8.5% abv, Boyeux-St-Jérôme, imported by Alian Junguenet Selction, Westfield, NJ.
Somewhere between the metropolis of Lyon and the snowcapped French Apls of Savoie, you can find Bugey, a tiny wine production area known for the cultivation of Gamay Noir and lesser known grape varieties (i.e. Poulsard and Altesse) and the production of méthode ancestral sparkling wines under the recent (2009) Bugey Credon AOC. Monsieur Broccard is a decorate Alps Grand Prix racing champion who has retired to a quiet pastoral life of making natural wine. All fermentations are conducted spontaneously (no added sugars or yeasts) and are completed partially in tank, but then, slowly, completed in bottle over the winter and spring following the harvest. What you are left with captures the freshness of Alpine meadows and the delightful character of Gamay with a delicate mousse.
The 2019 Bugey Cedron is medium pink with a clean nose of medium intensity with aromas of wild berry, pink plum flesh, and rose petals. On the palate: medium sweet with high acid, a medium body, medium minus alcohol, and a pronounced flavor intensity with notes of wild strawberry, red currant, black cherry, rhubarb, dragon fruit and passion fruit. The finish is medium plus and there is a great deal of punch in the flavor, a respectable balance and a delightful finish that transcends this wine’s more saccharine quality. Drink now; this wine is very good: 9.2/10. I wish I had a bottle for every sunny day of the spring!
Note: there is currently a lack of consensus as to where the wines of Bugey fit in the landscape of French wine regions. While stylistically similar to the wines of Savoie, some experts and novices alike would argue that administratively, or geographically, they fit better in the Jura or Rhone regions.