Wine News (47)

A happy wine A table wine I'd like to see on my table more often
That's the type of wine you're happy to come across, with a lovely fruitiness (plus the pepper side of Pineau d'Aunis) and an onctuous, chewy mouthfell providing a relishing pleasure when you swallow it. If you plan to have a bottle with more than two people, you better plan ahead with a spare bottle because there will be soon a feeling of deprivation among your guests.
This lightly-turbid table-wine cuvée which is named Poivre et Sel [Pepper & Salt] is a Pineau d'Aunis with a bit of Gamay, it was made in 2011 in the Loire by Olivier Lemasson. It's a carbonic maceration made the most natural way from organicly-farmed grapes. It is not only made without additives, but without SO2 either, and with 11,5 ° in alcohol, the wine is such an easy, enjoyable drink. Costs 10-12 € in wine shops and 8 € at the winery.

Empty glass with a soul Debates and articles around what is called "natural wines" have been intensifying lately, like you can learn by reading Keith Levensberg's piece, its linked-to pages and the comments. There is a very interesting phenomenon going on here, with some sort of hostile writings against this movement, which multiply curiously in parallel with the growing numbers of bars and restaurants where only wines with minimum intervention are served. Mere coincidence or emergency reactions prompted by what the marketing-designed wineries perceive as a threat ? The latter seems unlikely considering the small volume of wines produced by this marginal sector compared to the mainstream wine business. But who knows ? maybe these people are feeling the heat from a growing trend which could undermine in the long term what was until now a smoothly-running business with no one looking in the cellar how the wine was really made...
Time to watch again Mr Douche, folks, with his expert advice to a clueless girl who wants to know more about wine and at some point asks about natural wines, to which the expert sommelier answers : Natural wine does not exist, all wine is unnatural ... as soon as man picks those grapes the unnaturalness starts, don't ever forget that... Real-life debaters like Michel Bettane often have little more than this type of argument as line of defence, which is pretty weak in regard to the tasting AND DRINKING (the drinking side being often ignored by the industry advocates) experience that people love with these wines : many new consumers of these wines entered the natural-wine world not by reading enthusiastic agit-prop, but through the back door : going out with friends, being served such or such wine, which they find terrific and so easy to drink, and it's often only after the bottle is finished that they learn that the wine has been made without additives from an organic vineyard by a guy farming a handful of hectares by himself. As simple as that. The mounting success of these wines isn't the result of a marketing campaign but solely by either the word of mouth or the actual experience. Conventional wines may need marketing tricks like AOC or other prestigious estate imagery, these wines which are often vulgar table wines from obscure regions just need that youy taste them once. It's quite funny to read here and there conspiracy theories, like saying that the mounting success of these wines would be fueled by unfair and slandering comments against mainstream winemaking. The reality is just so simple, it's the wine, stupid ! More and more people try these __whatever you call them__ natural or artisan wines and feel by themselves that they're just so different, so enjoyable, and they just stick to these wines, who would blame them ? This may be what scares some in the mainstream wine industry, as more people are voting with their feet and begin to ask questions about what's in the wine. Additives in a winemaking-supplies shop (in France)
One guy (Nick) summed up the whole issue quite well in the comments section on Keith's page :

I think minimalist wine is a terrible term for the wines I love. Natural wines to me are exuberant, alive, exciting, and mysterious. None of those words are evoked by the word minimalist.
I don’t really understand, from a PR perspective, what you are advocating. When you think of the term natural in a branding sense, it’s taken 30 years for it to get as far as it did. There a few lone winemakers working super-artisanally for a long time, the movement has spread and grown slowly, and now that it’s finally beginning to catch on and get some mainstream media attention, you want us to change the term? This is farcical.
The word describes the way the wines taste, and it’s not going anywhere. It’s even spreading into other languages now with vinos naturales in Spain and Vinnatur in Italy. How would you even orchestrate all these disparate organizations changing their names at the same time?
Yeah the term is vague, and almost every time I say it to someone who’s never had to hear it, I have to explain what it means. But wow, there we are having a conversation about how wine is made and what makes it taste the way it does. That’s a good thing! This term wasn’t cooked up in a marketing lab, tested with focus groups for maximum mass-appeal. And neither are the wines. Other wine additives (winery-tools shop in France) This is it, I think that it's time for the wine industry to grow up like the food industry grew up years ago. It would be unthinkable nowadays to pretend that a naturally-made artisanal saucisson or ham, that is made without any additives, enhancers, coloring agent or whatsoever, should be considered as relevant as the enhanced, doctored lookalikes that you find on the supermarket shelves. At least for the food sector it's mostly clear, we can know all the biotech tricks and miracle products they used by reading the fine print on the labels. But speaking of mainstream wine, most consumers still ignore that additives-making companies like Scott laboratories, Lallemand, Chr Hansen, Laffort Oenologie, Ferco Developpement, Vinquiry, Gusmer Enterprises, Lanxess, OenoFrance and others are making big money selling tons of additives of all kinds to conventional winemakers. If mainstream wineries aren't manipulating their wines with these miracle powders, how come these biotech companies have been making so much money ? Time to get an instructive reminder, folks : please browse for example this eye-opening Pdf document where the enhancing properties of dozens of additives are clearly detailed. Spend time browsing the document and reading about the mouthfeel- and aroma impact of such or such additive, because that's what you get in your glass with the conventional wines, even if these wineries prefer to keep you in the dark about their cellar practices.
That's what some call an equally-natural winemaking.... Côtes du Rhone Seems some Côtes-du-Rhone wines had sexy labels a few years ago. I found this label on Les 5 du Vin and traced it to a collection of 22 sexy labels collected by an Italian web page. This is probably the most sexy there although this one is quite erotic too. Cave Chevalier Brigand is a winery located west of Orange. It's not clear if this cuvée is recent but I doubt it, I would say it was designed in the 1990s'.
Sexy wine labels surface here and there around the world, but they often adorn, to be frank, lesser-quality bottles, that is dirt-cheap wines. Poland, which has a small producing region, seems to have its own naked-labels wines. I'm afraid the wine here is a quick booze of the worst kind, but I'd certainly try it if I had the opportunity. Bottled in Algeria This picture of a cork lying in the sand on a beach in Algeria was shot by a close relative of mine who has been working several months there recently. When I saw his picture I asked him to let me use it, as the news brought up recently the wine and booze issue in Algeria. This former French colony has been through a shaky History since its independance in 1962, with drab economical prospects, bursts of awfully-bloody internal violence (150 000 killed in the 1990s'), and its people voting with their feet by doing all they can to come back under the French umbrella. But as if a bleak horizon at home wasn't enough, the Algerians are now threatening (and closing down) their own bars...
The mainstream media doesn't say a lot about it, but bars are increasibly under violent attack in Algeria. Proof that in the muslim world today, you don't need to have an arab spring followed by its islamofascist takeover to witness all the intolerance and violence that go with it. Following many muslim countries in the path to self destruction, Algeria has been doing its part eagerly and with great conviction. Like elsewhere in the region, a large share of the population endorses the islamist narrative, and salafists, who call regularly for the closing of all bars, control 30 % of the mosques there. The violent islamization moved up a gear recently with physical repression against bars and bar owners all over the country, initiated not only by islamist henchmen, but by the government itself (which probably thinks it will survive if it preempts the Taliban agenda), leading to the closing of most of them. Following attacks on bars, threats and other violence, some 2000 bars have been forced to close along the last 3 years. The linked articles says that for every closed bar, three illegal booze joints may probably open.
Algeria's altitude Plateaus offers ideal conditions for vine growing, and Algerian wine has been until 1962 a booming commodity, helping develop the local economy. After 1962, following the independance and the violent ethnic cleansing that followed, the wine production dwindled year after year, althouth there was still a steady consumption of wine and other alcoholic beverage by locals. The Kabyles, or Berbers, who were the indigenous population living in the area before the arab invasion starting in the 7th century, resist the move and try to keep supply lines open, but not with much hope in the long term. The linked article (in French), which was found on a kabyle website, says that Algerians drink 1,1 million hectoliters of beer, 500 000 hectoliters of wine and 90 000 hectoliters of spirits a year. You can also learn about the black-market improvised bars along the road and elsewhere.
Read this Algerian visit report (in French) by an indigenous Kabyle living in France : he saw a country where islamofascism is thriving, with intolerance and crime rising. Censored picture of Albert Camus A very funny censorship attempt by some obscure French politician, probably of the same kind who target regularly the print media for articles deemed as "encouraging alcohol consumption through painting a favorable coverage of a wine drinking experience".
In the southern city of Clapiers, in the Hérault département, a public library named from the French writer Albert Camus had on its facade a giant portrait of Albert Camus by photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, where Camus is seen on this picture smoking a cigarette, like he was most of the time in real life then (who didn't smoke anyway at that time ?). Whatever, a local regional elected politician from the Green Party asked that the picture be removed and sued the library... because of the shocking cigarette. This enlightened individual going under the name of Thierry Teulade said that there was a public park and a stadium right near with lots of youth and mothers who could be unsettled by the view of the picture [my dear...], and there was also a pharmacy, and, the guy continued, "what would a person in the middle of a chemotherapy would feel, looking at this picture" ? The censorship attempt and lawsuit was reported by the local newspapers and the judge has yet to give his judgement----- What can we do, my friend, in the face of this ? I'm afraid nothing, just look at the human comedy and try to build up on positive things.... The French greens are sometimes puzzling, they're an offshoot from the urban extreme left and are known to have a pavlovian tendency toward censorship and thought police, but taking down giant pictures is strange, it makes them look so Talibanesque. This by the way could explain some of their bizarre bed sharing these last years.
Here's the linked article in French. Mesmerizing wine names (again) Another funny way to remember appellations and wine regions, in the same vein that this one for those impossible variety names : Richard Hemming strikes again with this à-la-Tom-Lehrer ballad where the rhythm and melody will help you catch and remember the names of many wine regions, whether you have been there or not. The guy is a wine writer at Jancisrobinson.com but doesn't take himself too seriously. Just watch this a couple of times and I'm pretty sure that you'll keep these weird names in a corner of your mind and who knows, try to find the wines one day (more arduous for sure...). I wish I could play music like he does, too bad I wasn't trained when I was a kid. Found again on the Belgian wine blog Wine-Itch. Wine in the hood... You know what ? sometimes wine tasting is way too serious and boring, so when I'm bending on this mood, I go to youtube and watch Sadat X, this guy is the antidote to sanctimonious wine science and connoisseurship. Like Gary Vaynerchuk, he may often drop a few words about the Jets, but with a difference, Sadat X has this self-deprecating humor and this street slang which is so fun to hear on a wine context, and the guy's shows are not for a business of some kind or for self-promotion, but just for fun, even if an outrageous fun considering the wines he reviews (and which he shakes outrageously)... Processed cheese or industrial wine... You may have heard (if you haven't watched it) about this scathing-parody movie named Borat which is several years old now. It is quite a funny movie where a man pretending to be some sort of journalist/Ambassador of an obscure former Soviet republic discovers the United States whith his TV-camera team. The whole movie except the first minutes are shot in the US like a journalistic road movie report, I mean that it's obvious that the film crew and the main character act like if they were shooting a documentary, so that the other people in the movie are real-life people playing unknowingly a role (if a parodic one) in the movie. While at time quite outrageous in the way the director trapped the anonymous (and unaware) "actors" randomly across the United States (this is forced laugh sometimes), it has a few hilarious scenes, like this one which for some reason isn't actually part of the movie and is among the deleted scenes :
Our supposedly traveller from Kazakhstan is visiting a supermarket in the middle of the country and asks the store manager for a visit (I guess he told him that there were no such plentiful supermakets in Kazakhstan). He walks to the processed-cheese aisle and points his finger to every each of the displayed cheese, row after row, asking with his faked foreign accent what it is, to which the store manager indefatigably answers "Cheese".... To be frank, when I first saw this scene, I couldn't but think immediately to the wine aisles of the supermarkets, be it in France or elsewhere, because we have the same dichotomy : all these labels on one side with different appellations or estates making you believe you're looking at a diverse production, and actually you have often a product inside which is uniformly processed and loaded with corrective additives, nullifying the terroir character of the product. Interesting scene to ask ourselves questions about what the food-and-drink business is making us buy everyday.
The Borat guy is preparing another outrageous movie about an arab dictator coming for a visit in America. Be ready for more bad-taste scenes...

[Edit] Kazakhstan where the Borat film was perceived as an insult is slowly considering that the until-now-hated "mockumentary" may turn to be a blessing for tourism, as visas demands has soared tenfold (See this article from the New York Post).
Also : During an official championship ceremony in Kuwait, the "Borat Kazakhstan anthem" was played in the place of the real Kazakhstan anthem, a staff of the sport event having made a rapid search and download of the anthems on the internet without double checks. The Kazakh government slammed Kuwait for this blunder (listen to the anthems through this latter linked page) French parents are better I read and listened to a piece on the Wall Street Journal recently about a young American woman and mother of 3 named Pamela Druckerman, who spent time in France and has written a book titled Bringing Up Bébé, which tells about what she considers the benefits of French parenting compared to American parenting. I wasn't aware that the French had some particular way to raise their children, but why not, it's always good news to learn the good sides of one's culture. In spite of the fact that the "French parenting" she speaks about may be the one applied by the educated middle class only, I'm ready to believe that the French have some ways that can inspire others, particularly for the food and diet, like she says in the interview. I thought this issue was interesting to post about also for a reason : wine education in France has probably a lot to do with the casual way the parents address the issue to their children : there's no taboo on alcohol and booze, and kids can often occasionally have a sip at a relatively young age when sharing a meal with the family.
Full article on Pamela Druckerman in the Wall Street Journal. Video report on the best winemakers in Russia Good news from Russia : a small gathering of artisan winemakers making wines that would fit the western natural-wine format took place a few weeks ago in southern Russia. It was the first of its kind and the people taking part (see these pictures and this video)are precisely some of the winemakers I visited a year and a half ago, namely, Franck Duseigneur of Le Grand Vostock, Denis Kuznetsov of Gai Kodzor, Guendadi Oparin of Semigorie (where this event took place) and Ivan Karakezidi of Stretto. Russians are more and more aware of the high potential of some of their slopes for vinegrowing, and many of them understand that by making the wine on an artisanal way, Russian winemakers can make wonders. Even natural wine is a concept they have a word for, they call it garagist wine (Гаражные вина), and this web page in Russian explains what it takes to make such a wine, both in the vineyard and in the cellar.
You can see in the video above interviews of the French winemaker Frank Duseigneur (Le Grand Vostock), of Semigorie's Guenadi Oparin (along the vineyard of whom the reporter shows the value of the rock-thick soil) and of Denis Kuznetsov (Gai Kodzor).
Source : www.winekuban.ru Soviet Champagne in 1956 It may be because of my russophile nature, but I love flying Aeoroflot and stopping in Moscow, and that's what we did to go to Japan (OK, Aeroflot prices are also very good...). One of the things I like, beyond a friendly service, is that among the many western movies you can choose from during the long trip, there are always a couple of Soviet oldies, little-known gems of movies which teletransport you straight into the deepest of the soviet times. This time I watched Carnival Night, a soviet musical film made in 1956 by director Eldar Ryazanov, with lots of music and choregraphy and well, kitsch. It is a very funny and enjoyable musical, with interesting photography, lighting and camera movements; the movie was a blockbuster in Russia/Soviet Union then with 48 million tickets sold. The story is set in a university where the newly appointed head-bureaucrat is faced with a festive opposition by comedians and musicians during the New-Year special evening in the school. Although shot during the deepest of the soviet regime, you can feel things or messages here and there that the director could pass through his film. And you can watch actual soviet citizens toast and drink soviet Champagne... Depardieu, his bistrot, his wine, his estate...and a wine movie (in French) You may know that Gerard Depardieu owns a winery in the real world. Chateau de Tigné is located in Anjou and Depardieu hired long time ago a winemaker named Philippe Polleau to take care of his wines. Depardieu loves wine as well as food, cooking himself when the opportunity shows up. He by the way also owns a small restaurant in Paris, Le Bien Décidé, where hearty food and his wines are served. You can learn through the linked page below that when Depardieu first began to make wine at Tigné, he didn't put his name on the label, but Bernard Magrez with whom he worked later convinced him to do it. He also befriended Michel Rolland with whom he works regularly, but says about his own wines : There are many wines at the same price that are bullshit industrial wines. This is completely honest wine. Gerard Depardieu feels involved in the vineyard management issues too, and you can listen to his view about the importance of the soil life (go to min 3:00 in the video), he doesn't use weedkillers and plows between the rows, and underlines that a meager soil (sol pauvre) is good to make wine.
While this is not very recent news, Depardieu also made last year a short movie on a vigneron story in 2011, named Grenouille d'Hiver (Winter Frog) where he plays the role of a winemaker who just lost his wife and is saved from suicide by a visiting Japanese wine amateur (played by Eriko Takeda). I think that he gave probably a personnal touch in this wine-related story shot between the frost-blanketed vines and the cellar. I don't know if it can be viewed on TV, the Internet or elsewhere, but keep an eye open for it.
Also in the news recently : Depardieu showed clearly his support for Nicolas Sarkozy in the election campaign (video), coming in person to a political meeting for Sarkozy (picture)
A Depardieu interview on Decanter.
Trailer of Depardieu's short movie on a vigneron.
Street View of his restaurant Le Bien Décidé (formerly Les Caves du Cherche Midi). Another optimist wine poster Another poster for a public campaign to encourage wine consumption in France. Like the one I published several weeks ago, it was an order by the French Agriculture Ministry, but this was in 1938. This era seemed very optimistic indeed, to have these wine campaigns all over the country, even if in 1938 the French might have been more wary about what was going on close to their borders. The poster was designed by someone named Antoine Galland. Modern Muses celebrating wine To celebrate the spring 2012 and have a foretaste of the coming summer, let's follow these three Muses who it seems did their grape celebration a few years ago on Champagne Fleury's vineyards. There are many harvest festivals (fête des vendanges) organized by wineries (some being too obviously marketing-driven, though), and I think that one featuring such naturally-dressed muses have a chance to attract crowds...
Fleury is among the few Champagne Houses working fully organic (in biodynamy since 1989) and producing terroir-driven Champagne wines. I found the picture on the website of Fleury's Paris venue, where you can drink not only Fleury Champagne by the glass but also natural wines from other regions, as well as buy bottles to go (wine list). Morgane Fleury who manages the place is also a comedian and there's often music events at her venue (see map for directions and Google street view).

Comments

[Stemless Wine Glasses]

very interesting posts indeed! A bit random, but your elaboration is quite insightful. Modern Muses hehe :)

[French Wine]

Wow, Fantastic Blog, it’s so helpful to me, and your blog is very good, I’ve learned a lot from your blog here, Keep on going, my friend, I will keep an eye on it.

[Marcin]

Poland was a big wine producer before second world war, now its starting to produce really nice wines still not commercial and hard to find outside of the country or in supermarkets. Here is link for Californian winery in Poland... http://www.adoriavineyards.com/en/Winnica.html
its hard to find good producers still but they rising from day to day and whole production is sold on local market.
Great blog by the way....