It's that time of the year...

Yes, it's that time of the year again, when the leaves turn orange, the birds fly south, and the grapes ripen on the vine.

Harvest.

Old-vine grapes being picked at Clos Bagatelle in St Chinian

Back in 2006 I worked the harvest in Burgundy, and let me tell you, it wasn't easy, and I was 6 years younger than now.  I had pains in places I didn't know existed, and some in places I wished I had never discovered.  That said, it was a magical experience that I'd happily do again if I were younger.  MUCH younger.  At this point in my life, I prefer to sit back and try to move these amazing wines, and let the pros handle harvest.  

Into the bin with you, my pretties

Well, harvest has been going on now for a while in the South of France, but my winemakers being busy and all, they are only now getting around to sending me pics and reports.

Anyone want some St Jean de Muscat grapes?  These are Christine Deleuze's brother's pickings, he'll make an amazing sweet wine from it

2012 has been a very difficult year in most of France, Spain and Italy.  Between lousy weather, heat waves, hail and problems with mildew and oidium in the fields (especially in Champagne, where a tornado actually touched down in the vineyards), my winemakers have been super busy.  Over the next few days and weeks I'll be posting harvest reports from our wineries (assuming the winemakers haven't passed out from exhaustion), with maybe a few pictures (again, assuming the winemakers remember what I keep asking them for!).  So stay tuned.

Here's the first report from Clos Bagatelle in St Chinian (full picture album is on our Facebook Fan page at www.Facebook.com/Vinotas - become a Fan!): the year started tough, with cool and wet weather followed by summer hear waves, but September was warm with cool nights, which kept the grapes fresh, maintaining the levels of acidity we've come to expect from Christine's wines.  As they say in France, September makes the wine, meaning that the entire year can be crappy, but if September is nice, then you'll have some good wines.  However, volumes are down by 20%, something I'm seeing across the board.  Still, quality and color are looking good, but we'll know more early next year.

Cheers!

InterMezzo Visits

Domaine Sauvaire-Reilhe's 16th Century tower
After Millesime Bio, I had some time before the next round of shows in Angers, in the Loire, so I headed off to Crespian, in the Coteaux du Languedoc, north of Nîmes. Yes, I was going to be abusing my palate some more, er, I mean tasting more wine, but this time at the domaines themselves. I was there to see Hervé Sauvaire, owner and winemaker at Domaine Sauvaire-Reilhe. His family has owned this winery since the 1600s, when one of his ancestors received it as a wedding gift. Talk about a generous present!

Old-vine Carignan
Their home still has a 16th century tower, though of course it’s been renovated. Hervé met me at the train station and we drove up into his vineyards, located on rocky hillsides around his house. He’s got some crazy old vine Grenache, Carignan and Vermentino, as well as Syrah, planted in super rocky soils. When you see where these vines grow, you wonder how they can survive let alone thrive.

The winery- look Ma, no oak!
Hervé shares his chai with 2 other winemakers, and while one of them does use oak, Hervé does not. To me, this keeps the wines fresh and light on their feet, with bracing acidity balancing out the beautiful, deep minerally fruit. And while his winemaking’s not “Certified” Organic or Biodynamic or Natural, he does take loving care of his soils, as they have fed his family for centuries with the quality of his wines. And I’m not the only one to think so, his wines have been selling very well in the NY market, which makes me very happy.

Say Bonjour to Hervé!
Hervé himself is really lovely and down to earth, with huge hands that have been weathered by years in the vineyards. He’s serious, but a smile comes easily to his face. It’s people like him that make this business worthwhile. Getting them the recognition for their work is something that delights me, and just recharges my batteries. So after a hearty lunch of bull stew (a local specialty that was delicious) and his wines, off I went to see my newest winery, in the Ventoux, Croix des Pins.

Bienvenue to Croix des Pins
Croix des Pins was an old and crumbling property until Jean-Pierre Valade and two of his wine-making friends got together and started renovating it. They also purchased some vineyards at the foot of the steep Dentelles de Montmirail mountains, all old-vine Syrah and Grenache on terraced hillsides. Using Organic principles, their goal is to make wines that are pure expressions of their local terroirs. Yeah, every winemaker says that, but at the end of the day the proof is in the bottle. These wines are crisp, spicy representations of their appellations, Ventoux, Gigondas and Crozes Hermitage. And I’m not the only one to think that, Steve Tanzer’s Rhône reviewer Josh Raynolds scored them well:


And thus another long, lusty dinner with lots of wine ensued, and lots of laughter. These are soulful, good-humored folks who are thrilled to be bringing these vineyards back to life. And I’m really happy to be able to represent them in the US.
Gnarly old vines
Cheers!

Millesime Bio 2012

Every year, a horde of thirsty wine buyers makes its way to Montpellier for the annual Organic and Biodynamic wines trade show, Millesime Bio. It doesn’t hurt that the show takes place in the South of France, where the ambient temperature upon arrival was 60F. For reference, despite a relatively mild winter, when I left New York it was 28F and we were delayed 2 hours while the plane was de-iced. Lovely.

Le Choo-Choo arrives
Usually I fly straight from Charles de Gaulle, but this year I took the TGV from the airport to Montpellier. Happily enough, I ended up doing a Grand Tour of France through some of my favorite wine regions, heading East through Champagne, South through Burgundy and the Rhône, then West through the Languedoc to get to my goal. And it only took 4 hours! Looking out the window as we flew at airliner speeds, I had to smile: even now, with years of experience under my belt, it always amazes me that such a small country (slightly larger than the state of New York) has so many different landscapes. From the flat green fields and farms of the north to the undulating rocky forests in the East to the dry bare stone of the South, this country has scenery for everyone.

Welcome to a wine trade show
The trade show itself is several halls worth of wines that have been made according to Organic and Biodynamic principles. It’s also (sadly) still an excuse for a lot of people to make a lot of bad wine. That said, and my blazé attitude aside, there are some really stunning things to be found these days. Of course, this also depends on the price, but that’s the nature of the business (and a business it is, make no mistake about that).

Row upon row of wine
When these wines taste good, they’re great, really bright, living things, expressive of their origins and of the care the winemaker put into the vines and the winemaking. When they’re bad, they can (sometimes literally) smell and taste like shit. Bad Organic/Biodynamic wines take on an odd, nearly BO-like aroma and get sharp spiky notes in the mouth. Good Organic/Biodynamic wines, to put it mildly, go down smooth and feel alive, with vibrant fruit and lovely acidity and minerality.

Pascal Pibaleau at his stand
The first thing that hits you when you walk through the door is the smell: it smells like WINE. And that just brings a smile to my face. For two and a half days, I wandered the tables of Millesime Bio, stopping to see people I knew and meet people I needed to know. I also had the chance to hang out with one of my winemakers, Pascal Pibaleau, who makes biodynamic sparkling, whites and reds in Azay-le-Rideau in the Loire (yummy stuff too but I am biased, of course). By the end of Day One my teeth hurt like Hell, and I’m pretty sure I yelped the moment the toothpaste hit them that first night (for those who don’t know, young wines tend to have lots of acidity, and that sensitizes the enamel on your teeth).

Like an evil wine-swilling Santa Claus, I had made my list and checked it twice, I knew which wines were naughty (already imported) and which ones were nice (undiscovered). Let’s face it, you can’t go in there without some homework: it would be like visiting the Louvre with no real clue of what works of art you wanted to see. You’d end up getting lost for days and someone would have to call Seal Team 6 to rescue you.

And for the record, it’s not an orgy of foie gras and cheese (sadly). In fact, most of the meals were pretty well-balanced, though the best part was sitting with various random winemakers and trying their wines at the table. I mean, wine is made to be both convivial and served with food, so this was a great showcase for them. As opposed to the relatively scientific method employed when standing in front of a table trying not to spit wine into your neighbor’s glass.

I will say that I still do love going to a table full of anticipatory dread, sort of like a child on Christmas Day running to the tree, hoping to unwrap something good but also hoping it’s not brown socks. More often than not in my line of work, it’s brown socks (some of these wines actually smelled/tasted similar to what I imagine old brown socks would be like). The worst part is finding something that’s delicious and checks off all your requirements, only to discover that it’s WAY too expensive. Talk about deflating your dreams…

On this trip, I found a few wineries I would love to work with, but there’s a lot of negotiations to be had before any hard decisions can be made. I was also lucky enough to have the time to visit some wineries I am working with south of Montpellier (there’s nothing like a few hours in the warm sun on a mid-January day to revive the batteries), as well as see another one of my winemakers, Christine Deleuze of Clos Bagatelle in St Chinian (while she doesn’t make Organic/Biodynamic wines, she does make some damn delicious ones using sustainable practices - again, I am shamelessly unapologetically biased, deal with it).

But it’s not easy: you’re on your feet all day from 8am to 5-7pm, there are long dinners afterwards with customers or winemakers, and your liver is just taking a heck of a beating even with the spitting, not to mention what must be happening to your teeth. And frankly, let’s not forget when you stumble onto a bad wine and have to remain poker-faced as the winemaker tells you his family’s been doing this for hundreds of years and thinks they’ve got the secret to success. Good luck with that one.

All in all, however, I am happy to report that there is a definitive qualitative trend that’s pointing upward. More people are making good Organic/Biodynamic wines at relatively affordable prices than at any other time. All it takes is the right importer to bring them in (Me! Me!).
Cheers!

A Week in the South of France

 

Yeah, there are worse places to be in early summer. Sometimes, despite all the difficulties, there are some nice aspects to this job. I spent a week travelling back and forth between the Languedoc and the Rhone, visiting my current and potential wineries.

 

I started off at La Bouscade, my Minervois producer that is making some great, juicy, but not over-the-top wines right outside of Carcassonne. Between visiting the vineyards and tasting the wines, I helped replace the tire on a tractor in the middle of a field.

 

I had time to take some pictures of the vines under the bright, warm sun, tiny berries just starting to appear as the summer started.

 

It was such a pleasure to see David, his lovely wife Jo, their kids, and taste their wines. We had a fantastic time catching up and visiting, their wines are really something special and are doing really well in NYC, I am happy to say.

 

Next I headed East to Chateauneuf-du-Pape, the ancient capital of the Avignon Papacy and heart of the Rhone's wine-producing region. This hilly land is overseen by the ruins of the castle, towering over the town itself and the rocky vineyards around it.

 

In Chateauneuf, I joined some travelling friends from the US for a lovely lunch at Domaine Pegau, the reputed Chateauneuf producer. There, Laurence Feraud, the winemaker, took us for a tour and tasting before opening her heart, cellar and kitchen to us.

 

When we came to the house, we were greeted by a lovely table. Here, we shared in Laurence's generosity with a delicious meal and good friends.

 

Oh, and of course, some quite nice wines.

 

We also had a chance to visit other domaines, including Bosquet des Papes, the classic Chateauneuf winery. To say the 2007s are good, well, that's an understatement of massive proportions.

 

We also stopped in at a favorite of mine, Pierre Usseglio. Again, we tried the 2007s, and were rewarded with beautiful, fresh fruit and vivid acidity. 2007 is indeed a wonderful vintage, from what I've tasted in the Rhone so far.

 

Vieille Julienne was another stop, and here the 2007s were also fantastic, with some differences in style and price of course. But still, WOW.

 

I ended my visit to the Rhone with one of the best, if not THE best, meals of my entire trip to Europe. Dinner at Gerard Alonso was really good, with pristine ingredients, a beautiful setting, great wines (2005 Allemand Cornas les Chaillots - yum!), and good friends. The chesse tray alone is worth the visit!

 

The next day, I hopped on a train and headed South, to the border with Spain. The train was clean, air-conditionned (wow!) and on-time, a real pleasure to take between cities. How come we don't have anything like this here in the US???? For about 28 Euros, I could travel for hundreds of kilometers in a comfortable environment. It is ridiculous and shameful to think that the leader of the Free World can't make a train system that works well.

It was such a pleasure to find myself back in the wine-producing areas of France. The weather was great, the food was delicious, and of course the wines profound. Best of all, it's always a thrill to find oneself among people who are passionate about what they do. And, I am thrilled to say that the 2007s are just gorgeous, real beauties to taste and drink.
Cheers!

A Day in Saint Chinian

Where? Look at the map. If it looks like the middle of nowhere, then you've got the right idea.

During my stay in Europe, I had a chance to pop over the border and visit my Saint Chinian producer, Clos Bagatelle. There, I was greeted by Luc and Christine, the brother and sister winemaking team that I profiled a while back. They are making wines that reflect their terroir's gifts while maintaining a lovely elegant style that differs drastically from most St Chinians.

 

Luc is the vineyard manager, and while I was there he drove me through the torturous roads that wind their way through the local hills to show me his Saint Jean de Minervois plot. This vineyard is planted to Muscat, and makes a very particular dessert wine. While it actually only received its AOC qualification in 1949, the area has been making wines since the Romans were sauntering about.

 

As you can see from the pictures, it's a very stony soil at the top of a hill that overlooks the region. The wind was a constant howling companion, washing over the crest of the hill and rustling the vines. After about an hour of this, I began to believe the local legends that say it can drive someone mad.

More interestingly, however, was the way the vines were planted. They were all staked individually, and grew to no more than 1 meter in height. Big deal, right? No, because these tiny vines have to be plucked by hand. As difficult as hand-harvesting is, this must be back-breaking!

We also drove to some of Clos Bagatelle's other parcels, planted to traditional varieties like Syrah, Mourvedre, Grenache and Carignan. All are beautifully maintained to ensure the highest quality grapes. Which is where Christine's skills come into play...

 

Christine is the winemaker for Clos Bagatelle. She coaxes beautiful flavors and aromas by doing a post-fermentation blend, and can spend many days trying to figure out the perfect assemblage. She is looking for freshness but also a certain transparency of the region's terroir. Many of her neighbors make wines that are somewhat over-blown and even cooked due to the heat. Not Clos Bagatelle.

 

Thanks to Luc's skills in the vineyard, the grapes are never abused, and once they're in Christine's capable hands the results are there for everyone to taste. And boy did I taste! Going through their entire portfolio made me smile. This domaine is a winner and is one to watch. Their wines are fantastic, though of course I am just mildly biased...
Cheers!
PS: More pictures are available on the Vinotas Selections' Facebook Fan Page.

Big News: A New Addition to the Portfolio!

OK, OK, I know, this isn't huge news, but this doesn't happen very often. I am infinitely picky and annoyingly slow at adding wineries to my portfolio, but then again that's how I work, so deal with it. However, I am happy to announce that I have decided to add this winery, Clos Bagatelle, to my line-up.

This domaine has been run by the same family since 1623, when their ancestors bought plots of land in and around the town of Saint-Chinian. Today, they farm 60 hectares (approx. 148.31 acres) of vineyards, whose soils are a combination of shist, limestone and clay, at an average altitude of 120 meters (396 feet).


The brother-sister team of Christine and Luc manages the estate these days. Their wines are really special and well-made, never too ripe or over the top but well-balanced by their fruit and their acidity. What results are wines that are not just traditional, but offer a certain sense of place and time that is defined by the term terroir. And if their basic bottling, le Clos Bagatelle Tradition, retails for more than $13, you're in the wrong store. I'm just saying.


The landscape, as you can see, is rough, stoney, and dry, perfect for really abusing the vines and making them work for a living. Only through suffering (of the vines) can greatness be achieved!


They treat their vines with the utmost care, using sustainable agriculture methods, and harvest everything manually. Their oldest vines can be found on the hilltops, where 50+ year-old Grenache and Cinsault thrive despite their age and the drought-like conditions.


Finally, older wooden barrels are used to soften the wines and add a certain "roundness" to them without imparting oak flavors. The results speak for themselves.

Their basic bottling, the Clos Bagatelle Cuvée Tradition, is a blend of Grenache (40%), Syrah (20%), Carignan (20%), Cinsault (10%) and Mourvèdre (10%). The nose offers dark fruits and berries with hints of guarrigue, which follow through on the palate on a lovely frame that is well-structured and refreshing.

The Clos Bagatelle Donnadieu Cuvée Camille et Juliette is an assemblage of Grenache (40%), Carignan (30%), and Syrah (30%) and comes from hilltop-planted, old-vine Grenache and Cinsault (50+ years old). Much more Rhône-like than its sibling, this offers dark berries with game, meat and olive notes.

The Clos Bagatelle Donnadieu Cuvée Mathieu et Marie also comes from old-vine Grenache (20%) but has more Syrah (50%), with Mourvèdre (15%) and Carignan (15%) rounding out the blend. Another wine that is reminiscent of the Rhône, this wine has darker fruits than the Cuvée Camille et Juliette, with some guarrigue and an almost bacon-like note that appears with some air.

So if you're a distributor looking to add something interesting and unique, feel free to contact me. I'll be showing these wines around in the next few weeks, so wish me luck!
Cheers!

Two Days in the Languedoc

Only happy Picpoul grapes here!
I next found myself in the far South of France, only an hour’s drive from the Spanish border, where the sky is bright blue and the sun’s dappled light inspires artists, philosophers, and writers. Except that when I got there it was cool, grey and rainy. Just my luck…

I was picked up at the Béziers train station by my Picpoul de Pinet producer, Claude Jourdan. Her wine, Félines Jourdan Picpoul de Pinet, is doing great in NYC and so I was looking forward to seeing her, meeting her new assistant winemaker Sandy, and of course tasting through some wines! There were some other meetings planned, and I was hoping to find 1-2 more wines to add to the portfolio. Claude had graciously gathered a few samples of local wines she thought might be suitable for us to taste the following day.

After a nice and relatively quiet dinner in Mèze (where we were serenaded by the town drunk who wobbled over on his scooter), a tiny fishing town on the shores of the Étang de Thau (Bay of Thau, which empties into the Mediterranean), I woke up well-rested and ready to start the day. Claude picked me up and we wandered to the water’s edge. Chardonnay vines are planted within 3 meters (whoops, 10 feet, sorry, I am feeling very Euro right now so am counting in meters and grams) of the shore, leading to some vine deaths from the salty air. However, the cool and humid air that comes rolling in off the Bay balances out the brutal summer heat in the region, which explains why her Chards are crisp and lighter on their feet than most Chards from the region.

Chardonnay rows
We drove from parcel to parcel, passing through vineyards of various ages (I’d never seen very old Picpoul vines), and taking note of the different soil structures (see the picture for a real clear example of this). At one point our path was intersected by the 2,100-year old Via Domitia, a Roman highway that was old when the Empire paved it (supposedly, it was the route that Hannibal took to invade Europe). How cool is that? And somewhat humbling too: I seriously doubt that our modern blacktop highways will last that long…

Old vine Picpoul
Different soils (rocky clay at bottom, ferrous at top)
Chariot races this way
Looking north on the Via Domitia
Looking South on the Via Domitia
Cross-section of the Via
Panel explaining the construction of the Via
We found ourselves at the winery, where Sandy, Claude’s new assistant winemaker, had organized a little tasting of the just-fermented 2008s. They were good but tough to analyze, some hadn’t quite finished the fermentation and had some residual sugar. Still, the quality was evident, 2008 should be another great year for Claude, despite a rather reduced crop. Then we wandered over to the fermentation tanks, tasting various plots of Picpoul to see the differences. All were searingly acidic, as can be expected, but they’ll sit on their lees for at least 3 months before being bottled. Some were rounder than others, and some more aromatic than others, quite a fascinating thing to see first-hand. Or rather first-palate.

The 2008s await
Freshly fermented Picpoul anyone?
At dinner we were joined by Claude’s friend Christine, who brought her own wines to the table. She makes wines in the Saint Chinian appellation, in the Minervois, concentrating on hearty reds that reminded me of the Rhône without that area’s prices. I liked her wines a lot, and I might try to represent them. Something to consider, I’ll be sure to keep you posted…

The next day was spent in meetings all over the Languedoc, which would be great if the sun had been out and the air warm and I could brag to my friends and family who were left shivering in the cold NYC autumn. Except that it was drearily cool and humid there too. Such are the risks of this business, I suppose. I did have a fantastic lunch in a small town, a confit de canard (duck confit) so meltingly good (literally) I was left swooning in pleasure, if not waddling like a duck after.

Dinner that night was in Montpellier with two of my winemakers, and I insisted on revisiting an old friend: l’Atypique, where I’d spent 4 fun-filled and wine-soaked evenings during ViniSud. Amazingly, Marco recognized me almost from the get-go, and away we went!

Marco in action
He started us with a fresh gazpacho that puts to shame much of what is served in most New York Mexican restaurants. Next came some perfectly cooked lamb chops in an herbal mustard sauce, accompanied by a plate of deliriously fresh pommes frites. Claude and I ended up fighting over the crunchy bits, chasing them around the platter with our forks. We shared a bottle of Cab Franc from the Languedoc that was nice if a bit modern in style, then he offered us some prune liqueur to digest things… Delicious but WOW. My head’s still spinning.

I was happy with my stay here, as I may have found a few new wineries making great juice to add to the portfolio. Better yet I saw some old friends and made some new ones, and of course had a great time doing business.

Next: A day in Avignon.
Cheers!