Bourboulenc

Identity

Bourboulenc is a white of the Midi that does exactly the opposite of what whites of the Midi usually do: it stays light.

Where Clairette climbs in alcohol and loses its acidity, where Ugni Blanc stays neutral, Bourboulenc brings a low degree. That is why it is found as a principal variety at Bandol and Palette, two appellations where heat is the problem to be solved.

In the vineyard

It buds mid-season, about seven days after Chasselas, and ripens late — four weeks after it.

That late ripeness is the key to its value. In a southern climate, a variety that finishes late is one you pick in October rather than August, and which therefore does not pile up sugar under a heatwave. Its low degree is not a weakness of the fruit, it is a consequence of the calendar.

It likes the stony soils of the Midi, which places it naturally in the same terroirs as Clairette and Grenache Blanc.

What it brings to a blend

Little alcohol, and that is all the source quantifies. This entry says no more, because Pl@ntGrape says no more.

But that single trait is enough to explain its place. A white Bandol or Palette is a blend, and in a blend each variety answers a shortfall: Clairette gives weight and perfume but not acidity, Ugni Blanc gives acidity and little else, Bourboulenc holds the alcohol down. Take it out and the wine gains half a degree it had no need to gain.

The two descriptors on this entry — lemon and fennel — are tasting readings, not quotations. Fennel is the note tasters most readily lend to Provençal whites, and it appears here on that basis.

Where it is named

At Bandol and Palette, a principal variety for white wines. At Cassis, an accessory. And in the southern Rhône, where Châteauneuf-du-Pape's specification names it among the permitted varieties — one makeweight among thirteen.

Four texts, and a distribution that says clearly what it is: indispensable on a small scale, never on its own.

What this entry does not say

Nothing about its vigour — Pl@ntGrape uses no word for vigour about it, and the field stays empty, which means "not established". Nothing about its disease susceptibilities, which the source record does not detail. And nothing about its role at La Clape or in the whites of the Languedoc, where it is reputed to count for more than in Provence, but for which no source was opened for this entry.