Wine News (21)

Vines in Cheverny (Loire), last februaryThis is spring, but this winter was quite cold, or the previous winters were unusually mild, read it that way. I shot this picture of snow-platted vines near Cheverny in the Loire on my way to Joe Dressner's wine gathering in Valaire south of Blois. I spoke not long ago to Hervé Villemade (not his vines here) about this long and cold winter, interested as I was to know if that had an impact on the vines. He said that up to now there's no visible delay on the vines. The buds and vegetation can burst very quickly in may for example if the weather is warm, extending 30 centimeters in a week sometimes. The vines pushout usually from april 15. Hervé Villemade says that this winter season was normal, with lots of rain in autumn and temperatures of minus 10-15°C in januray-february with no rain. The cold is beneficial for the ground and the soil, particularly in an organicly-farmed vineyard : not only does it destroy unwanted pests but it creates thin vertical faults that reach deep into the ground and aerate it, bringing air and activity into the microbian life of the sub-soil. The previous two seasons they had lots of humidity in summer and no deep frost in winter, and the ground didn't get this positive cracking to aerate it. The cold did not hamper too much the pruning except that they can't prune when it's too much below 0°C because it can crack open the canes at the pruning cut, with as consequence loss of grapes on the clusters near the cut.

Fifi of Ten Bells and David Lillie of Chambers Street Wines Valaire, Loire
I happened to be in the Loire when Joe Dressner held his annual meeting last february (humorously dubbed Viti-Valaire International) and although being sick and coughing hard, I decided to pay a visit. Imagine a nice restaurant, l'Herbe Rouge, in the countryside south of Blois buzzing with a crowd of vignerons from France and Italy and distributors from the US working with Joe Dressner. The distributors came from very different places like the east coast, California, Texas, and had also probably attended the Salon d'Angers (Loire Wines Fair) and a couple other wine events during the same trip. But this one event was more intimate and Joe Dressner had found the energy to be there and enjoy the company and the wines. When I arrived at about 3pm, people were just leaving the tasting tables and seating for lunch. After chatting with Denyse who was having a cigarette outside, I said hello to Joe and to several vignerons and went to the deserted tasting table to taste a few wines. My throat couldn't let me appreciate any of the few reds that I tried but somehow it was much easier with the whites. Very nice surprises, in particular with Italian whites : Cascina Degli Ulivi, la Merla Bianca Monteferrato 2007, a beautiful white with 15,5° alcohol but such an acidity that you didn't feel it. light sugary feel too. Another white from the same winery that I liked was a Montemarino Duemi Salette, vino di tavola (table wine) : a 13° wine from Novi Ligure with a beautiful generous mouth. Then a white Burgundy from Catherine & Claude Maréchal, Cuvée Antoine 2007 was also fine, with a very nice balance and dry fruits aromas.
After that, I joined the lunch tables even though I had already eaten and chatted with a few people, beginning with Philippe Pacalet who was in good company and poured me his Monthelie 1er Cru Clos Gauthey 2007, nice and fresh. His friend Monica, who is from Brasil, pours me another nice Italian white : Cascina degli Ulivi (again) Filagnotti, Gavi 2006, a honeyed, well-balanced wine with substance.
Good bottles kept coming and I had more than one good sip, with somewhere in the back of my mind, my conscience raising a flag against the high probability of alcohol breath checks on the road this saturday evening when I would leave this party for my base. Philippe Pacalet is opinionated on that subject, he has only one point left on his (originally) 12-point-driving-permit after loosing a few points in Burgundy following a tasting with clients. The police didn't want to hear his story, he went into an argument and was brought to the police station from which he was released only after a few hours.I myself lost a few points due to excessive speed, including recently on the motorcycle on my way to the Loire. Click anywhere on this map of France to locate and have idea of the density of these fixed automatic radars - the worse for the motorcycles are the yellow pins, they flash the back of the vehicule... I think that the speed and alcohol checks are going over the board in this country. Could be a good rant and post subject. Among the other vignerons I spoke to were Noella Morantin, Pierre Breton (here speaking with the gorgeous Piemontese Alessandra Bera who made the nice sparkling Moscato d'Asti Barbera), René Mosse, Thierry Puzelat. There was also several Americans among whom Shawn Mead, David Lillie and Paul Courtright with whon I spoke a bit. For the info, David Lillie is pictured here with a glass of Marcel Richaud and Fifi with the very nice Cheverny les Ardilles (I can't read my notes, I think it was a 2002). Noëlla Morantin in the cask cellar We tasted two reds recently with Noêlla Morantin in Touraine (Loire). She has already begun to work on her newly-rented 8,5-hectare vineyards for her first harvest next autumn and inbetween for 2008 she made wine from purchased grapes. I'll not say it each time as people know how she works, but she makes natural wines using wild yeasts and minimum intervention.
The first red was a Gamay, she has 12 casks of it. Beautiful fruity Gamay, ready now already I think. She thought initially that it was a "thirst wine", a vin de soif, but actually this 12° wine which was vinified in a stainless steel vat, whole-clustered with 13 days of carbonic maceration, has substance and she decided to have it go through an elevage in old casks for several months. She racked it a few days ago into a fiberglass vat for a bottling somewhere in mid april.This wine is absolutely sulphur-free, but the labels are already designed and there's still the words "contains sulphites" on it. Remember if you buy a bottle, zero SO2 here. Retail price for the public at the estate will be 7 Euro.I remember a particular Gamay that Noëlla gave us a few years ago (a magnum) while she worked at les Bois Lucas and that we kept a few months in the cellar, so beautiful.
The second wine is her Cot 2008, also made from purchased grapes. I'm surprised by the fact that this Cot is aready so much round and pleasant, without the usual astringency found on many Cot wines, especially in the early years. Here the tannins are discreet though present, there is almost some sort of silkyness in the mouth.. The grapes were partly destemmed (manually) and macerated 18 days. We tasted it straight from a vat but she decided to let it age some time in casks, and she put it in the casks just emptied a few days ago from the Gamay. She thinks the old casks will bring some structure. Planned bottling : june or july. Public price at the estate will be 11 Euro. Ray Walker in Paris I met recently Ray Walker (with his wife and baby girl) in Paris. Ray is an ex-broker from Merryll Lynch who by passion for Pinot Noir has decided to change the course of his life to make wine. You might think that the recent events in the financial institutions were the cause, but he decided to make the move before the financial collapse (people who follow their passion are always smarter). After learning the trade in California with Ed Kurtzman of Freeman winery among others and spending his free time learning in the wineries in California, he decided to make the leap to Region-One of Pinot Noir, Burgundy. His project taking off, he has been organizing his move from California to Burgundy where he'll begin to make wine from purchased grapes later this year. He spent several weeks in France in february to set up things, find a facility, learn how to start a company in France, meet people in the trade in Burgundy and so on. That's quite an adventure especially that Ray is not even 30 years old and that there is a large cultural divide between California and Burgundy (plus the winters are very cold there). I played indirectly a role in this story (I'll ask a few bottles for that...) : after a night in a so-so hotel in Cluny, he looked for another place and went to the Maison Leflaive that he had read about on Wineterroirs (I wrote at the time that Olivier Leflaive was opening a hotel on the other side of the street from his Table in Puligny-Montrachet) and inquired for a room. He met Olivier Leflaive in person on that occasion, who helped him meet someone who had more vatroom surface than needed and could rent him cellar- and vatroom space. Finding a facility in Burgundy is already a large step, but he met other interesting people like David Clark, an expat Brit in Morey-Saint-Denis, and Alex Gambal from Oregon, both making wine in Burgundy. He has still many things to work out in detail but his Maison Ilan is taking shape and we look forward for the next harvest.
Listen to the podcast interview Ray gave on GrapeRadio. Didier Barouillet pruning Walking with Laurent Saillard through the Clos-Roche-Blanche vineyards in the Loire the other day, we saw Didier Barouillet at a distance who was himself also busy pruning and we decided to go exchange a few words with him. Didier is teaching Laurent the science of vineyard and soil management and seems quite good at transmitting his knowledge and experience (as said in a previous post you could hardly think of a better teacher for your first steps in a vineyard). He said Laurent was a good trainee, on which I asked if he wasn't looking for another trainee who looked to leave town for a better life in the Loire, he grinned no, one is enough. I'm sure he'll need one, Ill try again...
Didier Barouillert was using an air-powered pruner that is not very common, at least to me : the pruner gets its power from the pressure tank at the back of the tractor and with a very long rubber-tube he can prune a row to the end. With the large size of the tank, he gets enough power to work for hours when with the small units found on the market, you're obliged to let the engine running to keep the pressure. he says that he has been using that system for years and that's the most economic he knows. The battery-powered ones need a regular replacement of the battery part and parts are very expensive. Here, he has no such hassles, you just have to be used to maneuver with the long rubber tube.
After leaving him, we passed the 100-year-old-Cot vineyard of Clos Roche Blanche [picture on the left], beautiful, strong vines which have made all the way through the 20th century in their woody environment. Amazing One-Euro glass-bottle of wine Yes, a glass-bottle of wine at one Euro (tax included :-). I shot this picture in the wine section of a discount grocery store, ED, to be precise. Small-size discount grocery stores can be found in the town centres of France for many years now, the sluggish economy having pushed many people including from the middle class to shop there for their daily needs. The main discount retailers are Leader Price, ED, Lidl and Aldi, and each has quite a sizeable wine section, including with Appellation wines. I never buy wines there but I am sure that some good surprises await in the shelves if you can stand many disappointing tries. When I saw this bottle, I decided to forgo my pride and grab one before going to the cashier with the intention to taste by myself how such a cheap wine could taste. I grabbed also this Rioja 2005, tagged 3,99 Euro for an unbalanced comparison, the prices being so different.
The "Vieil Ecu", Vin de Table de France is bottled in Belleville 69220, north of Lyons.Hard-plastic cork, no origin indicated whatsoever, nothing about the variety. The back label says a few nice things that you won't find in the wine like ripe red fruits aromas, round mouth with silkyness [!], pairs well with sauced meats and cheeses. The nose is strange, cardboard, says B. Later, I'll hint vague burned-plastic smells. Mouth lacking substance, a bit burning, the 12,5° alcohol isn't balanced at all. But, well, it's not as bad as we might have expected, I mean this is one Euro, of which the taxes make 20%, then you have the glass-bottle, the store's margin, the transportation. We're speaking of a wine that is worth maybe 50 cents, I visualize huge tank train cars (don't count on me to bash a particular region...) full with the cheap commodity. After a quick taste, the rest of the bottle went down the drain. I'm thinking to the wine (red and white) that I buy in bulk from time to time in the Loire for barely more than one Euro a liter : first, it can really be called wine and I know where it comes from, I could even locate the vineyard if I asked...
The Rioja 2005 Vina Tesos is an Appellation wine. The back label offers more information (in French) : estate located in Fuenmayor in the middle of the Rioja area [....] 24-month elevage in the estate including 12 months in oak casks. Tempranillo and Mazuelo varieties, generous and fruity, etc... While also very generous themselves, the tasting notes on the back label of this 3,99-euro wine are less out of touch with the actual wine. the nose is not expressive but the (short) mouth offers substance and soft spices notes, with also a buttery feel. Could make it for a barbecue. The wine found in these discount grocery stores is mostly on pair with the poor chicken of the meat shelves, an industrial product without soul, but some good suprises may lay await (or may not)...
It is always noteworthy to remember that you can find natural, real wines for as little as about 5 Euro in several Paris wine shops, so, except if you're in dire shortage of wine and kilometers away from the right retailer, you better ponder the pertinence of purchasing wine in a discount grocery store, although we bought from a similar grocery store (for a picnic along the Seine) last summer two interesting wines.You may have noticed on the back label of the one-Euro bottle, the now-compulsory-in-France logo which warns the pregnant woman not to drink wine; I wonder if there shouldn't be a warning for everybody not to drink more than a single sip in the case of this particular wine...