Tomorrow will be the day : Terraces (or terrasses in French) are again allowed to reopen for restaurants, cafes and bars, and life will breathe again in the city streets, plus the curfew is being pushed from 7 pm to 9 pm, not ideal yet for getting back to a sustanaible business but in a few weeks it'll be at 11 pm, or almost normal. All over Paris you could see workers refurbishing the terrace structures, especially for those who had created temporary terraces last year on parking space in front of their venue with wood floors and privacy fences. For months these terraces had been unused and neglected and needed repair and refresh.
I recently heard about Coperies, a newcomer in the French whisky sector but an established name in the Cognac production (Distillerie Merlet & Fils, a 5-generation Cognac house) and I asked for a sample. The whisky is made out of an alambic charentais (or copper Cognac still, which are smaller than most whisky stills, if I'm right) through a double distillation yielding round malt spirits, then élevage in French oak, both new and older barrels, all being blended at the end. The real bottle (which goes for 40 €) is much sexier than the sample bottle. In the mouth, the whisky is both intense and beautifully smooth, everything I like in a whisky, with sweet spices, gingerbread notes. They also sent me a sample of the Cognac (Merlet) I have yet to taste it.
This was earlier this year, when flea markets were still open in Paris (they were closed in march as far as I remember with the renewed measures against the rebound of the pandemic), I stumbled on this batch of old bottles (which obviously were found in the cellar of a deceased person). It was a mixed bag of vintage bottles, but you could see that the owner had some good tastes regarding wines. I asked the woman how much a bottle, she said 2 €, and as I had already looked at several bottles this was indeed very cheapn a deal dwarfing the occasiional risk of finding the wine to be undrinkable. I chose 3 bottles and can you believe it, the woman right away offered me to have the 3 for 5 € (not 6).... It was maybe 10 am, not really early, I can't understand how the bottles I chose were still there...I know I should have bought more bottles, including some which had lost their labels....
So, here are the three bottles I chose :
__ Domaine de la Mordorée, Lirac 1986
__ Guigal, Condrieu 1967
__ Chateau d'Arlay, Côtes du Jura, Vin Jaune 1979 (bottled 1986). Wine was missing (faulty cork) but for a veil wine I thought it couldn't do any harm
This was the Rhône which I opened first, and I bitterly regretted not having bought the other bottles of this Domaine de la Mordorée cuvée back on this messy table in the flea market. As far as I remember, there were 3 more of them at least, plus one or two with the label missing (but the bottleneck wrapping was the same). The wine was simply gorgeous as was, of course showed its age but with this milky, pale redish color, beautiful texture with what seemed to be a good acidity, this was a pleasure to the last drops, including the sediments, the soul of the wine...
What is interesting also is that 1986 was Domaine de la Mordorée 1st vintage (makes me even more disgruntled not to have bought more...at 2 € apiece !
This Chateau d'Arlay Vin Jaune 1979 had (kind of) a double élevage on veil : from 1979 to 1986 (year it was bottled),
and years later in the buyer's cellar, when the leaking cork left the wine exposed a few more years to the air... This was was less exciting, the aromas of this veil Savagnin were a bit strange, off the mark from what I expected for a Vin Jaune (B. also didn't liked it), plus it gave me leg cramps (which I never have), so, there was certainly something wrong with the wine, not just how it tasted. I still have the bottle with the remaining Vin Jaune in it, though, having put another cork in place, will taste it again some day.
I couldn't use the air-pump opener because of a damaged cork (air was leaking instantly, preventing the pressure from mounting), so I used a regular tool, which broke the fragile cork in two alas (see picture on left)...
That was the last of these flea-market bottles we opened (this one just before I published this News story), and again, remember I paid less than 2 € for this bottle.... Very nice Guigal indeed, the wine was mellow, enjoyable with this vanilla feel that certainly came from élevage in oak. Very interesting to taste a Condrieu from 1967 because Rhône wines (including Condrieu) were largely under the radar
at the time, even for French wine amateurs (and virtually no export). Condrieu is as you know this small Appellation (created in 1940) in the Rhône using Viognier only.
Read this excerpt from the Wikipedia page, Guigal played an important role in the coming of age of Condrieu wines in the spotlight :
Rhône wines in general started to be more in demand from the early 1970s, and stronger so from the late 1970s/early 1980s. From this time, the négociant business of Marcel Guigal at Ampuis was important in expanding the market for Condrieu wines. Guigal primarily made his name with his Côte-Rôtie wines which then paved the way for his bottlings from other appellations, which also includes a significant portion of white wine. Guigal's Condrieu was sourced from small growers in the appellation.
The increase in demand led to new plantations inside the appellation's border, which was far from fully exploited and at one stage included many abandoned vineyards. The area under vine was less than 12 hectares (30 acres) in the 1960s, 14 hectares (35 acres) in 1982, 98 hectares (240 acres) at the end of the century and 135 hectares (330 acres) in 2005
Opening the bottle seemed risky as the cork, while looking whole and undamaged, was very soft and risked breaking half-way out of the bottle neck, so I used my special air-pump opened which is some king of needle through which you pump air beneath the cork to smoothly push it out, it worked beautifully. This one is made by L'Atelier du Vin but it seems to be unavailable at the moment.
We had this winter and spring 2021 a succession of alternatively : lockdowns (pretty light ones actually, little enforced on the ground comparatively to the one a year before), changing range of free movement in the country (from none to 10 kilometers), curfews with changing hours (more enforced, but not really in Paris), selectively-closed shops depending of what they sold, but I think it ha been the same in a large part of the world. Here on this short video (saturday, march 13) if I remember that was with the widening range of shops that could be visited and better temperatures outside, crowds could be seen again in Paris.
If you wonder how your favorite wine venues made it during these trying times, I think they did their best to keep the head above the water, selling wine and beer at the door, sometimes with an improvised standing terrace like here at Aux Deux Amis (picture shot early february 2021). Thanks to these sales, many wine producers told me the pandemic had no negative impact on their sales.
The enforcement of the rules (like wearing a mask at all time) were very light in Paris and in large cities, same for the curfew, and after 6 pm and later 7 pm there were still lots of people in the streets, obviously not all on their way back from work. This helped a lot, people weren't ready for a hardline lockdown like the first one (that started in february 2020).
I brought back in Paris 5 liters of Menu Pineau (also named Orbois or arbois) from Touraine and bottled it myself. This was bulk wine bought from André Fouassier straight from the tank, very enjoyable daily wine. How come it's not that easy to buy in bulk ? Now wineries who still sell in bigger volume than bottles rely on these bag-in-box formats but there's not thye thrill of filling your container directly from a particular vat, after you just tasted a few of them. In the countryside, and by word of mouth mostly you can find such producers who still do things the old way, for locals. Established wineries (including natural-wine ones) should reinstate those popular practices for locals, it would help retart a connection with working-class buyers who can't afford these bottle prices.
For those who understand French fluently
Rediscovering oldies on the web has been one of my occasional passtimes in these troubled times with repeated episodes of curfews and lockdowns, and this 1970 French movie approprietly short-named "Elle Boit Pas" ("She Doesn't Drink" - actually Annie Girardot drinks pretty easy all along) does the job, it is a little gem to
rediscover indeed, this unpretentious movie tells in a light, humorous manner the adventures of a young woman who does cleaning and housework around Paris : The movie, characters and dialogues are also a bowl of fresh air in our era of wokeness and censorship , there aren't I think 30 seconds in this movie without a scene, gesture or words that wouldn't trigger and enrage our modern censors if it was to be released in the beautiful, progressive world of 2021. Now of course there'd be still the risk that the thought police would impose on us a warning label (like for Gone With the Wind recently) or cuts out non-inclusive words to shield the fragile public from the unedited horrors they're about to watch and listen, but I wish them good luck if they try for this particular video as it is hosted on a Russian server...
Now, sit back, grab a glass of your favorite (unfiltered/unedited) wine, click on Full Screen and watch (French version).
In the first scene, Annie Girardot drinks a glass of white wine while smoking, and on min 24:40 Annie Girardot will weigh the difference between a vintage Mouton Rotschild and a "casse-pattes 14 degrés" (casse-pattes is a French slang for headache-inducing 14% plonk)...
If you like this type of early 1970s third-rate French kitsch, here is some kind of a sequel (1972), Elle Cause Plus...Elle Flingue (also directed by Michel Audiard) featuring the same actors plus a few others including an American (the hippie), Charles Southwood. For the anecdote, everything Annie Girardot wears in this other movie is designed by Karl Lagerfeld (who was 39 at the time). To get rid of the occasional add, click on "скрытъ рекламу".
This was more than a month and a half ago (march 31), the weather was much more pleasant than now in may and people set up their own terraces on the pavement, drinking beer or other drinks with friends.
At about the same time when summer briefly went through, the Buttes Chaumont was the place to go, gorgeous ambiance and view, the police even once had to break an improvised party with music and hundreds of revelers attending. No big deal but the authorities were supposed to give a signal I guess.
We learned recently the unexpected passing of Pascal Clairet of Domaine de la Tournelle, here pictured at their bistrot in Arbois with Evelyne at his side. This is a loss for all of us lovers of real, sulfites-free wine, he made so much not only for the Jura wine, but for Arbois, where his bistrot added one more lively venue helping to revitalizethe small city. We're in thought with his friends at Le Nez dans le Vert, the natural-wine producers' group he was heading for a year.
With summer approaching, EU authorities and Europeans hope international flights, cross-border travel and tourism will resume, but there needs to be a higher vaccination ratio in the general population, which is not yet the case as you can see in this april-22 chart showing the vaccination pace among the 27 EU countries (source : LCI). Unlike the U.S. with its Operation Warp Speed, Brussels hasn't been very pro-active in its pursuit of vaccines, both on the pre-financing and accelerated testing and authorizations stages. Israel and the U.K. (the latter now free of the EU limitations) themselves have worked hard and almost reached herd immunity. Already, Americans may travel to Europe this summer if vaccinated, but inside the EU there's not yet any precise rules for Europeans who want to travel. Some kind of vaccine/antibody pass seems to be in the planning phase but nothing decided yet, I read here and there it should materialize in the 2nd half of june.
Again and again, I can't but marvel on the beauty of Brendan Tracey's Pineau d'Aunis, and this was a 2017 ! It was a delight to the last drop. I'm afraid it was my last bottle, but not sure I think I have one more lying hidden in Touraine.
Finished recently the last drop of this Arak purchased in Tel Aviv, need to refill one day.
This pandemic is possibly going to be tamed in the near future through all the vaccines people are taking for themselves in spite of some early reluctance for some part of the public, and it is the occasion to be thankful for the individuals who made this possible, I'm thinking here in particular to Katalin Kariko, who pioneered the research on RNA-mediated mechanisms, at a time this was very marginal and from what I understand not much researched neither funded worldwide. That's another example of the importance of
having individuals who go against the tide in their field and keep fighting whatever the costs. Her early years in Hungary (back in the communist era) were certainly important, she stresses that she had an excellent biology teacher in the primary school of Kisújszállás (a village east of Sozlnok) and I think such imprint is so important, having someone help you have desire and interest in whatever field... She studied in the Attila József University in Szeged (a major town) where she got a university scholarship to work at the Szeged Biological Center, getting her doctorate degree in 1982, the subject of her thesis being the synthesis and application of short antiviral RNA molecules. Then the Biological Center in Szeged alas had to reduce staff in 1985 and she wondered what to do, she wanted to keep working in her country (she was married, had a daughter) but couldn't find any position to further her research, so she looked for something abroad. She and her family could only have an allowance for getting 200 USD in foreign currency (communist countries were keeping a tab on hard currencies), very little to tempt a new life abroad, so they sold their soviet-made car Lada and sewed the money (900 USD) in the plush car of their daughter before crossing the border. She wanted to work in Montpellier, Madrid or London because there were research centers dealing with mRNA there but these universities offered her no scholarship, so she went instead to the US where she found a job at Temple University (Pennsylvania). There the fight wasn't over because the research lab like much of the scientific community wasn't much believing into the future of mRNA, everybody was rather into the DNA-focused research. mRNA research was defunded and Katalin was downgraded to a lesser job (the university administration thought she would quit), but she accepted in spite of much smaller pay in order to keep her green card and send her daughter to the university (Zsuzsika or now Susan Francia was to become a U.S. Olympic rowing champion). Marginalized by her hierarchy, she kept focused on her goal and made the turning-point encounter with Drew Weissman at the copy machine (you can't make this up !), a man who happened to be involved in mRNA-related research to cure AIDS. That was it. Always persevere is the lesson...
Printed interview of Katalin Kariko
Printed interview of Norbert Pardi (in Hungarian), another key mRNA researcher who also comes from the same village of Kisújszállás
Profile of Katalin Kariko (in Hungarian)
We're now used to see everyone's face covered in the streets, including on the lively street martkets of Paris. We're certainly in the near future be allowed to walk without mask, especially when vaccinated, but it is not clear if people will easily lower their guard, they've (we've) been pushed to feel safe behind these masks and there'll certainly be some unavowed reluctance to be left alone in the cold. This veil of uncertainty will hamper in some extent a return tu full normalcy. We could end up like Japan and Asia, where masks are routinely used for a variety of reasons, keep oneself safe, not infect others, protect one's face skin from the winter hardship...
We opened this 2019 petnat from Les Capriades some time ago, a delicious way to get through the early months of 2021 in Paris. You may not fully recognize the name of the iconic cuvée here, it seems it's been preventively edited to prevent any issues on the political-correctness front. Piège à Filles (girl trap) was innocently chosen years ago I guess because the sweet edge of the sparkling made it a favorite for girls, but nowadays with the gender-obsessed mob looking for stereotypes, date-rape incitement, non-inclusiveness and insensitiveness I guess it was safe to take precautionary measures, so now you just add yourself what pleases you after "Piège à"... which is I think a good way to deprive the mob of any motive while keeping virtually the name as is.
This was a few weeks ago just outside Paris in Asnières where I met Alex, the friend of a friend, who has been making his own beer at home for a few months. He finds the needed ingredients on Brouwland, a Belgian portal for everything related to beermaking. He showed me the tools needed for making your 20-liter batch and it's not that complicated, he keeps them in the cellar of the small house
in which he lives with his
wife and two daughters. He says there are many things to experiment and he considers he's still in the trial period, looking for the perfect recipe. Right now all his stuff is packed as he and his family are moving out to Corsica (where his wife is from). In Paris he worked several years as cook at the Bistrot des Dames in the 17th (he learned the trade at the Ferrandi school), I remember this place in the Batignolles which had a terrific garden with tables to eat, drink out like in a Biergarten.
The beer which has this vivid yellowish color is a bit acidulous with aromas of the range of citrus, grapefruit, mango, Alex finds it too acidic. It makes between 6,5 % and 7 % in alcohol, he says, which surprises me, I'd have thought it to be less. We drink several bottles in a row in the garden, noticing slight differences between them although they come from the same 20-liter batch. He showed us the tools in the cellar including the malt mill, the portable gas stove, the stainless-steel pot, he says that hygiene is very important, even the water has to be clean and devoid of any chlorine, that's why regular tap water is not fit. He also makes sourdough bread at home and it helps him understand things for beer as well because there's this yeast life which you have to feed daily at the good temperature, it's both fragile and alive, a little something may make the whole process to fail.
We opened this old Bordeaux a few weeks ago, a Chateau Pailhas Saint Emilion 1998, it was pas its peak but had still pleasure to offer. Beautiful, delicate wine.
A few days ago Huba Szeremey passed away at the age of 81. He was first an adventurer who escaped to Austria from communist Hungary on a small private plane (in 1967, he was a medecine student then) and became a businessman in Africa and pre-Ayatollah Iran, then when he came back to post-communist Hungary in 1993 he turned to the wine and vineyard trade, resurrecting winemaking and reintroducing forgotten varieties (Kéknyelű, Buda Zöld, Bakator, Zeusz) before it was trendy.
He was some sort of Jacky Preys for Valençay or Plageoles for Gaillac, only that he was doing the
job for a country, Hungary which had lost a real connection to winemaking after decades of industrial socialism. His winery, Első Magyar Borház (now Szeremley Borhaz, managed by his son Laszlo) quickly shined beyond the borders, and Huba also developped the hospitality side with the fine food to go with the wines, the restaurant trade being another sector where the country had to catch up after years of neglect.
Huba Szeremley befriended Gerard Depardieu and I can understand that, both were not only winemakers with other talents but also out-of-the-box, generous personalties. It is interesting to note also that Noëlla Moranting during her training years spent a few weekls working in Huba Szeremley's cellar.
As far as I understand Szeremley took a hit in the early 2010 with the financial crisis (like many Hungarians who had contracted loans indexed on Swiss Francs) and then got in trouble with the law with fraud accusations, loosing much of his wealth and living the last years of his life like an ermit in a village along the Balaton. Huba was a man who was in line with epic characters of 19th-century Hungary.
I shot this picture of Huba in 2005 at a yearly festive wine event named Borfalu, while in the country for a job, I had a small interview with him.
2002 profile of Huba Szeremley (use Google Translate)
Obituary on Huba by Gábor Kardos (sales director at Szeremley)
Interesting interview of Huba Szeremley on Boraszportal
Nice interview & obituary by Zoltán Hofmeister (Ujnepszabadsag)
The Louvre reopens wednesday may 19 (with prior reservation through Internet), so here is a picture (shot by B.) to remind you that there's a lot about wine in the Louvre :
Anonymous painting on wood (artist known to be active around 1450-1470), known as "Man with a glass of wine"
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