Thursday 8 september 2011
4
08
/09
/Sep
/2011
13:21
I set up this blog to cover my trip on an old Solex motorbike from Chablis to Sablet in Provence in 2009. Over 40 days I visited 80 winemakers (some world-famous and
others still unknown) as I rode through Burgundy, Beaujolais and down the Rhone valley.
I am now frequently invited on trips for journalists, so the blog now covers the whole country. Even so, the focus is strongly on my area, the southern
Rhone.
.
So click here to continue the adventure.
By Lincoln Siliakus
0
Thursday 8 september 2011
4
08
/09
/Sep
/2011
13:04
I set up this blog to cover my trip on an old Solex motorbike from Chablis to Sablet in Provence in 2009. Over 40 days I visited 80 winemakers (some world-famous and
others still unknown) as I rode through Burgundy, Beaujolais and down the Rhone valley.
I am now frequently invited on trips for journalists, so the blog now covers the whole country. Even so, the focus is strongly on my area, the southern
Rhone.
So click here to continue the adventure.
By Lincoln Siliakus
0
Saturday 29 january 2011
6
29
/01
/Jan
/2011
20:15
Jacques Beaufort and Karen Turner & Emmanuel Pageot at Millesime
Bio
Ipads, smartphones, digital photos, the daily release of new software and tools, off-peak travel bargains. It's a rich moment for bloggers and other writers... as we describe a world that is increasingly imbalanced. Everyone senses that we are on the edge of something, perhaps enthralling, perhaps distressing,
probably both. In any event, among all of this commotion, the search for authenticity (real authenticity, that is) is as strong as ever.
-
-
Marceline Beaufort of the Domaine de l'ocre rouge
The 18th Millesime Bio wine salon that has just
finished in Montpellier is therefore a source of optimism. The interest in organic wine grows year after year. 3200 visitors came this year, an increase of 500 on last year, to sip the wines of
560 estates, up from 490 in 2010. For the first time, the show extended to two large pavilions; the extra space helped to foster a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.
Everyone has to make a quid, and standing up all day chatting with buyers is tiring work. Seriously. But these are not suit and tie, diamond ring affairs. Pullovers, flat shoes and interesting
faces are the norm. In France, where winemaking involves as much philosophy as method, vignerons of all sorts love a yarn, and the Bios with their extra engagement have plenty to talk about.
Can we really call it organic if there is no control over what they do in the winery even when the grapes are farmed organically? What about the use of sugar, acid and sulphur? And are organic
wines better than the others?
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Marc-Antoine Bret
There are good and bad organic wines, as there are good and bad traditional ones. On the other hand, as I rode Solex from Chablis to
Sablet I felt that the organic (and especially bio-dynamic) wines had greater clarity than many of the
others. A large blind tasting might give more objective results. There is some logic to my gut feeling, though. If vignerons are constantly going into the vines to detect problems as early as
possible, they are going to be more attentive generally. If they know they can't fall back on a dose of poison, they are going to watch those vines, and learn to feel how they behave. Respect
for the earth is also going to encourage them to feel the link between that soil and the result. Their wine is not a product. Of course, there are exceptions, and some vignerons are organic
because their marketers are pushing them there. Vive la difference!
In the following posts, I'll profile a few of the people I met there.
By Lincoln Siliakus
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Posted in: The wider world of wine
0
Tuesday 25 january 2011
2
25
/01
/Jan
/2011
07:14
Ah! The south of France. Who wouldn't want to live down here? The sun, old stones, cicadas... the wine.
So why not make some of the stuff?
Last night at Boris restaurant in the heart of Montpellier, I had the chance to catch up with eleven winemakers who have put their hands into their often deep pockets and have moved to France to
do just that.
I wasn't the only one there.
Ruth Simpson from Domaine Sainte Rose moved here from Scotland with her English husband. After globetrotting through the worlds of pharmaceutical marketing and humanitarianism, they have settled
in an appellation called Cotes de Thongue where since 2002 they have made a small range of lovely clean wines. They took their time to decide where to live, with choices in Margaret river and New
Zealand as well. They were starting a family at the time, and I suspect they wanted a bit of culture for the kids.
The winetasting pressure was so intense that wine writer and photographer Per Karlsson had trouble knowing which receptical to drink from.
Well-known wine publisher Philippe Gaillard was also there, supporting Lidewij van Wilgen, who left the world of advertising in Amsterdam to make wine near St Chinian. An uphill battle for a
foreign woman in a world of (let's be polite, here) solidly traditional values. I need to visit her again, as the evening had been such a success it was hard to get to the bottles!
The full list of winemakers:
Château d'Anglès www.chateaudangles.com
Château de Combebelle www.combebelle.com
Château
Rives-Blanques www.rives-blanques.com
Domaine
de Calet www.domaine-de-calet.com
Domaine Cébène www.cebene.fr
Domaine Jones www.domainejones.com
Domaine
Treloar www.domainetreloar.com
Domaine
Sainte Rose www.domaine-sainte-rose.com
Domaine Vella Frontera www.vellafrontera.com
Mas
des Dames www.masdesdames.fr
O'Vineyards www.ovineyards.com
By Lincoln Siliakus
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Monday 24 january 2011
1
24
/01
/Jan
/2011
15:07
Before dawn this morning I drove down the freeway to Montpellier, with the half moon on one
side of the clear sky and a sliver of gold on the opposite horizon. I realised why wine shows are held at this time of year. It was minus 5 degrees,
hardly the weather to encourage vignerons to jump out of bed and onto the tractor.
The annual Millesime Bio wine show was
started by the helpfully-named AIVB-LR (Association Interprofessionnelle des Vins Biologiques du Languedoc-Roussillon) in 1993 to promote organic wines. Good move! Organic wine - or, more
accurately, wine made from organically grown grapes - is increasingly on everyone's lips. There are now 40,000 hectares of such vines in France and visitation of the salon was up 40% last year.
This is what it looks like.
And in case we needed something to drink:
These gigs are also great social get togethers. As well as meeting
lots of journos (it is a very small world in France) I caught up with Patrick Baudouin, one of my favourite makers of sweet wines in the Loire
valley. He is now more focussed on dry whites made of the hugely under-recognised chenin blanc variety. We tasted five of these, and then two sweeter ones made from grapes that have undergone
noble rot. All of these showed wonderful balance between fruitiness, amplitude and clarity. Bravo.
I also bumped into Pascal Clairet, from the Jura in eastern France, who
poured three wines made from the Savagnin grape. The first "sans voile" (without a veil) is aged in old barrels which are kept full. Without oxygen, no film (or veil) of yeast floats on top. The
second (Savignon de voile) is aged without ouillage, or filling up. As the wine evaporates, the level drops and oxygen gets in, the wine becomes oxidised and a film of yeast forms on top. That
wine had over 3 years of "voile", and was deeply spicy, unlike the first which was tighter, mineral and smelled of white flowers. The final wine had been voile for 7 years and had lost 30% of its
volume. Still tight and long, it is earthy enough to support food with plenty of character such as curry with cream or tagine.
This evening, its the chance of the Outsiders, a group of 8 winemakers who have moved to the area from other countries. They
are organising a dinner down in the centre of Montpellier. More news later!
By Lincoln Siliakus
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