Tasted side-by-side, the Sable cuvée is the more giving of the two wines, with a greater width than the Cailloux bottling alongside juicer tannins. Regardless, the wine retains mouth-watering energy and finishes with suburb, pour-me-another-glass intensity.

As already mentioned, Bouland’s Bellevue soils are split into two cuvées—one for the sand (Sable) and one for the stones (Cailloux). These two parcels are only separated by a small track, yet, as Bouland points out, “the soil is completely different”. Terroir.

Not only does the weathered sandy granite differ from the Cailloux parcel, but the slope is steeper, and the 40-50 years old vines are on a specific low-yielding rootstock called Vialla—a stock well adapted to sandy, granitic or deep argilo-siliceous soils.

“Bouland’s 2021 Morgon Bellevue Sable opens in the glass with scents of cherries, plums, peonies and vine smoke. Medium to full-bodied, supple and giving, the sandy soils (and younger vines) from which it derives naturally lend it a more open-knit profile.” William Kelley, The Wine Advocate