Abruptly-interrupted VineyardLet's bow the head and have a thought for these vines which were terminated by their owner. I shot this picture on what seemed to be Chateau Canon vineyards in Saint-Emilion. The uprooting of old vines and subsequent replanting for a better suited variety is common, even on famed terroirs like here, but what puzzled me is that it seems to be done (I saw such plots with 100% dead vines in several places) through massive Roundup spraying on the vines themselves. It could be because it will make the uprooting easy, the roots beginning to melt in the ground and offering no resistance. I don't see any discussion on the matter and there isn't much material on the web except this page about the
chemical killing of vines (but it doesn't speak specifically of vineyards). Plus, while some growers told me that vines could die from an excessive pruning (I don't buy that especially when 100% of the vines are dead on the plot), others said that chemical killing of vines is common when a grower wants to uproot a vineyard and replant a better-suited (or younger) variety. The question might be : is there a different way to uproot a vineyard ?
A Precious WhiskyThis bottle of whisky came to me by surprise. This was a few years ago. Some one owned me some money for a photo job but couldn't pay and he offered me to lend me a few bottles (maybe ten) bottles of different whiskies, some being samples with hand-written labels, as a guarantee, and I was supposed to give him the bottles back when he would pay. He told me that several of these bottles were very rare and expensive. I didn't pay attention and began to look into the bottles only years after. Being an occasional whisky drinker, I usually just bought the usual commercial brands, and when I looked to this particular bottle, the handwritten name didn't set off any alarm. Girvon, or Girvan, and, in a separate box, an odd number : 1964. I filled a glass and raised it to my lips... That's a strong whisky, for sure. Another look at the inscriptions : 47,8% proof. Yes, stronger than the usual 40% of the mass-bottlers whiskies in France. But the surprise was that even though this whisky was obviously strong, it was not burning the throat at all, or on such a gentle way that it was a pleasure. I was beginning to realize that I was holding a glass with liquid gold inside... That's always interesting to discover a wine or whisky or whatever without knowing anything of its origin or fame, it is like a blind tasting except that on a blind tasting your mind is working hard and looking for things. Here I was just non-suspectingly having an aperitif with an unknown whisky and awakening to the feeling that this was an exceptionnal stuff. I looked closer to the hand-written inscriptions and made some research and found out that I just had a one-liter (not 75cl) sample of
Girvan 1964, a quasi legendary whisky.
The next VodkaAs I prepared my trip to Russia last year, I discovered this new player in the vodka world :
Russian Standard (Pусский Cтандарт), a vodka brand targetting the market segment of the quality vodka. The distillery which is located North of Saint-Petersburg was founded by a Russian entrepreneur named
Rustam Tariko. Rustam Tariko symbolizes well this new generation of young and daring Russian entrepreneurs who invest heavily with the goal to be the best in their sector. Rustam Tariko also funded a bank in Russia, the
Russian Standard Bank, which was the first to issue credit cards on a large scale for the ordinary Russians. As he says in
this interview, he wants the best ingredients and parameters for his vodka, and he set his goals very high, choosing the best water in Western Russia and using the best wheat harvested on the black soil of the Russian Steppes. I exchanged a few email with the Company's headquarters in St Petersburg last year and had a long conversation on the phone with the PR person there about a visit for Wineterroirs. The person was warmly interested and then when the deadline went near, my phone calls would'nt go beyond the secretary. I guess they realized Wineterroirs was just a blog and maybe not suited for the brand's image or something like that. Whatever, I didn't have resentment for that turnaround and while in Russia I bought some Russian Standard along with other vodkas. It was definitely in the upper range of the vodkas found on the market there, and the basic Russian-Standard was well worth the 330 Rubbles that I paid for a half-liter bottle of it at the local Metro supermarket.
Back in France, I looked for Russian Standard and found it at an
Auchan supermarket near Paris. The 12-Euro 75cl-bottle that I bought there is probably the best vodka I ever drank, except for the 50-proof moonshine vodka (Samogon) that I had the chance to drink in Russia (see the last story of
this post). This russian Standard was definitely a well-refined vodka, a pure pleasure with a velvety feel all the way down the throat. I would even add a warning to our fellow drinkers : this vodka is so smooth that you may drink more than usual. I even wondered if they had bottled their high-end
Imperia vodka under their cheaper middle-range label to win the market. I never tasted Russian Standard Imperia but from what I enjoy with this one, it must be exceptional...
Electric Fence at Clos Roche BlancheThe wild-animals population has been skyrocketing these last few years in France, due to the good job of the hunting societies who manage both the repopulation and the hunting. Motorists (and particularly motorcyclists) know that driving or riding by night in wooded area in France can be very dangerous (they jump the road in front of you in a milli-second), but the farmers and vignerons suffer also big losses in the face of their voracity. More and more fields and vineyards are being protected by electric fences, and the costs are often partly covered by the hunting societies. I personally see very often deers or roe deers eating the crops in the fields bordering the woods in the Loire. Be careful, folks you're going into the fast-food culture.... At Clos Roche Blanche for example, the roe deers came en masse in the vineyards after the Cher river overflew its banks in 2001, and the problem is that they stayed even after the flood-water receded, it seemed that they liked it here... Of course they ate the grapes and the vine shoots, and one of the following years (could be 2003) Clos Roche Blanche lost maybe the equivalent of one hectare of grapes because of the roe deers. This had been already a tough year because of the frost and the heat wave and they had to do something. They contacted the hunting societies of the area and the hunters supplied the wires and posts to fence the whole vineyard. They didn't fence on a very tight way and an occasional roe deer could make his way to the grapes now and then, but on the whole the losses stopped. The organicly-farmed vineyards suffered the most from the voracious animals in the region because of course the grapes were more appealing, and also because of the grass between the rows, and lastly because at the time the arsenate spraying (forbidden since) made the conventionally-farmed vineyards repelling for the roe deers. This once-endangered species is now so prolific that the hunting societies have difficulty to bring their number down, and they now limit their financing of electric fences to the organic vineyards (good incitement).
This amounts in costly reparatory payments for the hunting societies : just for the "
Région Centre", the administrative entity where part of the Loire valley is located, the
region's hunting society paid 500 000 Euros for the hunting season of winter 2006-2007 for damages done by roe deers and wild boars and are said to be near bankrupcy. They have decided to reverse the trend and downsize the herds with extended fire power, allowing hunters more head counts for each animal type, especially for the wild boars which have become more daring and devastate the fields.
New World Wine rooted in the Roman Empire
I discovered this Tunisian wine on Yatchyo's exhibition opening day. Yatchyo is a
Japanese friend who lives in Paris and
she is well known for her flashy miniature erotic creations made out pachinko parts. The result is a serie of plexiglass-boxed artworks full of fantasmagoric manga-like characters. She exposed at the
Paris Museum of Erotism, a museum which has also an extensive
Japanese-erotica collection. One of the wines at her recent exhibition in a private gallery in Paris was this interesting wine from Tunisia : Cuvée Hadrubal, Sidi Salem Appellation produced by Caves Ceptunes, El Karmia Grombalia, Tunisia. While we're looking to the New World wines as a menace on the Old Europe, here are some sort New World wines which came a long way from their Roman Empire roots. North Africa has known the wine culture long before the beginning of the Arab invasions in the 7th century, and this Roman heritage managed to survive under this very different culture. While much of the wine made there during the French-Administration days were mostly high-yield wines for mass consumption, the independance didn't bring much bettering of the wine quality. From what I tasted here it seems that they're back in the game. This red wine was a pleasure and well balanced. This is a typical standard everyday wine with no harsh side, really a nice job that we've not been used to taste coming from a Muslim country lately. Ceptunes was created 6 years ago exactly, and the young company invested heavily with the quality of the wine as its prime objective. Mr Ludovic Pochard, the Frenchman who manages Ceptunes, explains in this
interview on a Tunisian news site (in French) the different steps he made this young winery go through until his wines won several international recognitions. The company owns a small surface of vineyards and buy the other grapes to contracted growers who are trained to do the right vineyard management : the pruning, the sprayings and the irrigation (this is the New World : irrigation is allowed). Ceptunes takes care of the harvest and of course of the vinification. They export 70% of the roughly 800 000-bottles yearly production. I don't know how much Ceptunes wines cost here in France but in this interview, Mr Pochard speaks about 1,116 Tunisian Dinar (without Tax) which seems very cheap. Look out for these Ceptunes wines, these might be our next-door New-World wines here in Europe.
Ceptunes info
of Northern Burgundy as he
was leaving the reins and the kitchen-keys of the restaurant to his son Jean-Michel Lorain [pic on the right], now another 3-star chef. No real retirement for Michel Lorain : He set shop on the other side of the street (the former restaurant location) and worked as passionately for the Joigny wines as he did to develop his gastronomic restaurant. He patiently bought plots on the hill just above the street in the early 1990s' and replanted Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. I tasted his Pinot Noir 2006 at the Côtes-Saint-Jacques and loved it : this 12-Euro Pinot Noir has well-integrated tannins and offers lovely aromas of jellied black fruits and underwood. But this story is centered on a forgotten variety that he successively reintroduced in the region : the Tressot. He blends the Tressot with Malbec, Pinot Noir and Sauvignon and the result is something between a rosé and a white, a Vin Gris, a high-acidity, fresh wine with light flower (rose) and fruit aromas. Tressot was still allowed a few years ago in the Burgundy sparkling but was later outlawed (another weird Appellation-rule move). This Tressot-blend wine was served on the Royal tables of King Louis XIV who loved it and allowed exceptionally the Joigny vignerons to print the Royal flower de Luce on the bottles and thus avoid the tax (couldn't the modern rulers have such grand visions for the General Good and help share what they like !). His very small production of this wine (6000 bottles/year) coupled with its affordability (8,9 Euro) means that they try to satisfy every customer with a few bottles at a time.
Great post, Bert. I love reading about obscure/lost/heirloom varietals be made into a good wine. I hope you'll open a bottle of Tressot for me someday.
Posted by: Jack | July 16, 2008 at 05:56 PM
You need to stay longer next time, Jack, so that I can give you tips like that and open a few bottles.If I come to California before you come back over here, I'll take a few different bottles with me (more backpain ahead...).
Posted by: Bertrand | July 16, 2008 at 06:11 PM
Hmm.Thanks you for news and site.Very good.
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