
Nowhere is this more true than
in his examination of the Appellation
d'Origine Contrôlée system
or AOC, the historic, multi-tiered
hierarchy designed to maintain
quality and preserve terroir for
each major region in France.
Bonné lays out a clear-eyed portrayal
of the AOC's historic merits
and current shortcomings, por " Are
the [French} appellations
compatible with
individual, personal
expression? " Chablis
producer Claire Naudin
asks. Bonné finds the
answer is often no.
traying a system borne of idealism
and grown into a bureaucracy
of control, indolence, and restriction,
or, in Bonné's words, " an
industrial-minded nanny state. "
He cites numerous examples
of this calcification, quoting, for
instance, Chablis producer Claire
Naudin who asks, point-blank,
" Are the appellations compatible
with individual, personal expression? "
Bonné reaches the uneasy
conclusion that the answer is
often no.
An emerging alternative for
many has been natural wine. Bonné's
chapter " Observations of a
Natural World " begins, naturally,
with a lively rendering of the controlled
chaos of La Dive Bouteille,
the annual gathering of naturPHOTOGRAPH
BY SUSANNAH IRELAND
Wine & Spirits - Summer 2023

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