The James Bond of Burgundy

Winemaker Jean-Charles Boisset has stealthily built a $450 million oenological empire in France and California, one struggling vineyard at a time—and uncorked a lascivious secret-agent persona.

- CHLOE SORVINO

Jean-Charles Boisset quiets a long table of 50-plus guests in New York’s Meatpacking District as gold magnums of Champagne clink in the background. It’s a Last Supper– inspired meal for the French-born winemaker, part of his multi-city tour to promote a $395 coffee table book called The Alchemy of the Senses. As saumon à l’oseille arrives with a rich pinot noir, Boisset begins to explain his selection, an unusual blend of grapes from Burgundy and California called JCB No 3.

After inhaling deeply from a particularly wide crystal goblet that’s part of his new collaboration with Baccarat, Boisset admits that this dinner has caused him to miss the ten-year anniversary of his marriage to Gina Gallo, the third-generation face of the family behind the world’s largest wine producer by volume, E & J Gallo. During their engagement, they made a wine of the same origins together—blending, bottling and corking by hand—and then served it at their wedding as a symbol of her historic California roots becoming intertwined with his family’s own Burgundian heritage.

“Half of it is made in Burgundy, so that’s 49 percent of the blend,” Boisset says in a thick French accent before pausing dramatically. “I need to confess. I will tell you something very personal. My love likes to be on top. So 51 percent is California.”

Sex is clearly the theme of this Boisset soirée, where the innuendo-filled jokes flow as freely as the wine. Leopard-print silk napkins sit on a red velvet tablecloth, and a mirror has replaced the ceiling (“Ladies, be careful, because I can see everything!”). Dates never sit together, and Boisset encourages touching (“You could still caress the person next to you. I see a lot of that is already happening, which I’m delighted to see!”).