Wine Tasting, Vineyards, in France

Bunan Harvest (Bandol, Provence)

Podcast on wineterroirs !Microson #2 :9 minutes of harvest live

August 22nd, La Cadière d'Azur (Provence).
No, global warming has'nt worsened yet to such an extent that Bandol's Mourvèdre is being harvested that early ! Today is the first harvest day at the Domaine Bunan of Bandol, but for the early-ripening Sauvignon only. This first rehearsal day of the harvest season is taking place in the small (0,5 hectare) Bélouvé plot located between Le Castellet and La Cadière d'Azur.
The weather is optimal today, warm but not too much, and the pickers began to work at 7 am. There are 12 of them, plus 2 bucket-carriers and the tractor driver. Later, several members of the Bunan family, including children, will join for this first day.
Michel Ferrus, viticulture manager, oversees how the pickers work, looks for forgotten clusters behind them and checks in the gondola for undesirable grapes or leaves. He was originally an independent vigneron (bringing his grapes the the local coop) somewhere else before working at Domaine Gentile, an organic estate with high, qualitative farming standards in Corsica. Thereafter he chose to work on the continent for family reasons and was hired by Bunan. He says that the job here is exciting and that he likes the way the Bunans trust his work in the vineyard.
I first speak to Jennifer and Jerome [picture on the left]. Most pickers have already worked in a vineyard, but Michel says that anyone can call at the Domaine and will eventually be given a try. As everything is picked manually in the region, there is work for those ready to be on the spot early.

The pickers have to find and cut the clusters one by one, which is not always easy because the canopy is thick and because the Sauvignon clusters are dense and short, with the stem often difficult to reach with the shears. They sometimes work blind and the fingers are at risk...
The Domaine Bunan has the Qualenvi certification which gives a frame to protect the environment in the vineyard. The philosophy here is sustainable agriculture. The generally dry climate allows it, although the proximity of the sea can bring some humidity and oïdium in certain circumstances.

Domaine des Campaux (Provence)

Domaine des Campaux, Massif des Maures

La Mole, Var.
The Domaine des Campaux, like several wineries nestled along the quiet valley of La Mole (a small river flowing between Bormes Les Mimosas and the gulf of Saint Tropez) sells its wine mostly locally. The valley lies in the middle of the "Massif des Maures" mountain range, a sparsely-inhabited large natural area between Toulon and Saint Raphael.
In spite of the commercial success and steady sales of its rosés on the private beaches' restaurants of Saint Tropez and Pampelonne and other jet-set locations, the Domaine des Campaux remains an authentic family winery with a very enviable Art de Vivre.
I discovered the place by chance, as I was enjoying a motorbike ride in the valley, breathing the wonderful smells of the provencal garrigue magnified by the heat. The valley seems to have a slightly different climate with lots of Eucalyptus, cork oak trees and vineyards. When I saw this "bastide" from the road, I stopped and rode carefully on the gravel road. A sign along the driveway which read "no more rosé wine" [pic on the left] was a good omen for the succes of the wines.
The first person I spoke to once at the foot of the old provencal house, was André Naveau, who started the winery in 1959. The farm (which was in the family since 1934) had at the time 5 hectares of vineyards, plus orchards and wheat fields. André Naveau told me by the way that the climate at the time was way less dry than it is today. He remembers as the many horses of the farm could bath in summer in the La Mole river, when the stream is largely dry nowadays at this time of the year. There was also more rain, particularly from the early autumn throughout spring.
The second person I met was Jacques Naveau [pictured on right] , his son, who now manages the estate. He says that the Domaine has now 32 hectares of vineyards, and that the production is mostly rosé wines (75 %), with 20 % for reds and 5 % of whites. He tells me about the high percentage sold to restaurants, especially in and near St Tropez, but also in Nice, Antibes, Paris, Lyon and Megève. Very little is exported (Luxemburg). As we speak, he answers on the cell phone to restaurateurs who ask for another few cases of rosés. The individual customer's allotment is sold out but he has to satisfy the restaurants who are very rosé-thirsty in summer. The rosé season on the coast (and St Tropez) even begins near Easter, when both wealthy and middle-class city dwellers come here to enjoy the fair weather. Easter is then the thermometer of the year, for the wine sales. The best clientele comes in june-july, not only for the vacations, but for weekends, driving or flying from Lyons for example, or Belgium (belgians know how to "faire la fête", he adds).

Tania (what a smile...) prepares the press for the harvest

As I was looking around with chai master Alain Alberny, we saw Tania emerging with her radiant smile from the press as she was cleaning it for the harvest. Tania Botchev is originally from Bulgaria. I had noticed her light accent that I had thought to be russian. She graduated from the oenology school of Montpellier and works here now.
They make 4 types of rosé wines here :
_a rosé "Vin de Pays" (4 Euro)
_a Domaine des Campaux AOC (base rosé, priced at 6 Euro)
_a rosé reserve "Les cannissons" (7 Euro)
_the OséRose, a special high-end cuvée (14 Euro) which is also bottled in magnum and jeroboam.
Alas, I will not taste the rosés, or maybe next year earlier in the season. The wines are not presented to competitions but they regularly come out first in unofficial contests, like recently at a blind tasting in Saint Tropez by "Les Toques Blanches", a group of chefs.

Domaine du Loou (Provence)

Two young girls riding their donkeys near the winery

La Roquebrussanne, Var (Coteaux Varois Appellation).
There are two reasons I wanted to get the story about the Domaine du Loou : First, I remember my father discovered the estate and its roman-era ruins in the late 70's and regularly bought wine there then. Second, B. and I recently rediscovered the Domaine last year as we dropped for a visit, and we were impressed by the quality of their wines and by our conversation with Mr Dominique Di Placido, the owner.
The Loou is located near La Roquebrussanne in the Var departement (Provence), roughly 30 km from the coast in the vicinity of Toulon. This is the provencal back country with valleys and wooded mountains all around. Altitude is 300 meter.

Roman-era archaeological excavations at Loou

Wine was already made there during the roman era. Researches established that wine was made here when the estate was given to a roman legionnaire of the 6th Legion, in 46 B.C. An archeological team worked there several years (1978 to 1983) and found the exact location of a gallo-roman villa, a wine facility, and a dozen graves. The buildings date from the 2nd half of the 1st century A.D. Many artifacts were found during the digs, several of them can be seen at the winery, like this 10 cm oil lamp [pic on the right] or this amazing antique stone press on the left (a reconstitution of this type of roman press can be seen in Asti, Italy).

Jean Claude Giamarchi, winemaker

Mr Di Placido was not there when I dropped recently and Mr Giamarchi being the one in charge, he gave me all the informations about the estate. Mr Di Placido built the winery in 1972 (his grapes were going to the village wine-coop before) and gradually increased the vineyard surface to the present 60 hectares.
The Loou has always been known for the quality of its reds. The red varietals here are Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Mourvèdre and Grenache. Red wines used to make 50% of the production, they make about 40% now, with the high demand for rosé wines. The whites make about 5 to 10% of the total. The Loou has been very active in the creation (and correlated quality improvements) of the Coteaux Varois Appellation in 1993. Before 1993, the wines had the lesser label of VDQS (superior quality wines). Loou is the oldest in the App, with Chateau des Chaberts (named then Domaine des Chaberts).

Olivier Leflaive Tasting (Burgundy)

"La Table d'Olivier Leflaive" in Puligny-Montrachet

Puligny-Montrachet, Burgundy.
I just discovered that alternative tasting concepts have been around for a while in France :
"La Table d'Olivier Leflaive" for example, has been offering a different wine tasting experience for 11 years now in Puligny-Montrachet.
The "Table" looks like a small restaurant set on the 2nd story of an old village-house (see the door and window on the left on the picture above). You reach it after entering the small courtyard and walking up a flight of steps. We immediately liked the cosy, family atmosphere of the place, with the fireplace on the left.

Inside the place

Domaine Olivier Leflaive is both a winery (with roots going back to 1735) making wine out of its own vineyards (about 14 hectares today) , and a negoce house making wine out of contracted vineyards (90 hectares). The Domaine makes high quality wines on both ranges of wines, and the ones you can taste at the Table are a selection made out of the 70 to 80 (Burgundy) Appellations vinified at Leflaive. The Domaine makes 20 different reds, the rest in white.
All the wines are vinified here in Puligny-Montrachet and the Chablis grapes, with the long distance between the vineyard and the chai, are hauled in refrigerated trucks.

Olivier Leflaive (left) with Pascal Wagner

While Olivier Leflaive drops every day at the Table and chats with visitors, the king of the place is Pascal Wagner. This energetic and charismatic sommelier speaks fluent german (he is half german by his mother, lived in Saarbrücken) and english, in addition to french, and goes from table to table to pour the wines, to explain in detail the hows and whys of each wine you could have a question about, and even to joke or tell a side story about another (discreet) star of the place (I concede, this was my question here) : Resine, the dog. Pascal studied oenology in Beaune, then worked in different wineries across France, until the day he had a daughter and chose to settle down here. He is also a musician (he worked for CBS), and Olivier Leflaive who was a guitarist and an active element of the Paris music scene until 1982 felt the right pulse and hired him. A picture pinned against a lamp shows Pascal with japanese sommelier Shinya Tasaki, during his visit here.
There are two formulas (which are changed every 5 weeks or so) for the tasting : the "Degustation Selection", with 7 white wines offered with a meal (39 Euro), or the "Grande Degustation" (49 Euro), with 15 wines including 3 reds, served 2 or 3 in a row, all with good-size pours. We chose the latter, and with that, we had Charcuterie from Burgundy (paté persillé and terrine), then Blanquette de Blanc de Volaille with assorted vegetables (and good, tasty bread all along the meal), then a Cheese selection (5 different) and coffee and Valrhona.