Wine Tasting, Vineyards, in France

Rare varieties wine event

Tasting wines from rare varieties

Sainte-Lizaigne, Indre
This october 21st there was a small wine event that could get bigger in the following years : The Salon des Cépages Rares is a small wine fair which was first launched in 2019 and is centered around the wines made from rare varieties. As you may know there were many more grape varieties grown in France in the 19th century when wine was made locally in all the French regions, then, with the replanting after the Phylloxera and above all after the ill-thought decision of the Appellation administrations to restrict the authorized varieties in the different wine regions to a handful of fashionable varieties, we saw the planted surface of many little-known varieties dwindle or even disappear. The contempt of the "modernist" wine authorities for tradition and authenticity carried in itself the germs of a future reactionary backlash and we all owe to visionary vigneron at Domaine Plageoles for example the quasi resurrection of the many indigenous Gaillac varieties. And of course on the front to give back these rare varieties their deserved place and surface, the natural-wine producers play a central role, because (beyond their attachment to authenticity) they are not shy of making wines out of the limitative Appellation-system boundaries; when you bottle as table wine/vin de France you're free to make the blends/choose the varieties you like, and we as wine amateurs are in return rewarded by what we can drink... Just thyink of the healthy comeback of Pineau d'Aunis or Grolleau for example, if it had been up to the administration only, they would have disappeared long time ago.
The fact that this wine event takes place in Sainte-Lizaigne in a corner of the Indre département is also a reminder that every region even the ones at a good distance of famous wine regions had producing vineyards including often from now-neglected varieties. There were just a few vignerons taking part, including Thierry Puzelat but he actually just came in the morning for a conference but didn't stay for the public event this afternoon.

End of Harvest (Loire)

The chai at Domaine de la Taupe

Thésée, Touraine (Loire)
This year I missed the harvest and had a glimpse of its preparation and also of its conclusion. From what I heard this is a very generous vintage, in spite of the high temperature at times during the summer, there was rain in august, the vineyard got what it needed to yield nice volumes of overall healthy grapes. This comes after two consecutive years of hardship for the growers (hail and frost notably), each with truncated volumes. The weather through early october had been very enjoyable, even if in the early part of the harvest in september, temperatures were pretty high, forcing picking teams to work very early in the morning and stop at noon.
Here I showed up unannounced at Domaine de la Taupe, Nicole wasn't there but Bertjan was, as well as several trainees or staff, moving juice. There were some new tools added recently in the chai/cellar, a basket press and a foudre. "New" is relative, both are used tools and have behind them already a long life rendering service to winemakers.

Caleb Treasure, Cloverdale (California)

Caleb Leisure

Cloverdale, California
I had met Caleb Leisure in Oakland a few years back, in the pre-pandemic Brumaire (scroll down to the 23rd pic). To rewind back to the start, Caleb has discovered the real wines when he moved to New York in 2006, this was then the early stage of the natural-wine scene there (let's remember Joe Dressner of course). He grew up in California and was until then not interested in wine, but here in the big city a friend of his at the time introduced him to the wine world, he went for example to the Hospices de Beaune auction in NY, then there were parties where everyone would bring an extra bottle to share and that's how he discovered these wine. His wife is English and they came over to England in 2012 fot two years, and natural wine was already a big thing there.

That's at the time that he first met Derek Trowbridge of Old World Winery, he's been Caleb's farming mentor when he started his own thing here in California. Derek is part of the Martinelli family which runs a large and old winery in California but he's kind of the black sheep considering his unconventional approach aiming at natural wine and with the related farming going along. At this time Caleb was not yet planning to make wine, he was interested in Derek's philosophy. At the time he was in London Caleb actually was looking into making cheese, visiting lots of dairies and cheese producers, learning the trade, trying his hand at making a bit of cheese. There's actually, he says, some kind of big overlap between cheese making and natural-wine making. At the time he was in London he also travelled to France, making 3 harvest season at Ludwig Bindernagel's domaine in the Jura (read aldo Aaron Ayscough's piece about a harvest there). That's when his interest switched really toward making wine, he felt this was pretty cool. After that he worked with Didier Barral for a summer and a long harvest. that's when they come back to California.
This visit took place in the 3rd week of august, and I met there as well Pete Bloomberg (Llewelyn wine), pictured on left, who started to make wine in 2021 and also works here, both for himself and for Caleb.

Ellsworth Wines, Sierra Foothills (California)

Jeffrey and Bryn in their porch

Penn Valley, California
The Sierra foothills has become a haven for artisanal producers, largely thanks to the pioneer work of members of the New Age group Renaissance who, under the guidance of Gideon Beinstock tested the compatibility between the terroir and slope exposures of the land with different varieties. Alder of Vinography explains this initial stage of viticulture in the area in this article of his. When I visited the vast compound of the Fellowship of Friends (named Apollo) in 2006 (story here) I didn't foreview that I'd come back so often in the area, but the Fellowship's work and Gideon's skilled vineyard management and planning opened the way for a cohort of artisan-minded vintners vinifying naturally (beginning with Gideon Beinstock's Clos Saron), putting this little-known wine region on the map. While vines were planted already there during the gold rush in the late 19th century, the revival of viticulture and winemaking can be credited to Renaissance and Beinstock, and the region got its own AVA in 1987. For one thing, what I like in the region is there's no endless expanses of vineyards covering the hills, it's very fragmented in a ranch country with a hilly landscape of woods and prairies, another world when you see Napa and other intensive agricultural regions.

Bryn and Jeffrey of Ellsworth Wines started their wine operation in 2019 near PennValley, a small community located near the charming town of Nevada City (main street pictured on left). Both of them were previously living in Washington D.C. and worked in restaurants (around 9 years of experience in the field), that's where they met, Bryn was at the service and Jeffrey was a cook. He knew the wines of Gideon Beinstock and then heard about Frenchtown Farms, the winery operated by Aaron and Kara, and came here to do the harvest with them in 2018. On her side, at the same time, Bryn travelled to Spain to do the northern part of the Camino de Santiago along vineyards (she walked some 700 kilometers in one month !) and she was impressed by the small communities of a wine region, she loved the life style. At the time they were knowing each other but not really living together, so it was interesting that their separate experiences somehow merged on a common awakeness that would result in starting this winery together. At first they worked with the help of Aaron and Kara of Frenchtown Farms, who tend vines and make wine not far from here.

Remembering Julie Balagny...

All pictures shot in september 2015

Tasting at Julien Pineau (Loire)

Overview of the Portes Ouvertes

Mareuil-sur-Cher (Touraine, Loire)
A beautiful summer day in the shade under the open-air chai of former Clos Roche Blanche, a wonderful setting for Julien Pineau's Portes ouvertes (open doors) 2023 where he received several vignerons who also poured their wines to visitors. This was june 24 & 25, entry fee was 3 € and you were given a glass to taste all these natural wines. Julien doesn't do things by halves and on top of tasting these nice wines and exchanging with easygoing vignerons you were treated with concerts throughout the two days of the event. I usually say, speaking of real wines, that you can't fake that, but here also I have a hard time to imagine a commercial-minded wine event yielding the same quality of energy.

Located outside the village of Mareuil, the chai of Clos Roche Blanche sits on the edge of the plateau along the vineyards circled by woods (vineyards now owned half by Julien Pineau and half by Laurent Saillard. Visitors would reach the plateau after following a bumpy (and rocky) dirt road (seems I was the only one to come by motorbike) and parked along the vineyards. There were paintings hanging here and there including one at the end of a vine row, or other on trees (I have to ask for the artist's name). And of course saturday evening there was the Dîner de Vignerons to which you could take part for the modest participation fee of 30 € (didn't take part, given all the great wines you'd be poured and knowing I couldn't resist, I'd have to sleep there...). All the wines poured that day were also on sale to visitors if they wished to buy a bottle or a case, the vignerons had brought enough wine for that. The prices were chalked on the bottles, tax included.
You'll recognize several visitors, fellow winemakers who for some of them didn't pour their wines that day but came to taste their buddies' wines and have a good time...
I guess we all had a thought for Catherine Roussel who passed away a few months ago and lived in the beautiful manor-like house below this slope.

A Visit to Mátra Winemakers

Volcanoes, vineyards, mushroom and wine...

Gyöngyöstarján, Matra (Hungary)
This was a nice visit to the wine region of Mátra in Hungary, a region where a new generation of growers and winemakers rejuvenate the winemaking culture. I spent the weekent with András Kovács and Kinga Toth who kindly invited me in their country house from which they tend their small surface of vines. As noted in my previous profile on them, they live in Budapest where they have their day job, but András is getting more freedom with his working hours as he's moving to a self-employed status, which will allow him to stay longer on the slopes of the Matra volcanoes when needed. András and Kinga follow the path of pioneer grower and winemaker Jozsef Szentesi who helped rediscover the forgotten (and nearly-extinct) varieties of the region and they've been planting a few rows of several of them on their land. Here's a few images of things done and wines tasted along a couple of days, not necessarily in chronologic order...

Japanese whiskies

Taketsuru 17 years

Fukuoka, Kyushu
While I'd occasionally allow myself a treat in a night bar like here with this Nikka Taketsuru 17 years (delicious !), I gave up on buying these whiskies even in duty-free shops at the airport be cause the prices have risen so much due to the influx of wealthy Chinese tourists eager to spend on Japanese prestige brands. But on the side of spirits there's a hidden side European tourists don't look into enough, it's the cheaper whisky range, often from unknown or lesser-known brands. You'll not find them in duty-free but rather in retail stores in the cities or even in supermarkets. You have a wide range to choose from and some of these bottles are surprisingly cheap, that's the ones I decided to try this time. I took some risks as I brought back 7 bottles in my checked bags (maximum for spirits is one liter), Airlines serving Japan often let you check two 23-kg bags which encourages shopping. I relied for my purchases mostly on two liquor stores in Fukuoka, I stumbled into their branches while crisscrossing the city by foot, these are Alliq and Yamaya. You can also find whiskies in the 24-hour supermarket chains Sunny and MaxValu Express as well as in the liquor department of Bic Camera.

Natural-wine bars in Fukuoka

Hsiao Huang, of Kochang

Fukuoka, Kyushu
I made a couple of visits to natural-wine venues in Fukuoka, I had found some addresses on the web but ended to visit other place after my friend Alex from VineyardGate sent me a tip about one place, just telling me to look for @minnano_kochang. I did my part of research on the web and ended up finding the location and more exciting details through the tabelog page devoted to this venue... Comments of visitors were also interesting and helped me really find the door, as in Japan, many bars are not directly on the street level but are actually appartments either in upper stories with no particular sign on the door, or also in basements. In short, when you stroll in a street lined with restaurants in Japan, you miss possibly 50 % or more of the operating bars, they're somewhere up there in buildings and you have to know by word of mouth.

By precaution I first came there during the day, I indeed located the building but failed to find the door as it was before further web research where I stumbled on comments pointing to this back door. When I came back in the evening, the people inside were surprised to see me, a foreigner coming for the first time to what almost looks like a secret bar is certainly unusual. Here is the Google Map page for the address, don't look for the street view of the building, it's a new building on what was then a parking lot.

Drinking, eating in Fukuoka (Kyushu)

Nice after-work party !

Fukuoka, Kyushu (Japan)
While Japan is known for having kept countrywide its age-old tradition of having good time with colleagues in bars after work, some cities like Osaka and Fukuoka bring with them an even richer food culture, given they were the entry port for foreign tastes and ways. Not that all foreign input were welcome : Hakata (an other name for Fukuoka) was the site of several attempts by Mongols at invading the country in the 13th century, these almost succeeded with the unpreparedness of the Japanse soldiers unused to face experienced and ruthless foreign armies. But two well-timed natural phenomena (a storm with changing winds and a typhoon named kamikaze) turned the tables, allowing the defenders to go from an anticipated defeat to a divine victory....

This story is mostly a picture journey through the eating/drinking mores of this charming city. Fukuoka which is located on the Island of Kyushu, is large enough to offer all the pleasures like other large cities in this country but it is small enough that you can criss-cross the city by foot without having to rely on the subway or buses (which are nonetheless very reliable like elsewhere). Even commuting from the airport to downtown is incredibly easy : 5 minutes and two stops, and it costs only 210 ¥ or 1,4 €. The city also has this interesting culinary particularity of the yatai : These are food carts which are wheeled to their spot every evening and that go away in the middle of the night. Even if tourists (which are here mostly Korean, Taiwanese, singaporeans and Chinese) love the yatai, patrons are also locals, company employees or salarymen who spice up their afterwork with choosing one of these carts instead of an indoor bar. This one here was located on Showa dori on the other side of the boulevard from Mitsukoshi. There's also one of these yatai which is famously managed by a Frenchman (chez Remy), it's very appreciated for it's French cooking input, I didn't try it though. the yatai gets all the plus of the tachinomi (standing bars), you're tightly packed next to people you don't know and end up striking a conversation, the only difference is that you're sitting and it's almost outdoors with the excitement of enjoying good time in a yurt, reassuringly warmed by the sight of the cooking stove...
This story is a first part, more to come about a couple of natural-wine bars here.