Millesime Bio - cold and clear for the organic wine fair

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!