At the vertical tasting of one of Coche’s most celebrated Meursaults at Tan Dinh, Robert Vifian’s famous Vietnamese restaurant in Paris, described below, I sat opposite someone rather special. Since 1977, via his friendship with the Rousseaus of Gevrey-Chambertin, Michel Bonnefond has owned half a hectare of Ruchottes Chambertin, the parcel responsible for Christophe Roumier’s wine. Not bad. I am told that he is also a big collector of Persian ceramics of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
But he is also a big wine collector who told me he has been following burgundy since the 1950s. ‘I have 40,000 bottles...