Here’s the good news: this book is excellent. The bad news is that Marc Bouffard has only completed Saint-Julien, and now needs to tackle the rest of the Médoc, then Graves, and hopefully the Right Bank as well. We will have to be patient, as we await the next volume.

In Bouffard’s Saint-Julien: Vineyards, Cellars, People and Place: Exploring the Appellations of Bordeaux, the reader is invited on ‘the long tour’ of each of the eleven 1855 Classified Growths in Saint-Julien: five Deuxièmes Crus, two Troisièmes Crus, and four Quatrièmes Crus, but no Premier Crus. And when he says “long tour,” he means it. Averaging over thirty pages per château, Bouffard delves into the history of each estate, the evolution of its winemaking, changes (or lack of changes) in acreage, and provides tasting notes on numerous vintages. Each château profile includes detailed maps that make it easy to pinpoint precisely where every plot is located—far better than anything else available. In short, the book is a deep and meticulous exploration of the highest echelon of Saint-Julien’s wines

What is the book lacking? This might be controversial; however, in my judgment, the book lacks numerical ratings of any of the château or the specific vintage tastings. Some readers will see this as a positive; many are wary of reducing wine to a number, echoing that wine is liquid poetry after all! While I appreciate that perspective, when it comes to ranking vintages in order of quality, a numerical scale would have been helpful. Some authors use a five-star system, and I would have preferred Bouffard to use any metric to share his rankings. A good example of this is for the 2021 vintage, a notoriously weak vintage in Bordeaux. Without explicit negative language, which Bouffard does not employ, a score would have been clarifying. Certainly, the best châteaux can produce good wines in bad vintages, but some sort of relative value analysis would have aided the reader, and increased the usefulness of this text as a reference.

The other limitation of the book is its lack of an easy learning curve. This is not an entry-level text, nor should it be the first book one should read to explore Bordeaux. That being said, there are plenty of entry-level books, and few detailed ones like this. There are fewer consumers for a work of this level of quality, execution, and price, but I’m happy it was written. The level of detail is exciting, with information that you cannot get anywhere else; only on-the-ground reporting and intensive research can yield such a book.

As I read Bouffard’s tome, I could not stop myself from going downstairs to open a bottle corresponding to the chapter of the night. The 1995 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou paired with its chapter was delightful. The 1983 Château Léoville Las Cases took a while to open, but by the end of the chapter, it was singing. This is a book that practically insists you open a bottle, sip slowly, read, and enjoy. How could I resist?

William Kelly penned the foreword, and astutely highlights the book’s strength in its examination of winemaking practices. One might assume that reading each châteaux’s take on rootstock, cap management, yeast and oak treatment would grow repetitive after 11 properties, but it did not. Yes, “101-14 rootstock,” a widely used grapevine rootstock valued for its vigor, phylloxera resistance, and tolerance of wet, and moderately acidic soils, is a consistent theme at almost every property. Nearly everyone has optical sorters and plot-by-plot vinification, but the subtle differences in terroir and vinification choices yield remarkably different results, while maintaining the character of Saint-Julien. For readers who enjoy “geeking out” on winemaking, this book delivers. As Bouffard promises, this is indeed the “long tour.”

The book includes abundant statistics about each château: case productions, first, second, sometimes third wines, and additional labels produced. Several wines were new to me, and the book goes into the history of their plots, whether they were ever included in the Grand Vin, and how they are treated differently. Encépagement (the breakdown, by percentage, of grape varieties planted in the estate’s vineyards, not the breakdown on the finished wine) and yields are provided, as well as Bouffard’s favorite wine pairings for each château.

If you enjoy the wines of Saint-Julien and want to delve deeper and take the long tour, this is a book to seriously consider. The maps are exceptionally useful, the photos beautiful, and Bouffard’s in-depth reporting is second to none. While I would have liked scores to assist in comparing châteaux and vintages, that remains a stylistic preference rather than a substantive criticism. I recommend pairing this book with your favorite super-second Saint-Julien wine, preferably with at least 20 years of age, in a comfortable chair on a quiet evening.