producer profile

<p>Domaine Pierre-Olivier&nbsp;Bonhomme&nbsp;is the continuation and evolution of the now defunct Puzelat-Bonhomme&nbsp;<glossary title="729">n&eacute;gociant</glossary> project. In the 1990&#39;s, Clos du Tue-Boeuf&nbsp;was faced with many years of tiny crops caused by late&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary title="1135">frost</glossary><span>,</span></span></span>&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary title="1137">mildew</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> <glossary title="1136">hail</glossary> or general bad weather. Revenues were tight, and Thierry Puzelat, the younger of the two brothers running the&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary title="427">estate</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> wanted to expand&nbsp;by renting or buying more vineyards. His brother Jean-Marie, in his late forties at the time, did not want to add more vineyard and <glossary title="254">cellar</glossary> work to his already heavy schedule. So Thierry started a&nbsp;<em><glossary title="729">n&eacute;gociant</glossary></em>&nbsp;business, set up a winery in the village of <glossary title="683">Monthou-sur-Bi&egrave;vre</glossary> and sourced excellent vineyards and vine-tenders to buy their grapes.</p> <p>Thierry being a busy and ambitious man, he soon found himself opening a wine bar in <glossary title="747">Orl&eacute;ans</glossary> and a wine import company (you have him him to thank for the scarcity of&nbsp;<a href="http://louisdressner.com/producers/Vergano/">Mauro Vergano&#39;s</a>&nbsp;tasty elixirs!) The <glossary title="729">n&eacute;goce</glossary> project had gotten bigger than he&#39;d anticipated; he needed a partner. Thierry quickly found one in Pierre-Olivier&nbsp;Bonhomme, a young high school drop-out who had helped work a few seasons at Tue-Boeuf. Pierre-O, young and motivated, became a partner in his early 20&#39;s. The company <glossary title="729">n&eacute;goce</glossary> business was renamed Puzelat-Bonhomme.<br /> <br /> In anticipation of Jean-Marie&#39;s retirement from<strong>&nbsp;</strong>Clos du Tue-Boeuf, Thierry knew the day would come where he would have to re-shift his focus back to his family&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary title="427">estate</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> A plan was then hatched to have Pierre-O continue the <glossary title="729">n&eacute;gociant</glossary> operation under his own name. The switch officially happened with the 2013&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary title="1109">vintage</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> but Pierre-O has <glossary title="1104">vinified</glossary> the entirety of the production since 2011.&nbsp;<br /> <br /> Rather than start from scratch with new <glossary title="573">labels</glossary> and&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary title="363">cuv&eacute;es</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> Pierre-O has continued making the wines that put Puzelat-Bonhomme&nbsp;on the map: <glossary title="1036">Touraine</glossary> <span class="zalup"><span><glossary title="927">Sauvignon</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> &quot;La Tesni&egrave;re&quot;<strong>&nbsp;</strong>Blanc&nbsp;and Rouge, &quot;In KO We Trust&quot; and of course the infamous and ever-popular &quot;Telquel&quot;. Over the last few years, Pierre-O has also been able to purchase some vines with which he produces, amongst others an <glossary title="740">old vine</glossary> <glossary title="927">Sauvignon</glossary> and a red&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary title="283">Cheverny</glossary><span>.</span></span></span>&nbsp;</p>