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Tasting within the disembodiement of the shows, under flourescents and on carpeted topped off cement was wearing on my nerves. But with pencil and hand, trying not to be sullen, I was soon happy enough at the Salon des Vins de Loire. 2010 was certainly a year, fortune smiled on the the Loire, from Nante to Sancerre.
Domaine Le Grange Tiphaine in Ambroise/Tourainne/(and some Montlouis); Damien & Coralie are pure adorableness and also have some lovely old vines. The 2010s are fantastic. Straight up and down beauts. Of particular note; Le Clef du Sol, chenin from Montlouis. Le Clef du Sol from Ambroise, 35 % Côt and 65 % Cabernet franc from clay and limestone (fresh bitten, tart berry) and the old vines Cot. Really, you can't go wrong. Lovely wines. (Jenny & Francois)
Domaine Baudry From the amazing Chinon domaine. Brilliant in both 2009 and 10. As one would expect, lush in '09, structure in '10. I'll be laying down some of both. Which ones? Les Grezeaux (clay and gravel stone, sour noise, crushed eggshell nose. Round in the middle with some sort of other worldly-like dimension.) Les Granges? Sure! Rich and acid with plenty of flesh. In general, can't wait for them to lose their baby fat. (LDM)
I forgot about Sancerre, but tasting at Domaine Vacheron and Vincent Gaudry reminded me to remember. Beautiful wines. I always do like Vacheron, but this time, Gaudry was a revelation.
Gaudry's Le Tournebride was yes, extremely ripe but stony, apricot and acid. The Vielle Vignes was killer: fresh old ladies perfume, wild.
Vincent also showed some pretty, pretty sancerre rouges.
'09 Vincengétorix: sancerre rouge. Powdery, Chanel #5- like, with low fruit and high texutre.
'08 Les Sang des Serfs; smoke, whole cluster gorgeousness that was so damned thrilling. Lots of acid and vibrancy. Sadly, only 500 bottles.
+Honorable mention: Clos Cristal. They've changed their farming and the wines are begining to sink. I particularly liked the youngest and freshest that sees no wood... their 2009. Brett lover alert, just a touch. Zingy acid. The 2010s were all pre-malo, hard to tell but looks promising.
+ Really did like theseDomaine de la Chevalerie 2009
Any of them, and the winemaker is so adorable. She reminds me of a cross between Pascaline and my publisher's daughter Marie.
Life on the road was intense. I changed hands and beds once more. Hooked up with my friend thegoddessofwine (yes, I know, but she's Linda, what are we going to do. She is the goddess as well as an amazing sommelier.) We were also meeting ma fille Francaise.
who really should have won le meilleur sommelier de France, except she wasn't wearing une petite talon(high heels! more on that farce later). The three of us are, and hopefully always will be....
photo by Annaick le Mignon
Look out!
Our first stop was the Renaissance tasting, Nicolas Joly's roving biodynamic wine show. This is one of the years best tasting. The level of high quality wine far outnumbers any other show I go to. Nicolas, by the way, was the first person I bumped into.
Nicolas cracks me up. In fact over the next few days when I lapsed into oh-poor-me, I would think about him and start to belly laugh. Which in proper France brought side glances of shock and fear.
Near the coat rack we embraced and then he started to pick up exactly where we left off last February as if no time had past. Last year it was Haiti and the economy. This year the planets were in a different place and it was about Tunisia and Egypt. You see, the planets were are all lined up somewhere underneath Orion's belt and long underwear. Last year it was doom, gloom and brimstone.This year it was the planets and Tunisia. All was good. I went into the tasting in a fine mood, laughing.
Every one and his mother and uncle who ever lived in the United States was in that room. In fact, France was owned by the Americans this year, many of them looking to be the next Joe Dressner, if that could ever happen.
When Joe started out there were discoveries. Now, there are none. You're just not going to discover some savant shlep who's family has been making wine in a cave in some unknown appellation for six generations anymore. What you'll find are new kids on the block who are renting vines or others who have already recycled through importers, looking for love in all the wrong places. But yet, yet. ...we tasted.
What touched us? I hooked Linda's arm, Pierre André.
"Chateauneuf?" she asked. Quelle horreur! No.
In insisted. She was happy.
Jacqueline, Pierre's shy daughter took over years back. Old world here. This stuff is beautiful, refined even her white in the scary 2009 vintage. It was fresh!
Reds
2007: Fresh and depth.
2006 80% grenache with the rest syrah, mourvedre, cinsault etc, the wine is elegant, fresh, lovely and...balanced.
2005 More tannic, and that old fashioned shit called garrique. Bring it on.
2004 Shut down. One direction. Okay.
Alsatian producer, Francois Barmes, Barmes Buecher. New to me. Glad we took the chance. Especially because he's got some vines in Hengst and Rosenberg. Lovely wines.
2008 Rosenberg: grapes were washed over stone. This is the one that grabbed me.
(honorable mention goes to Josmeyer, very over-looked winemaker in this market)
Highlights for me were:
Stella di Campalto wines from Montalcino. Gorgeous and inspiring rossos and brunellos.
Bedel Champagnes.
In Bordeaux? Sure! 2008 Gombaude-Guillot of Pomerol as well as the 2008 Ch. le Puy (roasted fennel, limestone/star). 2008 was difficult but the people who worked organically/biodynamically seemed to sing.
I continue to love the Clos Canarelli from Corsica, especially the cuvée from anfora. The 2009 Oray which is pie franc, planted en foule was roasted plum and delicious.
The Tourraine's Clos Roche Blanche, ah..my DRC. The '10 sauvignon is just gorgeous with a high dose of elderflower. When I had the '10 gamay, tannic, structure and velvet.
Pineau d'aunis alert! In '10 there is a CRB red Arpent Rouge! There hasn't been one since 2006. (My wine of the year for 2007).Right now it's rough, and angular but it will come together and Didier is just going to bide his time til it's ready.
Pithon Paille, Joe Pithon's comeback wines have hit their stride. '09 Les Treilles was angular and austere, like peroxide washing the teeth but you have to trust me, exciting if too young.
More Muscadet moments were had at Guy Bossard. 2010 gneiss, licorice on acid. limpid.
Orthogneiss- quieter, more restrained.
Granite: floral, fruity, hints of vermont mountain.
There was a muscadet for every mood. Terroir is really fun.
Les Sablonettes? Oui.Christine & Joel Ménard make better and better wine every year. Look for them in 2010. From their cabernets, Le Petite Blanc to the Diable and the Pivoine
Then, contemplating it all, I looked over at a New York sommelier, tasting at Agnes Mosse. She is used to grand cru for breakfast. She looked as giddy as a princess who went to dance with the common people.
Have to say, am loving tasting 2010. Just loving it.
I've been to the Nantes to Marc Ollivier's Muscadet-a-thon maybe four times. Others who tag along religiously with the LDM crowd year-to-year, have been there more. But I've been blessed with enough festivity in that rustic winery filled with underground cement tanks, that the day has the pinch of a reunion.
The format remains the same year to year. We taste through Domaine de la Pépière's new cuvées. Then we traipse off to freeze amongst the vines. Then we eat as we taste through old, older and oldest vintages proving that muscadet is the new chablis.
The late January day was cold, quite cold. The 2010s were tasting delicious. Angular, fennel, lively, smoked lettuce-like with long, piercing finishes of lemon cream. In fact I was thinking, 2010 was the year that Muscadet is going to be put on the map. All of those who praise the 2009 in Beaujo vintage? This is 2010 for melon. Right? Right! Futures of muscadet. Let's hear it.
All of those people who toil like bandits on a jewel heist to work their land without chemicals and hand pick when they could machine harvest for a wine they can sell for $10-$15 a bottle? Hell, they're going to get their due and their glory. Who knows, the INAO might even let them refer to their terroir on the label instead of insisting on the name of a town, the reason that the previous Cuvée Granite is now called Clisson. (which seems to be an almost sadistic move.)
In 2010, their ship is will come to shore, bearing riches. And if you believe that one, you'll also believe that I'll sell my next wine book for $300k and you'll also believe in spinning wheat into gold and in the humanity of all man.
Guess which one is Marc's vineyard? This is a gorgeous example of what chemical farming looks like next to organic. The scorched earth is still common in the area. Which land's gifts do you want to drink?
++
You have to wonder what about the sanity of people like Marc, Jo Landron Guy Bossard, Marc Pesnot, Jacques Carroget, who slave over their land as if they were going to extract a Vosne Romanée instead of a, well, Clos des Briords.
I mean, if I didn't live in a walk up with a bathtub in the kitchen I might think they were insane If I went into banking, I might wonder the same thing. Why do these people work the way they do when the others around them just grow grapes and process them into wine?
Sometimes life is reduced to being able to look at yourself in the morning directly in the eyes and pull out a piece of dense, crusty bread and shove it in your mouth while you're banging on a bottle with a shoe to extract a cork. Simple pleasures. If only.
When I see people like Marc,
I know I'm self-serving. Because if I can help them make a living, then their wines will be available for me to drink, because good muscadet is as precious to me or even more precious, than Corton-Chuck or Meursault. In fact even if I ever get that hefty advance, my white heart will belong to muscadet (okay, with some chenin and maybe listan blanco and savagnin for good measure. Of late I've been quite take with macabeu as well. I guess I can add vermentino, albariño and godello.)
The wood fire flicked with crazy tongues in winery, the food, a parade of things from the sea with hardback shells, kept on coming. The wines got older and older and the conversation got raunchier and raunchier. I walked outside and there was David Lillie walking in a pony-tailed guest with bottles. It was Michel Brégeon, a venerable muscadet producer.
Bregon has recently been celebrated in the French press, but David said to me, too much too late. And he didn't know if he was going to survive. Money, when your wines sell for $12.99 in the states, well it just doesn't fill the bank. But never the less, he seemed happy, and the wines were delicious. Looking at me taste them, David said, "Loaded with sulfur."
And I thought, now, how did I become the poster child for sans soufre wines?
That night I walked across the bridge into Saumur with a friend looking for wine and food. There was a bar near the hotel we had gone into the night before, a bar with a black light that made the white fluffy dog look blue. Above the bar was a string of panties, looking more like scalps than laundry. Three of us sat having a depressing drink. My scotch had been watered. I was glad it hadn't been pissed. The town had nothing opened but at least it was pure and no black lights to increase the sadness or to take the taste of the sweet day away.
Muscadet Warning:
As indicated, most of the area produces sub-par wines. Drink carefully and drink happily.
1) Domaine de la Pépière
2) Andre-Michel Brégeon
3) Luneau-Papin
4) Domaine Paonniere (Jacques Carroget & you won't find this in the US)
5) Domaine de la Louvetrie (Jo Landron)
6) Domaine Senechaliere (Marc Pesnot)
7) Domaine de l'Ecu (Guy Bossard)
For all of you who couldn't guess, T. Puzelat is a great host. After fetching Alessandra, Francesca and me from the train, he ferried us first to his place for aperos, paté, goat cheese and little white delicious anchovies, thank you very much, as well as some older bottles of Le Buisson Pouilleux, the old-vine sauvignon. That and conversation about the pros and cons of carbonic maceration and then off to check in to the hotel. Yes, a hotel. This is the trip that broke the piggy bank.
But if you're ever in Chitenay, near Blois, and need a little hotel, book the.....
Auberge du Centre, 34 Grande Rue 41120 +33 (0) 2 54 70 42 11.
Sweet, except for the perfumed sheets that drove me nuts. Strong wi-fi and a fantastic breakfast with organic everything this and that, good tea bags, delicious croissants, and the best coffee I had in France in a hotel, bar none. This joint had class and kudos for the LDMers for finding it.
The next day was Vini-Valaire International. A mini-Dressner tasting with vignerons. The Italians were up to something. Silvio of Montesecondo once again delivered a gorgeous 2009 Rosso, scratchy, fragrant and herbal fresh. But he also had an Anfora cabernet sauvignon. And right next to him was Francesco who god damn it, also had a Tuscan cabernet, and she macerated it into something intriguing. So what we had side by side were dueling cabernets, from Tuscany. And I liked them.
Silvio chose a Spanish vessel and both fermentation and elevage had been Anforized. The result was pleasing; earthy and caramel.
Then there was Francesca Padovani's Fonterenza 2007 cabernet, called Lupa di Fonterenza. She fermented the wine on the skins for four whole months and it finally turned into something one could call pretty, but still plum pepper, and driven by silty terroir. Yes, it smelled and tasted like Italy.
I still can't call cabernet my favorite grape but these were intriguing, and gave a very dull piece of fruit a fun and new expression.
Trentino's Elisabetta Foradori, is elegant and slow moving as a dream. Waving her hands in the air as if she were summoning a genie, she said how happy she was to be in the LDM Italian wine portfolio. It's as if she found her own personal anfora. "It is where I belong," she told me.
Her Teroldegos are always intriguing but this time, she had three wines done up in anfora as well. In general the wines, red and white, stay in the unlined anfora for 8 months with the skins. Then they are racked into old wood, acacia or chestnut for two months before they go into bottle. For 2010 she is contemplating ditching the wood and opting for cement tank for the wine to settle for a purer taste.
The Nosiola was racked into acacia, very pretty, and no sulfur. From chalk and clay terroir, the grape was low on aroma and high on spice, like allspice with a long finish that was kind of bitter, in the best possible way. Loved it.
The 2009 Sgarzon Teroldego. Yay. And as far as I'm concerned, this is the shit. From anfora the wine got racked into chestnut. As soon as I smelled it I started to salivate. Lots of licorice and lots of stability with a nice angular edge, tannin, rough, spice, tangle, more licorice and then sandy tannin action. Brilliant acidity.
From a different soil type, schist, granite and river stones, this was more backward, with cigar and root. More of a block of guy, the one who doesn't call after, almost brutish and needs time.
These seemed to be the standouts, overshadowing her regular bottlings, which were lovely but just not as dynamic. Elisabetta, who now owns 40 slender Spanish vessels (and more coming) noted, "The wines find their identity more quickly in anfora."
Maybe I should have put myself in an anfora? I wonder if that would have changed everything.
I'm not sure when they will arrive in the country, or if they will. There's not a lot available. If you're a restaurant, like maybe Anfora and your name is Joe C., you might want to put in a call.
++Best quote of the day came from Eric Texier: I love discovering a new vineyard. It reminds me when everything was new.
Don't set the dogs on me! I have been missing. In France.
The day after that gorgeous Les Clous (see below), I took the TGV to Avignon (will I ever actually see the town instead of the train station?) In the morning, we left Amy's puppies, we went to La Remise where I wondered if I'd ever return. There was something about tasting wines pre-malo, hard and unexpressed, especially when few wanted to seriously discuss their farming, the terroir and the vintage. Party atmosphere, the ubiquitous Utah Beach oysters. I found myself depressed.
Can I go home? Will I come back? Or was this merely jetlag. Not sure. Highlights? Natural wine from Greece! Finally. Crete and Santorini. No, I won't tell you now. You'll have to come back. Laureano's 2011's are tasting good. Great. And he has a new child in anfora which was damed tasty.
Andrea Calek was there with a new hair treatment, he told me he wasn't going to read my book but someone told him it was funny. He agreed. I don't know if he was laughing at me or with me, but it doesn't matter. He's a smart one, that one. I'll take with or at. It works.
That night, I went home with Amy by way of Le Tracteur where there was yet another tasting. Find? Yes. Jean-Sébastien Gioan's Domaine Potron Minet from Côtes-du-Roussillon.
Frankly it was hard to get me to taste another SW wine as so many just lack freshness, but this one, especially his white which is a blend of macabeu, grenache and muscat was peach, floral and apricot fuzz.
Once back with the puppies,
I gorged myself on her husband Matt's freshly made kimchee. He's got a thing for fermented foods and I really needed a vegetable.
Millesime Bio is that organic wine fair in Montpelier and an event I'm getting more fond of with each year.
Cheapish for the vignerons.
Great tasting conditions and some very fine wines.
Greatest hits? I fess up, ones that I know from here. I zoomed right over to taste barolo and Erbaluna (Savio Soares imports). I love those barolos. Really, and the 2006 is fragrant, sturdy, sandalwood and chalk. I reaquainted myself with the find wines of Cascina Cornia in Tuscany. This domaine, also imported by Savio Soares, by the way, stopped using copper in the vineyards in 1996, a fact I found compelling, and so were the wines. Gorgeous. Long macerations here and a great box wine. Along with the new domaine of La Porta di Vetrine, remembered what sangiovese tastes like and why years ago I loved it so much. Thanks guys. The Saladin sisters make a fabulous white wine, Per El a blend of 5 grapes all peach and rock. Le Pinte from the Jura gets better and better, Bruno Ciofi is doing great over there, so why isn't this imported into this country? Hello poulsard! And I ended happily with the burgundies of Giboulot. Elegant, even in the vintage I might be scared of, 2009.
Purpled teeth, I dinnered in town with Les Saladins, Amy and The Shep, a place where the Italians were retiring from their two days at La Remise, kiss kiss goodnight, knowing I would see Francesca and Alessandra at the gare in Blois.
TBC
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