To watch Jacques Lardière scoot about the cellar at the headquarters of Louis Jadot in Beaune, France, the crossroads of Burgundy, is to see a man in his element. With white hair cascading from his head like a puffy cumulus cloud, red pants the likes of which only a Frenchman could even think of carrying off, twinkling eyes magnified by spectacles and an ever-present smile, Mr. Lardière is a cross between a wizard and an elf, climbing over barrels and digging deeper into Jadot’s rich Burgundian holdings in a determined effort to explain the wondrous mysteries that keep Burgundy lovers so everlastingly entranced.

In his 42 years as technical director, supervising winemaking and viticulture, Mr. Lardière has traveled the globe promoting Jadot and Burgundy while solidifying his status as one of the most unforgettable characters in wine. He has led tastings, sat through thousands of dinners and greeted countless collectors. If a record exists for posing for most snapshots with awe-struck Burgundy fiends, Mr. Lardière most likely holds it.

I, for one, have run into Mr. Lardière in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and Portland, Ore., San Francisco and Pismo Beach, Calif. I’ve walked vineyards with him in Beaujolais and tasted Pouilly-Fuissé with him in the Mâconnais. Yet in my mind, I will always see him scampering through the Beaune cellar, a scheduled 30-minute tasting of the new Jadot wines turning into an hour, then two hours, the points he is trying to make never quite catching up to the rush of thoughts conveyed in a combination of French, English and Lardière-speak, a mystifying torrent of brain-twisting notions that communicate in passion and impressions rather than in smoothly linear ideas.

He was at it again in New York last month, though this was different. Mr. Lardière, 65, was stepping down. He had already turned over his duties to Frédéric Barnier. “The breadth of the new generation is very good,” Mr. Lardière said.