I went earlier this december to another, smaller wine-tasting event, this was Vinibio, it was as you guess focusing on organic domaines. It took place in the Carreau du Temple, a beautiful piece of architecture, formerly a covered market built in 1863 by Jules de Mérindol. My feeling at first is that the event lacked life and cheerfulness, everything was nice, classy and spotless like the gentrified Marais neighborhood around, but it missed something warmful (but this said there was many workshops and conferences the other days which I missed). That was until I stumbled on
the Jolly Ferriol stand though, with Isabelle and Jean-Luc it wasn't only about people dealing wines made from organic vineyards, everything was different, a whole philosophy of life that has made their wines stand above. And in this regard I think it vindicates Rudolf Steiner's approach in the sense that a farm must be a living being, it doesn't suffice to just apply an organic farming protocol, it's important to breath life into what you do, something by far not all the "vignerons bio" do, and their wines can't hide that alas, notwithstanding the fact that many may have a productivist & conventional approach in the cellar.
I met Isabelle and Jean-Luc before, for instance at the Pet-Nat tasting fair in Montrichard a couple years ago -(27th paragraph on the linked page) but this was about natural sparkling, here they had a wider range of wines. It's too bad their wine farm outside of Perpignan is far from my usual travel routes, but I've got to make a detour one of these days. They've been running their domaine since 11 years and from their 7-hectare surface (plus a few for purchased grapes) they make 22 cuvées without any additives or anything added, no added SO2 even on whites...
The event wasn't crowded that morning, maybe because that day the entrance was for professionals only, but there was already someone at their stand when I spotted
them, this was no less than Thibault Simon,
the directeur de salle and sommelier at A.T. the exclusive restaurant managed by Japanese chef Atsushi Tanaka, a highly reputed venue for both its cuisine and its wine list. I understood that Thibault is a fan of Jolly-Ferriol wines especially for its wine-pairing capabilities and was ordering a few bottles for the restaurant following this tasting, and isabelle says they buy them lots of wine.
Speaking of restaurants, Isabelle told me they were just back from Moscow, where they had a terrific time, especially at Max's Beef for Money, a meat restaurant with a very daring wine list which opened a year ago. The people over there received them like Russians often do, very warmly and generously. The name of the restaurant is wildy bizarre, but there's similarity with one oddly named New Sammy's Cowboy Bistro which is also a terrific place for the food and the wines... Max's Beef is a meat restaurant that sources its meat from qualitative farms in Russia with the same demanding requirements than the one they have for the wine producers. They're also working on wine pairing and they had there a special dinner menu with the adequate pairing with the dishes, each of them with its Jolly-Ferriol cuvée (pic on right)...
And more important Isabelle Jolly & Jean-Luc Chossart also took part there to the first Natural-wine fair in Russia, the Gorizont Natural Wine Festival (this was tuesday november 14 and it took place at a venue that was a former hammam located near the Lubyanka)
, with special guests Филипп Шатийон, Филипп Борнар, Давид Леклапар, Изабель Жолли Ферриоль, Жан-Люк Шоссар, Стефан и Бенедикт Тиссо, Александр Бэн, Стефани и Эдуард Чеппе-Эзельбёк and Павел Швец or if you prefer [this was a SEO trick of mine to lure Russian readers] Philippe Chatillon, Philippe Bornard, David Léclapart, Isabelle Jolly-Ferriol [her surname is often mistaken this way] & Jean-Luc Chossart, André and Mireille Tissot, Alexandre Bain, Stephanie & Eduard Tscheppe-Eselböck (Gut Oggau), and a Russian vigneron,Pavel Chvets who set up recently a 10-hectare domaine, Uppa winery (with biodynamic farming - article in French about Pavel) in Crimea. Many of the French participants were in Russia for the 1st time and the event was a great opportunity to feel the pulse of the public in Moscow.
Another thing to make this trip special, they went to Big wine Freaks a wine bar with natural/biodynamic wines (glas saterting at 450 RB or 6,5 €) that had just opened a mere week before in Moscow (they had already a same-name bar running in Saint Petersburg), with an interior by Italian designers, lots of vintage furniture and an open kitchen so that patrons can watch the work. And like for all these venues and the fair, the owners are Vladimir Basov et Artem Tskhakaya, who also run the import business Real Authentic Wine (formerly known under the name Tre Bicchieri Wine distribution). these people are fully devoted to bringing the natural wines to the Moscow tables and amateurs and they convinced all these French vignerons to come here and take part to the wine tasting even.
Another restaurant/bar they were invited too and which has an artisan-minded cuisine and an exciting wine list is Tilda near Pushkinskaya (picture on right with Isabelle & Jean-Luc), they also had a great time there. All these venues are certainly good references in terms of wines and food in case you spend a few days in Moscow.
__ Jolly Nature, Cuvée M, a Vin de France (no vintage because there may be a couple of them) made from 80 % Muscat Petit Grain, 20 % Muscat d'Alexandrie; it's the version without bubbles,
the still M (they also make a bubbly of this). Isabelle says that having the two varieties blended is important because the Alexandrie brings the nose and aromas while the Petit Grain brings refineness and mouth length. This wine is alive, light, luminous with nice fruit aromas and an acidulous character, lovely wine. 14 €.
__ Rose Rouge, Vin de France (2016 but not printed on the bottle), made with Muscat, Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon. A turbid, light-colored red, terrific coolor actually. Vivid wine in the mouth with a light tannic touch, and samely acidulous with rose aromas, very fresh. 13 €.
This cuvée is a new one, it is the 1st time they make a rosé with the 4 varieties, and they made 1000 bottles of this. Speaking of restaurants, they each have cuvées they order regularly, like for Noma it's the Syrah and the Pet-Nat. We speak of the alcohol feel which is low for some of these wines, Isabelle says that when you don't add any SO2 you get a diminished alcohol feel.
__ On Passe au Rouge, Vin de France (no vintage printed, there's 2015 & 2016 in here). What a nose, a killing ! Une tuerie ! en français dans le texte...100 % Grenache, light sugary feel, with candy notes. Of course, all natural, no yeast, nothing, no added SO2 anytime like the rest. It's also a fairly new cuvée, costs 15 € at the domaine (tax included). Thibault from A.T. restaurants wants a case of this right now.
__ Jacquerie, Vin de France (no vintage printed, 2013 & 2015), made from vineyards belonging to a friend. Cabernet Sauvignon 100 %. Nice color, relatively clear red with milky tones. Terrific wine, fresh, with subtle spices aromas, excellent and only 14 €.
__ Chai Moi, Vin de France (2 vintages blended) Syrah, Grenache and Carignan. Nose : appealing with an evolved side and freshness. There's a lovely Madeira side here, intense feel in the throat, very classy. Has an oxidative something of a Rancio, pairs with many things, Isabelle says.
__ Syrahre, Vin de France, a surah with 3-year élevage. Nice translucid color, bottled 3 weeks before, Isabelle says it'll be a long-keep wine like always for this cuvée. In the mouth : Tannin, alcohol feel at this stage, the wine is finding its balance.
__ Muscat de Rivesaltes 2017, 16 % alc. Residual sugar, Radiates beautifully in the mouth. Golden color, no wood, ity's stainless-steel only but the wine got this color because no added SO2, Isabelle says that all the pale wines you see around got lots of SO2 which is also known for bleaching the color.
__ Or du Temps, 100 % Muscat (50 % Petit Grain 50 % Alexandrie), yields 5 hectoliters/hectare, mutage with 5 % wine alcohol, 36-month élevage in barrels. don't ask for a vintage here there are several of them including 70-year old wine, they make 350 bottles a year. Intense wine with aroma complexity on the nose, including black truffle. Exquisite, this wine rocks ! 56 €.
__ Entre Temps 2009, 100 % Grenache. Wow, very interesting and out of the usual, I can't put words on the mouth touch & aromas but this is lovely. Isabelle helmps me : Jerusalem artichoke. 19 €.
__ Au Fil du Temps, Blend of old wines including one 70, élevage in demijohn for a dry rancio. This is another dimension, another world, terrific wine.
__ Passe Temps. 70 % Macabeu and 30 % Grenache Gris, 16 % alc. Nose with a freshness feel, complex aromas, wheat. Exquisite mouth, sweet and intense, with a silky texture. Older vintages blended here compared to Entre Temps.
__ Cuvée M Pet-Nat, like the still version it's a a Vin de France made from Muscat Petit Grain and Muscat d'Alexandrie. Lovely bubbles, goes down well, Isabelle says she had the bottle carried around in her backpack for 2 days...
I also stopped a few minutes in this organic-wine fair at the stand of the Buzet coop (Les Vignerons de Buzet). The Buzet-Appellation growers still sell their grapes en masse to the coop : The Coop vinifies 1870 hectares with 188 growers, or 94 % of the Appellation surface and produces 32 million bottles (82 % in France, 18 % expôrt to 35 countries). This coop is known for being able year after year to produce 100 000 bottles without added sulfites, mostly for big-volume cuvées sold in the supermarket shelves, like the
cuvée L'Intact which you can find in rosé, white and red, thanks (according to the linked page) to a long technological research that enabled them to controlm the stability of the product
(I must admit I fear the worst about the hows & whys of this technological prowess). But there are more at the Buzet coop, and on their website if you click the "Vin Nature" box you end up with 5 different cuvées which unlike L'Intact retain their respective domaine name and may be closer to what we like to call natural wines. I tasted a couple of them
__ Terres d'Anthéa Buzet 2016, organic merlot & Cabernet Franc. Quite burning alcohol feel. 7 €.
__ Domaine de Michelet 2016, also organic. A bit more chew to enjoy. Also around 7 €. The cuvée is also vegan in the sense that they use non-animal fining agents [it'd be better if they didn't fine the wines at all...]. I learn they also make a light white at 9 % alcohol with 15 grams residual sugar. And beyond these sulfites-free wines, their other, mainstream wines at the coop get 3 times less than the maximum norm, which is a good point. Anyway this is important to remind that things are moving and that it's good to check these wines from time to time. They still have the typical marketing approach of big companies with an emphasize for example on their green policies (wastewater treatment through an aquatic garden and bee-friendly practices) but if they don't rely on technological tricks to eschew the use of sulfites (at least for the 5 cuvées domaine) and finetune their vinification there's hope for the coops for a better future.
Here is the Languedoc again, Domaine Aubaï Mema is owned by Mark Haynes, a Brit with a local French mother who bought 10 hectares of vineyards in 2002 in the vicinity of the village of Aubais, converted them to organic farming and choose a minimum-intervention type of vinification. He also later took over the huge building/facility of the former Coopérative of the village, breathing a new life in the local architecture Heritage and using part of the roomy premises for promoting tango, a dance and philosophy he is fond of.
__ Lunatico 2013. Grenache 100 %, their single vineyard of Grenache, the 1st where he applied biodynamics, 60-year-old vines, destemmed grapes vinified at low temperature on natural yeast in both stainless-steel tanks and demi-muids. Color rather clear, because picked early, I'm told. Notes of evolution on the nose and mouth, nice length. Nice glycerol in the mouth also, powerful wine and smooth at the same time, quite good ! 20 €.
__ L'Insoumise 2015, 100 % Carignan, vines also older than 60. Whole-cluster carbonic maceration. Mark Haynes always made this cuvée. Not the best carbo I had. 10 €.
__ La Douzième 2013, Syrah & Viognier,vines aged 25-28, both varieties fermented together on low temperature. the Côte Rôtie cuvée of the domaine, sort of this is the 12th côte of the Côte Rôtie. the first mouth feels high in alcohol, but that goes better with the 2nd sip and swallow. 15 €.
__ Liverna 2005, Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache, Merlot, 18 year old vines. Low temperature fermentation in demi-muids. Very appealing nose with sweet spices aromas. Swallowed : powerful, complex with silky tannins, very nice wine, my stomach loves it. 15 €, good deal.
Here we are again in the languedoc with Les Promesses de la Terre, a 7-hectare domaine (40 hectares if you include the garrigue where they raise sheep, the olive grove) which is farmed organic and biodynamic in the Corbières region at an elevation of 200/300 meters. the domaine was started in 2011, it is managed by Bruno Weiller; that weekend they also had a stand at the Salon de la Porte de Versailles (I could have tasted the wines there too), and Bruno's son Yohan was in charge of the stand at Vinobio.
__ Miéli Miélo 2015, white Corbières, blend of Marsanne and Roussanne. Fresh, easy-drinking wine. 10 €.
__ Clair 2014White Corbières, same blend with a longer élevage in 4-5-wine-old barrels, with battonnage (stirring of the lees). vanilla notes. Picking is later than for the previous wine. Nice saline end. 22 €. 3000 bottle volume maximum.
__ L'Oublié 2014, Syrah 70 %, the rest is Grenache-Carignan. Destemmed, vinification in cement tanks and enameled vats, plus 6 months in barrels. A bit astringent and with alcohol feel.
__ Partage 2014, Syrah. Astringency feel too. 17 €.
__ Dandy 2014, Syrah with Grenache & Carignan, bottled 8 months before. Has an evolved feel in the mouth, nice aromatic range, sweet spices, even something like coffee with milk. 16-month élevage including 8 in barrels. nice wine. 17 €.
The Facebook page of the domaine
Of the other stands I stopped by at Vinibio I'll retain this last one, of Clos de Caveau, an organic domaine in the Vacqueyras Appellation (Côtes du Rhöne) but at a rather high elevation
(200 to 350 m) compared to most of the vineyards of this AOC. Total vineyard surface holds in one single
block isolated in the wilderness along the scenic Dentelles de Montmirail making 12,5 hectares in Villages AOC plus another 3 in CDR. The domaine which
was previously owned by Steven Spurrier, it was purchased in 1989 by Henri Bungener's parent who had it certified organic (the domaine was already farmed organic since 1980), Henri taking over the domaine's destiny soon after in 1994, overlooking its day-to-day management. The domaine exports 70 % of its wine.
__ Fruit Sauvage, Vacqueyras 2016. 60 % Grenache, 40 % Syrah, 2-month-long maceration in cement tanks on indigenous yeast. Unfiltered wine. Low SO2adding, he can import to Switzerland which is restrictive in this regard from what I understand. Nice mouth feel, a well-made wine. Price : around 14 or 15 €.
__ Carmin Brillant, Vacqueyras 2014, same blend but half goes through oak barrels. This wine rocks ! Tannins can be felt but they fit with the rest. Each cuvée has a volume of roughly 12-15 000 bottles. This one sells for 18 € tax included at the domaine.
__ Lao Muse Vacqueyras 2014. 60 % Grenache, 40 % Syrah. Complex nose. Well-integrated tannins. Nice freshness, an elegant wine, really excellent, super good. Comes with a price : 30 € at the domaine. The bottles are nice with a pretty sober design.
I'm usually thankful to Google for letting people having access to our work (us bloggers/independant-writers), the Internet company has been the initial conduit to bypass the traditional media and get direct access to readers without the heavy financial weight of a publishing house. But lately there seems to be more and more a push for control at Google like in several major players of the Internet, not only inside the company like here but outside as well, it's worrying and looks like people in there try to censor opinions they view as not fitting the company's format of political correctness. That's something by the way we see also happening in prestigious universities that were in the past open to conflicting ideas and debate, which add to the worry. There's a dubious marriage of politics & technology going on that was prophesised by libertarian Internet pioneer Peter Thiel. The publishing of dissenting opinions in every field of life including wine was possible thanks to Google's neutrality, this allowed the general public tired with mainstream publications (including the wine's own) to have access to alternate views, the same way that in the late Soviet Union, people tired from the disconnect between reality and the official press would turn to Samizdat for alternate news and reading. I understand the traditional media also pushes to limit the influence of its non-traditional competitors but the solution against dwindling readership for major publications isn't to have the new Samizdat silenced by Google, but maybe to just begin reporting more genuinely on what happens on the real life, readers will notice...
This trend makes it more obvious that companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter should be treated like utilities. For many people for example, Facebook is the only way to connect with their readership and the World at large and it thus should be regulated so that people aren't silenced for inconvenient opinions according to someone at Facebook. We may not care now because we don't feel close to the censored voices, but whatever you may think of this particular case (a dissenting voice in what seems to be a heavily-normative campaign for "gender equality" inside Google) tomorrow this may be your turn and there'll be no one left to defend you. And to be sure, we all love Google, I'd say to them, just stay loyal to your initial format, don't try to impair the free exchange of ideas, others tried and they failed miserably...
Edit : Class action lawsuit just starting, will shed new light and juicy details on what is going on inside Google...
OMG, I'm really looking for trouble with Google here, but you know me, I can't refrain from an occasional provocation (I always thought it's good for reflexes and stamina) and I just cross my fingers that the dreaded Googlebot will not crawl through this, or I'm done as it seems the Internet giant also deals with those debating about the intricate fluid dynamics of climate.... So I'll rub again the wrong way our conventional narrative about how unique the weather patterns are today : I stumbled on this urgent old news about the dwindling ice cover in Artic, and I thought you'd like to know, groundhog-day style, that news are sometimes just old news that everybody forgot in the meantime... I hope you can read the fine print, it's kind of heartening to learn that we've been through the same alarmist discourse in 1940 :
The ice of the Artic Oceans is melting so rapidly than one-third of it has disappeared in 50 years....In the fall of 1939 the Sedov was caught in the ice of the Laptev sea between the northern coast of Siberia and the new Siberian Islands....The significance of this involuntary voyage comes from comparison with those taken by the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen in 1893. His specially constructed ship, the Fram, followed a roughly similar course. Nansen recorded a maximum lee thickness of 365 centimeters. In similar positions the captain of the Sedov found the greatest thickness was 218 centimeters. The lowest temperature he recorded was 44 degrees below zero [minus 42 C]. Nansen ran into a minimum of 52 below [minus 46 C]..... The higher winter temperatures, American experts say, might be considered a temporary fluctuation, but the ice thickness measurements show clearly that the trend to warmer weather in the Artic basin must have been continuous for some years....
Read this Climategate document (page 153-154 - september 28 2009) where scientists exchange emails between themselves, hidden from public scrutiny, to try to cook the data so that this warm blip of 1939-1940 doesn't ruin their narrative and predetermined conclusions.
We want a Black Eye Friday over here in France !! When I heard about it, I thought this Black Eye Friday or Mad Friday was another of these shopping-frenzy days like Black Friday,
but it's different, it's about partying with what looks like unlimited drinking. According
to Wikipedia, Mad Friday, Frantic Friday or Black Eye Friday is a nickname for the last Friday before Christmas in the United Kingdom. It is the most popular night for office and factories Christmas parties, which consequently makes it one of the busiest nights in the year for ambulances and the police... It's outrageous, extreme but also Gargantuan and wild and I have a hard time deciding what to think about this.
This photo report is really incredibly surprising for me, and to be frank I envy the Brits for keeping this wild edge and over-the-board love for partying excesses and late-night drinking, even though we're told here that it's such a good thing we civilized French don't behave like that blah blah and learnt to moderate our mood. Moderation is certainly safer but there's tepidity in moderation and I love this let-off-steam style instead, unbridled and crazy. In the U.K. it seems like an institutional yearly intiation, something like spring break in the U.S. and the only opportunity of the French youth to get lost in a similar way is the Fête de la Musique in june, but I dont't know, this seems also a pale version of the British Mad Friday...
Picture source : Daily Mail, Daily express
Speaking of Russia and its new wine region (kind of) Crimea, I heard recently that the road from the Taman peninsula to Crimea is nearing completion at the edge of the sea of Azov and the Black Sea. I had shot this video a few years ago about this controversial road/dyke while venturing there
with my Russian friends long time before the area made the headlines of international news, at the time it was just a long dirt road that had been built starting in 2003,
reaching far away through the Kerch strait but
stopping short of reaching the Tuzla island after the Ukrainian authorities protested about the move.
At the time (this was 2011) Russians would go there for a walk, for the sea breeze and for fishing, also for peeking at the port of Kerch in the far which was part of Russia before the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine in 1954. This was a few years before Crimea joined Russia in an also-disputed referendum in 2014, and after then construction resumed of course, the road has been extended, the final touch being the bridge that will be high enough for freighters and tankers to pass through. The road traffic should be open in a year from now, in december 2018, which will help a lot the small region for its exchanges, both private and business as well as for improving the level of services and utilities that are way behind the ones on mainland Russia. The small region faced a drop in mainland-Russia visitors in 2017 due to the lack of infrastructure and services at a time Russian tourists are returning to Turkey and will soon come back en masse to Egypt after a review of the security procedures at their airports there. The wine scene in Crimea is also on the move over there after decades of communist rule when volume mattered the most, and new names of boutique wineries are popping up, like the Uppa Winery of Pavel Chvets who farms on biodynamics there. The region 2500 years ago in its Ancient-Greece former life was a major center of wine production, and there are chances it resumes its traditions today.
You can see the Tuzla island at min. 2:06 from what was the end of the road/dyke at the time, and in the last images you can guess the harbor cranes in Kerch, then part of Ukraine.
I was lucky thanks to Aaron and Chez la Vieille (and thanks to his friend Josh)to get a bottle of this cuvée that is virtually impossible to find in France, and we ended up opening it recently at home before Christmas. Again, a simple pleasure from a simple wine without artifice and no added SO2. We're waiting for next year's Primeur to be available here. here's again my story about it reprinted from the Bojo-Nouveau story :
This cuvée of Nouveau is humoristically named Déprimeur (déprime or déprimé means depressed in French), it's made in the vicinity of Dijon (a region that was covered with vineyards a century ago or more) by Marc Soyard of Domaine de la Cras, a young vigneron who farms organic and vinifies without SO2, this was really delicious as well, grab one also if you see a bottle somewhere. I called Marc to know more about this cuvée, he told me it was not supposed to exist in the first place, his intent was to make a try of full carbonic maceration in order to blend the result to the other part, as he usually does semi-carbonic (after a week, he uses to foot-stom the grapes to have juice flow). But it happened at that time that his Japanese importer agent [Kinoshita if I'm right] visited the facility, tasted this carbonic just after pressing and said he needed a Primeur, so he had virtually to sell them the whole batch. It's by the way of course already in the natural-wine bars in Tokyo (if not already sold out), like here (picture to prove it) at Winestand Waltz... Marc made 580 bottled in all of this great Déprimeur, and 360 were shipped to Japan, the rest being either sold at the domaine to visitors passing by (at the retail price of 9 € tax included) or to the caviste Naturellement Vin (based near avallon, Burgundy) who happened to pass through at this time. Lucky people... But there'll be more next year, this experiment will become a regular cuvée from now...
On the export side, Marc Soyard wines are exported by Paris Wine Company, Josh (who was there at Chez la Vieille that evening) having met Marc very early when he was just starting his domaine.
The fight against hail through preventive action on the clouds has been going on for decades, just look at these anti-hail rockets being sold through the mail-order catalog Manufrance in France (scroll down pic # 6, this was in 1934),
but this fight may become more organized at a regional or even national level, as stated in this article found on a Hungarian
newspaper. The eastern-European country has been working actively on the issue since the 1960s'using aircraft or missiles to drop silver iodide and seed the clouds so that they let go rain instead of hail. the airborne experiment was finally stopped in 1990 at the fall of communism but a year later it was restarted under a new form, through cost-efficient land-based platforms using the natural rise of hot air to bring the silver iodide particles into the targeted clouds. In terms of cost efficiency, for every Forint spent on this ground-based anti-hail system, 27 Forints worth of agriculture production are saved. The impact studies showed no significant change in the silver concentration in the soil of the areas where this system has been operating for decades.
The system which which is covering 3 counties south of Lake Balaton is managed by NEFELA (Southern-Hungary protection against hail), a group backed by the local agriculture authorities, the insurance companies and the weather service. It has been successfully preventing hail damage for 25 years as statistics can prove over the period, and the preventive process will become national in 2018. The system is very simple (see pics on the sides) with portable generators that can send silver iodide up in the clouds as soon as the agriculture radars spot the good time frame, it's very simple to operate (see at 1:20 min on this video), it looks like a gas burner, the hot air with silver iodide goes up in multiple places and will turn the potential ice in the clouds into harmless rain.
I have not heard of a similar coordinated effort in France where the wine regions suffer recurrent losses with hail, I'll let you know if that happens.
Source of pictures : NEFELA
I bought a few bottles of Orthogneiss 2015 a few weeks ago, and we opened another bottle for Christmas with the oysters. Lovely wine indeed, it perspires a complete harmony and gentleness, even my family not fully familiar with natural wines was genuinely impressed, you could drink glass after glass wondering what was going on (I should have brought more of it actually). I told them that it was probably because, beyong being simply organic, the Domaine de L'Ecu is farming along Rudolf Steiner's biodynamic methods yielding an alchemy which gives this harmony and vital energy in the wines.
The wine is of course made with Melon de Bourgogne, vines aged 50, 3-hectare surface on shallow soil with orthogneiss stones, yields 35 hectoliters/hectare, hand picked grapes, pressing without débourbage (settling of the lees), fermentation on indigenous yeast, élevage on the lees in the usual underground cement vats. SO2 total 22 mg/l - Free SO2 13 mg/l. Retail price 14 €.
Another terrific loire wine which I opened this autumn : La Boudinerie 2016 by Noëlla Morantin, a fully satisfying mouth with a generous fruit and chew, really an easy drink with the feel there's everything in the wine and no makeup. certainly got very little SO2. That's also the cuvée I enjoyed on the last picking day for the unformal apéritif with Noëlla and the pickers at the chai, and she also gave each of them a bottle when they left, nice attention.
We ate in a recently-opened Russian restaurant recently (it opened in march 2017), the venue is named humorously La Cantine des Tsars, cantine meaning cafeteria or canteen in French, as the name hints it's both Russian and casual, the staff/management comes from Russia and Armenia and
the food is excellent and very affordable. The room is not that big but still, there's a stately portrait/painting honoring the Czar Nicholas II on the wall hinting the place is both mordern and rooted in tradition.
The ingredients for the home-made Russian dishes are sourced in a short selection of farms that are clearly documented on the walls of the room.
The philosophy of the restaurant is no additives, no flavor enhancers, no food colorants. Check the excellent Russian goulash and the first ever pelmeni that are made in Paris, these Russian raviolis again being hand-made here with ingredients from small-size farms, the fresh unpasteurized cream comes from a small milk farm in Normandy and the free-range lambs come from a farm in New Zealand where their feed is 100 % natural. Prices for lamb pelmenis are 5,5 € for a small plate, 10 € mid-size and 13,5 € for a big one (they also make them with pork, this is a bit cheaper). Salads & entrees go from 2,5 € to 4,5 €. You can also try a Russian Burger at 14,5 € also made from good products. Homemade cake for desert goes at 2,5 € (made from artisanal wheat). To drink, there are a couple of wines, some Russian beer and a short but good selection of 5 mostly-Russian vodkas from 4 € to 5,3 € a 4-cl glass, with another at 8 €/glass.
It may fill rapidly certain evenings, better reserve of show up early for a seat. They may prepare food to go.
Follow them on their Facebook page
That was also a high point in our recent bottle openings, B. had brought this bottle of Bandol Gros Noré 2004 from the cellar she keeps at her parents house in Burgundy. What a beautiful wine, after 13 years the wine was all there in strength, complexity and refinement. Although we know Bandol reds (and rosés) can age easily, you're always a bit anxious, when really letting the years pass, wondering if you're not passing the peak unwittingly for the sake of waiting the number of years you're supposed to. And here no doubt, B. was right to have waited. The aroma complexity had certainly developped even further, integrating these refined tannins for a higher wine experience. You're supposed to eat with the wine (and we did) but believe me, I enjoyed it by itself first, as if to not spoil the charm...
I had given my short opinion of this cuvées earlier this year in autumn after opening this bottle of alt-organic/biodynamic/cosmoculture cuvée Solstice 2015 by Philippe Viret. My review for this blend of Grenache, Syrah, Carignan & Mourvèdre was positive on the whole, I just added that the wine was maybe a bit too excessive in its concentration and extraction. This wasn't calculated but what happened is I forgot the opened bottle in the Loire and retrieved it only weeks later (2 or 3 weeks, not less) and i didn't even have pumped the air out, I just had put the cork casually back. I was sorry for the mistake, thinking while back in Paris that I could have shared it with B. and have her thoughts, so when I came back at last, I tasted a sip just to see if I'd keep it to cook ox tail or had to dump it (I usually never dump tannic wines, they're good to cook Bourguignon). I was in for a surprise, the wine had opened to an extent that all the limitations I saw after opening the bottle were gone, all these intense and concentrated aromas were vibrating freely, interacting and playing like a ballet, terrific experience. I remember the bottle was given to me by vigneron François Fouassier who has warned me that I had to leave it open long time before fully enjoying it. He was so right...
While in Budapest I met shortly with Bálint Losonci, an artisan vigneron from the small wine region of Matra north of Budapest.
Bálint passes through the capital now and then and he gave me a bottle of his Riesling 2015, a small batch experiment, it's a lightly-bubbly pet-nat wine that was made
with a bottling at 5 grams of residual sugar, the wine isn't disgorged (there are few lees though) and the closure is a simple screw cap. He made a larger cuvée of pet-nat with a bottling at 36 grams of residual sugar and for that batch of course he used thicker Champagne-type bottles to stand the pressure.
It was the 1st time Bálint tried on the side this low-pressure, pet-nat Riesling, he made 100 bottles of this. The Rajnai Rizling (Rhein Riesling) comes from a young vineyard of which the first vintage was 2013, he says that if the feedback is good (he'll have friends in restaurants and bars taste it) he may repeat the experiment next year on a larger scale. Rajnai Rizling is appropriate for this type of wine because it has an acidity which remains alongside the good ripeness level and with enough sugar which is important in this type of natural sparkling when [unlike Champagne] you can't add sugar for the fermentation in the bottle.
Here is a place which I discovered in Budapest recently, it's Farm Bistro, a new venue out of the beaten path, roughly between the Jewish district (VII district) and the city park. This small ordinary-looking eatery (I was tipped about it by Balint) is a gem, all the
products are sourced from a list of family farms in Hungary that are pinpointed on the map on the wall, with in addition black & white portraits of the farmers who make these products. The food is excellent & organic, the place is unpretentious and the prices are really attractive (take note that it's rare to have these
three characters together). It's all good, beginning with the soup, I had one made from pumpkin which was so good (but it changes every other day I think, depends of their vegetables). I also had the twin hot sandwich, very good portions, served with a salad, and costs only about 3 €, the soup being maybe 1,5 €.
You can have a range of drinks including choosing from a few wines by the glass, maybe 3 to 5 cuvées if I remember and all seem to be artisan, organic/biodynamic wines. They had for example Bencze (among the top quality producers in this country) and Meinklang, a smal wine farm in austria, also a top-notch producer. The price by the glass was very low and they had also a bottle price to go, which is very interesting because there aren't yet many wine shops in Budapest where you can buy natural wine. Terroir Club closed it's downtown shop at Deak Ferenc and the alternative is either buy at Terroir Club warehouse/offices in the suburb or go to Drop Shop, the best downtown reference downtown for artisan/natural wines.
Farm Bistro is part of Házikó, a catering company created in 2014 by Bertényi Gábor (who was formerly one of the people behind the iconic Szimpla Kert - he also set up the sunday's farmers market there) and which delivers directly farm products to its clients and prepares food from these products. All products are chemical-free and made without additives.
Address (Pest) : Dembinszky utca [street] 32., Budapest 1071 phone +36 1 797 2191
Address (Buda) Budapest, Bartók Béla út 34, Budapest 1111 phone +36 30 418 0181
TripAdvisor page (Pest)
Tripadvisor page (Buda)
Here is a partial view of Szimpla Kert's farmers market on sunday, when entering the iconic ruin bar at Kazinczy utca 14 with its maze of cool bars scattered across the building and in the upper stories. To be frank I had mixed feelings at first about this sunday market because it looks very bobo/tourist oriented and also because
unlike Paris for example, Budapest has many covered markets, all of which are open every day (from 6 am to 6 pm usually) including sunday (except for the famous Nagycsarnok) and each having a number of direct sellers bringing their products from the farms (you know more by guess than through a certification). One of my favorite pastime when I have time in Budapest is not strolling on the tourist spots but looking for another market that can be reached with public transport, there are quite a lot of them scattered in the suburbs, and any season i see here and there what looks like small producers of cheese, honey, vegetables/eggs or meat selling their production to a crowd of ordinary Hungarians, without a tourist in view. If you're a first-time visitor and look for such a market frequented by locals, you don't have to go very far, you can begin with the almost-intimate Hunyadi Square Market right near Oktogon (very central but difficult to spot if you've not been tipped about it), and come friday or saturday when the individual farmers travel to Budapest to sell their products outside along the square.
I checked the tables that day at Szimpla Kert and there were very good deals, beginning with the cheese including aged cheese (see picture on right, they all sell for 2750 Forints/kg or less than 9 €/kg) . As a result, I'll go there again when I'll be around, all the while keeping to visit my other markets where I have my favorite producers.
We had this wine with a group of friends, pretty delicious southern white, this wine breathed harmony and easiness, somethings has certainly to do with the biodynamic farming and the non-interventionist winemaking afterthen. Chateau Lafitte, a 5-hectare estate, is located in Monein in the Jurançon (east of Bayonne) at the foot of the Pyrenees mountain range, it is managed by Antoine Arraou, a photographer who came back on the family domaine and converted the vineyards from organic to biodynamic. 75 % Petit Manseng, the rest in Gros Manseng. Costs about 12 €, good deal.
The domaine's wines
Here was a very nice beaujolais Nouveau, this Brut de Cuve 2017 is made by Isabelle and Bruno Perraud of the 8,5-hectare Domaine des Côtes de la Molières, they converted to organic farming in 1999 after Bruno got himself gravely intoxicated with the insecticides he was using. All their wines are vinified & bottled without additives, unfined and unfiltered. Kudos for that, great job, and the wine was a pleasure with a generous nose, in the mouth it was super good, intense, irradiating the palate. I don't think they made a big volume of this, I didn't find much echo on the web, check it out next Beaujolais Nouveau 2018 ! Price tag was 11,3 €.
A very good surprise after what I thought initially (first mouth) was a disappointing wine : We all loved this Beaujolais Villages sold in the Caves Legrand wine shop in Paris. I'll check the venerable wine istitution next time, they're selling special cuvées under the wine-shop label and there's usually a reason. The wine is made by Evelyne and Claude Geoffray at Chateau Thivin. Just what you need with a Nouveau, gorgeously enjoyable and easy to drink. Retail price was only 9 €. Also possibly small volume.
This is a great story to begin 2018 : this abandoned castle that looks like coming out of a fairy tale has just been rescued from impending collapse by the collective action and crowdfunding of 25 000 people who bought it in order to save it and later help restore it to its past glory. They did this through Dartagnans, a group whose mission is to save historic monuments and
help coordinate the actors and financing. The 25 000 individual donors (who somehow co-own the property now) come from 115 different countries and by giving a minimum of 50 € they helped save the monument by having it purchased.
The Chateau de La Mothe-Chandeniers which was initially known under the name of Chateau de La Mothe-Bauçay was built in the 13th century. It is located near Les Trois-Moutiers in the Vienne département a mere 25 kilometers from Saumur, sitting with its farms and woods around almost like a few centuries ago (satellite view). it
was ransacked badly during the French revolution
(late 18th century), then it was bought in 1809 by a rich négociant who rebuilt it with fancy architectural changes before it being destroyed again, this time by a fire in 1932 (you can see early-20th-century postcards with the chateau in pretty nice condition). It was bought in 1982 by an amateur of old ruins who couldn't have it renovated, and Dartagnans set up this crowdfunding effort to buy the property back from him. There are alas countless chateaus and historic buildings in similar disrepair in the French provinces.
Here are more pictures and info
Drone video overview of the castle and surroundings
Comments