Samuel Boulay

I find it beautiful that most drinkers of Samuel Boulay’s wines have no idea what he looks like—zero corruption. Originally from the Loire Valley, where he made wine in the Touraine, producing bottles legendary only to a select few who know, Boulay exists now as a sort of ghostly apparition within the Ardeche. When visiting Sam, phones and cameras are kindly asked to be directed at anywhere but him. One day during late September of 2021, on a particularly serene drive from Marseille to the Auvergne, a friend and I stopped at Sam’s place to have a quiet lunch, and to taste and to talk. Even with a visual of Boulay’s form now existing in my mind’s eye, I’m mostly left with an aura of his home and the mountainous, verdant landscape of the tiny Saint-Maurice d’Ibie that surrounds it, Sam’s physical presence a kind of psychic after glow within the overall image.



In January of this year, I drank a bottle of Rappapeo 2017 at Brawn in London (thank you P)—a blend of Viognier and Roussanne made in an old style; untopped so as to let oxygen in, and full of richly ripened white fruits, a dash of volatile acidity to seal it all together. It had been a long time since my last bottle of Sam’s, and an even longer time since our last correspondence. The next morning, and after some wild jet lag and Viognier induced dreams in my rented London N16 flat, I awoke to an early darkness and the sounds of a flock of wild birds, and to an email from Boulay announcing the birth of his granddaughter, wishing me a fruitful 2023 full of good wine and music ahead. While easy to write off as coincidence, that moment, in some indescribable way, felt larger than life. I believe that Sam’s energy runs deeply, and that like other artists or winemakers with profound sensitivities, Boulay is tuned into certain vibratory channels beyond the realms of normal perception. Perhaps needless to say, Sam’s wines follow suit; quietly sublime juices full of shifting textures and subtleties, markers of the sad and beautiful passage of time. Providing new angles and vistas of the Ardeche, an overall misunderstood region of fairly new context—but a place where Boulay’s work sings—Sam’s bottles, in the most delicate ways, ask more questions than they tell answers.




Spigao 2019
Cabernet Sauvignon / Merlot
$43



Ritournelle 2020
Roussanne
$45



Fractal 2021
Viognier
$45



Damoiselle Rouge 2016
Cabernet Sauvignon
$44



Rappapeo 2018
Viognier / Roussanne
$42



Frichetti 2017
Cabernet Sauvignon / Merlot
$42



Frichetti 2018
Cabernet Sauvignon / Merlot
$42



Fricheti 2019
Cabernet Sauvignon / Merlot
$41