Le Roi de Bué: Vincent Pinard, 2000 – 2025
Des vins du Sancerrois, celui de Bué est roi.
Among the wines of Sancerre, it is Bué who is king.
– Traditional local proverb, anon.
Naturally I tried to attribute this proverb, which seeks to raise the wines of Bué above all others made in Sancerre, to an author.
I figured this would be easy enough; after all, there are plenty of likely candidates, such as Abbé Vincent Poupard (1729 – 1796), author and historian, who penned a glowing appraisal of the wines of Bué’s leading vineyards, including Chêne Marchand and Grand Chemarin, in his Histoire de la Ville de Sancerre. Or there is the notary and historian Abraham Malfuson (1768 – 1847), who published a similarly entitled work, also focused on the region’s vineyards. And we should consider Louis Raynal (1805 – 1902), a historian and antiquarian renowned for his magnum opus on the history of the ancient commune of Berry, including its vines.
As it turns out, though, I failed. We will never know which historical figure or author rated the wines of Bué so highly.
Having said that, given the statement seems so self-assertive (it is the sort of comment you might expect from an inhabitant of Chavignol – the Sancerre commune with the most self-belief – regarding their wines), perhaps the person responsible was an inhabitant of Bué, revealing in the process their inherent and understandable bias? In which case, given that the Pinard family can trace their viticultural lineage in Bué back fifteen generations, several centuries before Poupard, Malfuson or Raynal were even born, at least one of their number deserves a place on our list of suspects.
Whether or not a Pinard was responsible we will never know for sure. But the Pinard family of modern times are responsible for turning out wines of such quality that I have some sympathy with the sentiment expressed. While Chavignol is home to the region’s most famous names – Cotat, Vatan, Boulay, Bourgeois, even Dagueneau has some vines there – there are a handful of domaines in Bué turning out wines of comparable quality. Vincent Pinard is one among them. And, frankly, walking the hills and steep Oxfordian limestone slopes between which the village is nestled, it is not difficult to see why and how this is achieved.
This report takes a look at the domaine of Vincent Pinard (pictured below) today, following a visit here in June 2026. My initial thought was that I would slip the tasting notes into a much larger future report, bringing together all the notes on the wines of Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé, Menetou-Salon and the like that I have tasted recently. By the end of the tasting, however, Clément Pinard – one of two brothers who run the domaine today – and I had worked our way through more than 50 samples representing more than 40 wines, tasted from bottle, barrel and cuve, offering a monumental insight into the domaine as it is today, and revealing how it has evolved over the past 20 years. In addition during my few days in the region I took two walks through the vines of Bué, on the slopes and plateau which overlook the village from east and west. With such a detailed look at the terroir and wines I felt the visit warranted a report of its own.
So here we are. Below I provide a potted history of the domaine (although it is a mere sketch compared to that presented in my Vincent Pinard profile), along with details on how the domaine has evolved under the direction of the current generation, Clément and Florent Pinard, news on the development of their new side gig Pinard Brothers, and my thoughts, notes and scores on 42 wines.
A Brief History
As noted in my profile, the Pinard family have been in Bué for at least 15 generations, and I have been able to trace the family’s lineage back as far as Jehan Pinard, an ancestor born around 1604. He was a vigneron, and subsequent generations were either noted to be vignerons, tonneliers (barrel makers) or, on occasion, notaries.
The Pinard family came through the turmoil of the Revolution during the late-18th century, and it was one Romble-Auguste Pinard, Vincent Pinard’s great grandfather, who navigated the devastation of phylloxera and replanted with grafted vines. From him it came to his son Armand Pinon, and then the next generation, Charles Pinon. Charles was serious about his wine, and quality was obviously good; his bottles found their way into the best cellars and on to the most renowned tables, including those in the Belgian royal court and the restaurant La Pyramide in Vinon, established by Fernand Point (1897 – 1955), widely regarded as the father of modern French cuisine.
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