Marchand’s 2008 Gevrey-Chambertin Roncevie is as utterly different from his Brochon-based, generically-labeled bottling as its location below Champs-Chenys and the rue nationale would lead one to expect. (Most of Roncevie – a site which will be familiar to some Pinotphiles from Arlaud’s single-vineyard exemplar – is classified as Bourgogne.) But Marchand keeps this apart “on account of its old vines and fine selection of small-berried Pinot,” and the present wine deliciously argues his – and its – case. Notes of wild fennel and sassafras ally themselves to ripe cark cherry on the nose as well as on a silken palate underlain by fine-grained tannins, finishing with accents of chalk, cherry pit, and bittersweet herbs. I would anticipate this being worth following for 6-8 years. Quebec-born Burgundy veteran Pascal Marchand (for notes on more of whose handiwork see my report in this issue on the wines of Jean Fery) emerged to prominence as the winemaker at Comte Armand in Pommard (where I met him in his first year, 1985); worked for more than a half dozen years as head oenologist for the Boisset group; and started his own negociant operation in 2006. He works temporarily out of a facility in Nuits-St.-Georges that in his words “is not equipped exactly the way I want,” as a result of which he watches over the early barrel evolution of some of his wines while they still reside in the cellars of their trusted growers, while others are vinified in his facility from purchased fruit, occasionally even picked by a crew he assembles. He is, in short, the prototypical emerging micro-negociant, and if the quality of the 2008s I tasted is indicative of what’s to come, Marchand will soon be even better-known! None of the 2008s I tasted (representing the majority of Marchand’s lots) were due to have been bottled before late May, and most were vinified entirely or majority vendange entier.A Jeanne Marie de Champs Selection (various importers), Domaines et Saveurs, Beaune; fax 011-33-3-80-25-04-81.
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