Château Bel Air Marquis d’Aligre (aka BAMA for insiders) is an out of this world wine thatshould be celebrated for as long as we have it. Jean-Pierre Boyer (90-year-old,72 vintages made) calls himself an “extra-terrestrial” as doing nothing like anyothers Bordeaux Châteaux and never following any trend.

This wine is the symbol of afast-disappearing era of Bordeaux, more on complexity than on concentration,intermittently profound, extraordinarily pure, with a sappy finish that urgedanother sip. A genuine expression of terroir. Amystical wine, untypical and rare, made as it was done back in the 19thcentury. 

Don’t expect a wine full of black fruits with strong tannins, muscular structure… BAMA is just the opposite, barely impossible to compare to any other wine: light in color, low body but remarkably refined, perfumed and velvety. We might rather think of an extra-layered and complex claret as it was done back in the 19th century. Winemaking is as well totally out of Bordeaux trend: no oak, no modern cellar, slow natural fermentation, no extraction, followed by a very long ageing in concrete vat (~3 years). BAMA is only bottled in best years (no release in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 et 1997) and each vintage is defying ages. The latest vintage released being 2012 and Mr Boyer is urging people to open his wine the day before, leaving the bottle vertical and un-corked until pouring.

This wine evokes a fast-disappearing era of Bordeaux, more on complexity than concentration, intermittently profound, extraordinarily pure, with a sappy finish that urged another sip. An expression of terroir in its most unmasked form.