Les Caves November Newsletter
Natural Wine in the Press
Fiona Beckett writes a very good, balanced article highlighting the natural wine phenomenon in the Guardian on 6/11.
A couple of early reader responses to her piece indicate that bleating over-earnest pseudo-scientific scepticism prevails. Adducing bogus statistics and hurling around terms such as acetadelhydes doth not a clever thesis make. Whereof you know not, thereof you should not speak, surely, yet natural wine unerringly attracts all kinds of mean-spirited voodoo naysayers who attribute all sorts of crazy claims to the so-called followers of this movement. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting - gorgeous, fresh, low sulphur wines abound that are naturally drinkable. Where’s the problem? Read here Joe Dressner’s terrifically and typically insouciant verbal v-sign to the sophomoric whingers and my somewhat clunkier defence of natural wine.
http://www.lescaves.co.uk/grapevine/article/two_natural_wine_manifestos_for_the_price_of_one/
And who is to say what constitutes a natural wine? The only bit of the bible I know is the bit where the Lord says: In my house there are many mansions.” The same goes for natural wine, it ain’t some exclusive club - only weirdos may apply; I won’t bother with my gazillionth definition of what it is because, as I’ve said before, it is counterintuitive to try to circumscribe something that it is a group of principles rather than a hard set of rules. Suffice to say we want those careful nurturing practices in the vineyard to be guided to the bottle. I return to the idea that the winemaker is really a vigneron, a person who is a gentle interpreter of nature, who desires to capture the essence of the vineyard in his or her wine.
We shouldn’t feel the need to defend these wines. The wines are their own most fluent advocates. Put a “natural” wine side by side with a conventional, manipulated wine and one’s palate will make a decision what it desires to drink. It is always best to trust instinct of enjoyment and not be cowed by prejudice or rigid notions of correctness.
Attack of the 50 foot growers
This week we are happily assailed by a bevy (or bevvy?) of fine growers. John Bojanowski from Clos du Gravillas will be winging his way from Perpignan to visit some restaurants and independent wine shops. For those of you who are unacquainted with their oeuvres, John and Nicole make benchmark old vines Carignan (Lo Vielh), a stunning weighty and spicy Grenache Gris from tiny yields called L’Inattendu, and a predictably delicious orange-flower, aromatic Muscat de Saint-Jean de Minervois - amongst others.
Pierre Breton, one of progenitors of natural wine, will be in town all week. We’ve always been a fan of his Cab Francs, but (and Catherine Breton’s) Vouvrays have been wowing our customers. Pure drinkability. The latest vintage of Vouvray Pet Nat is currently a work in progress; it is certainly nat, but need to pet a lot more…
Salvo Foti is a legend in Etna (on Etna) where he makes wines for several famous estates including Benanti. He also dabbles in a project called I Vigneri which aims to rediscover a natural winemaking tradition using old vineyards, indigenous grapes, ancient ways of working the vines and traditional vinification. Yesterday I tried his white, Vinujancu, made from Riesling Renano (yes), Grecanico, Minella and Carricante. A thrilling wine, all 900 bottles of it, with piercing acidity and gripping minerality, the antidote to all arguments that natural wines have to be mad, bad and dangerous to know. I will write up Salvo Foti and his wines in the near future. Salvo is in London for a couple of days this week.
Dario’s trip to Sardinia
A couple of weeks ago Dario travelled to Sardinia and met several of our growers. Read his excellent detailed account of his gastronomic visit.
http://www.lescaves.co.uk/grapevine/article/darios_island_adventure/
Château Musar – A Natural Wine from Lebanon
Someone is going to look at this quizzically and say: ”Natural wine? Musar can’t be natural. It is so well crafted”. Well, talk to the hand, or in this case, a member of the Hochar family, because Musar has been avowedly organic from day one (over fifty years) and the interventions in the winery are equally minimal. A long established wine culture, a superb terroir, the willingness to let time be the master craftsman in the maturation and a passion to explain – these are the ingredients of a great wine.
The wines of Chateau Musar are unique expressions from a country with an ancient winemaking culture;. Introduced by the sea-faring Phoenicians who travelled far and wide distributing wines and vines throughout the Mediterranean vines have been cultivated in the Beka’a Valley for over 6,000 years.
The Bible is full of references to the wine of Canaan which is located today in southern Lebanon. According to one of the books of the Old Testament, the Hebrews had brought home a bunch of grapes so big that it took the strength of two men to carry it.
The reputation of the wine of Canaan was such that Egyptians reported it to be “as abundant as flowing water” and this probably inspired the Romans to choose Baalbek in the Beka’a Valley to build their largest temple ever, and to add, several centuries later, another temple devoted to Bacchus.
You can get a lot of Bacchus in here
French in origin the Hochar family arrived in Lebanon in the 12th century as crusading Preux Chevaliers and have remained ever since.
Lebanon, lies at the eastern end of the Med, bordered by Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south. Two very high mountain ranges run north south through the middle of the country divided by the Beka’a Valley. Lebanon , derived from an Arabic word “labneh” meaning milk, is a beautiful, green, fertile country, the land of milk and honey literally, a place of forests and lakes - and surprisingly good skiing.
Musar’s vineyards are situated up to 1000 m above sea level. Soils are calcareous, gravel and stone and are excellent for wine growing. The wines are influenced by the mountains; summer days are warm (occasionally) hot, but nights are cool – it is temperate, Mediterranean climate. The red grapes are Cabernet Sauvignon supplemented by the southern Rhone/Med low yielding Cinsault and Carignan. Grenache and Syrah have been planted.
Ancient and indigenous white grapes of Obaideh and Merwah which prefer slightly cooler conditions are grown further up the slopes at altitudes of up to 1,500m. These are harvested in mid October. It is said that these may be the ancient forebears of Chardonnay and Semillon.
The stunning winery is in an 18th century overlooking the Med in Ghazir. Temperatures inside the thick stone walls remain constant -perfect for long slow maturation of the wines.
The red grapes are fermented separately in cement vats at 28-30 C. This is a natural/wild yeast ferment and lasts seven to ten days followed by a four week maceration. The wines are racked around 6 months after harvest and then aged for approximately twelve months in French Nevers oak, a small portion of which is new. The wines are then blended according to the conditions of the year and bottled without filtration or fining at the end of the third year. The component wines from a number of different vineyards are constantly tasted – this is winemaking by instinct – there is a noticeable variation in Musar from year to year, irrespective of the seasonal differences from vintage to vintage.
The final blend is then aged for a further 3 to 4 years in bottle before release in its 7th year.
Chateau Musar white is also fermented in Nevers oak barrels for 6 to 9 months, bottled and blended after its first year and then stored in the Musar cellars for a further six years before release.
Natural wine
“When you are a winemaker you have the luck to work with something that is alive and you should never kill it”. (Serge Hochar)
Gaston Hochar becomes most animated when discussing natural wine. He explains that one particular vintage was dismissed by the critics on its release as being “faulty” because of its very high volatile acidity. This fits in with the notion that certain tasters are in thrall to technical correctness – they see the fault and not the wine; they take a Polaroid of the moment rather than understanding or imagining how the wine will develop in its own time, in its own fashion. The wine is living, it moves through phases; in the end the VA became fully integrated into the wine and imparted its own kind of energy*. According to Gaston the only wine you can assess in a few seconds (which is the way that most tastings and wine competitions are predicated) is a dead wine, a wine which effectively gives itself up for instant analysis.
*Other similarly faulty wines would include Grange, Chateau Rayas, Chateau Cheval Blanc 47…
Musar is about the journey. Just as the grapes are transported over the mountains to the winery, just as the wine ages slowly and contemplatively in the barrels, so the journey is constant and evolving. Thus the wine resists flip calibration.
Natural wine involves natural components coming together naturally. Some wines almost hit their peak the moment they are bottled; their ebullience and youthful vitality signifies that they should be drunk in their embryonic state. The wines have an extraordinary arc, you can sense them developing in the glass (decanting Musar is always recommended), the tannins and acidity work together to prolong the flavours in the mouth. The wine comes together; maturity is a kind of wisdom, wherein all the components have melted into the whole.
Different approaches to finding true expression. Musar is an extraordinary endeavour; it shows that wines which break the mould can be successful.
We tasted four wines with Gaston. Hochar 2003, as it is called, is definitely a chip off the old block, based predominantly on a single vineyard near the village of Aana in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. This vineyard area is specifically chosen because of its character – the vines here are from deeper soils over limestone and the age of the vines, at around 35 years old. Yields are low with approximately 25 to 30 hectolitres per hectare resulting in a richly concentrated, complex red wine.
The Chateau Musar 2003 is a blend mainly consisting of Cinsault with Cabernet Sauvignon, Carignan and a small amount of Grenache. The Cinsault, Carignan and Grenache vines are trained in ‘gobelet’ and the Cabernet Sauvignon vines are in ‘Guyot double’. These red grapes are harvested in September and following fermentation in temperature controlled cement vats, each grape variety spends between 6 and 9 months in French Nevers oak barrels.
The wine has an intense burgundy colour with a beguiling, complex nose full of ripe, juicy black and red fruits with Christmas spices combined with figs, dates and cedar wood. The oak is subtle and well-integrated with a palate bursting with fruits – red and black cherries, juicy blackcurrants and blackberries, damsons and plums balanced with good acidity, fine tannins and excellent length. The wine is still very young at present, but all the components are present.
The older vintage we try, a 1998, is gloriously harmonious. Scarlet in colour with terracotta tones at the rim, it has a complex nose of cigar box spice, warm leather, baked fruits, ripe morello cherries and blackcurrants. The palate has intense flavours of red cherries, dark chocolate, olives, figs and velvet smooth tannins on the very long finish.
The White 2000, meanwhile, was fermented in French Nevers oak barrels for nine months, blended and bottled at the end of its first year and released six years later in 2007. This vintage will have extraordinary ageing potential.
Deep golden straw in colour, this enticing wine has intense aromas of toasted brioche, almonds, apricots, baked apples, ripe pears, vanilla pods and honey. The palate is opulent with a buttery honeyed texture and vibrant flavours of nuts, tarte tatin, vanilla, butterscotch, apples and quince. It is rich and mellow with a very long, honeyed finish. It reminds me a superb old Graves.
Nöella Morantin - To Reign in Touraine
The charismatic and attractive Nöella Morantin worked for years for Les Bois Lucas (owned by Japanese Junko Arai), where she vinified natural wines from organic vineyards. Her new location is nearby in La Tesnière, on the same southern bank of the Cher river in the Loire Valley, and she has managed to acquire some vines from Didier Barrouillet and Catherine Roussel of Clos Roche Blanche. The soils and vineyards benefited from years of care and from the organic farming of Didier, which was essential for the types of wines that she wanted to make. The vineyards, which are intermingled with the ones that CRB keeps for itself, sit on the upper hill on the slopes along the Cher river and are surrounded by woods with a lot of wild life.
The vines are beautiful and healthy and she is just getting to know them. As for the vinification I make no apology for reprinting Bertrand Celce’s illuminating commentary on it.
I ask her to recapitulate her vinification : she uses indigenous yeasts only (no lab yeast), there is no SO2 adding in the fermentation vats and the only use of SO2 is when she racks a cask (and there is only one racking), then she puts only 1 gram to 1,5 gram of SO2 per hectolitre which is very little. There will be no SO2 added at bottling. She just bottled some Sauvignon 2008 and this wine saw a small SO2 adding only once, at the racking stage, it had zero SO2 during the entire year it stayed in the casks. This wine simply was never in contact with a single additive before the racking… [I think that there’s no mystery here, this life and pleasure that these type of wines convey is rooted in the let-them-live philosophy of their vinification. A wine offers so much more when it is raised with this careful-but-respective approach than when it is forcefully formatted by a battery of lab and biotech additives]. (I agree - Ed) Speaking of the 2009 wines, there will be lots of acidity in many wine regions and some people will be tempted to de-acidify the wines. She of course disregards these tricks, the vintage is the vintage and the wines will express it, plus the cellaring potential of the wine will be very good here.
Bertrand Celce – Wine Terroirs
Noella uses a mixture of tank and cask for vinification and elevage. She bought 400-litre casks for her white wine from the late Stéphane Cossais (whose wines we will be listing for another couple of years) and who was a close friend (They had been in touch a few days before his unexpected death to confirm this deal over the used casks). Frantz Saumon, who helped Stéphane’s wife deal with the aftermath at the winery, reserved nine casks for her and Noëlla feels deeply moved by the fact that she now uses Stéphane’s casks.”
La Boudinerie” is the name for her Vin de Soif, a thirst wine going with cochonailles, boudin and saucisson. Yes, it does what it says on the label. la Boudinerie is the name of the farm that she rents and where the chai is located. The old land-register name was la Closerie de la Tesnière but it changed for some unknown reason in the 19th century to la Boudinerie. This remarkably lovely Gamay is purple, intensely fruity and surprisingly spicy with some herbaceous- sappy characters glimpsing through, the longer it breathes the more delicate red fruits become visible. Essence of cinnamon mingling with peppermint, strawberry and raspberry. This wine exudes vibrancy in every way and is truly a pleasure to drink. It was bottled with zero sulphur added, natch…
The Sauvignon cuvée, named les Pichiaux, after the name of the vineyard plot , is from relatively young low-yielding vines. The wine is turbid with a hint of straw, the nose has elements of bruised bramley apple and medlar, and there are some flavours of bitter lemon and some exacting acidity. Someone once remarked to me that Sauvignon should taste like Sauvignon (cat’s pee, elderflower, unripe green fruits, undigested sulphur...); the vinous natural wines of Morantin, Riffault, Bain, Clos des Roche Blanche, Courtois take Sauvignon out of the (tinned) asparagus patch and into the orchard, from unrealised spring into warm and spicy autumn.
These are simply life-affirming wines.
Focus on Beaujolais - New wines from Georges Descombes & Damien Coquelet
There is now more to these wines than jam today. The Beaujolais-Villages and Régnié from Domaine de La Plaigne have impressive colour and extract; the Brouilly from Domaine Cret des Garanches is enticingly juicy but with the sort of tannin to tackle food and the quartet from Didier Desvignes (there’s a name for a viticulteur) are certainly no bubblegum bimbos. And now to prove that Gamay from old vines on poor soils can compete with the posh neighbours in Burgundy: lively Fleurie from Yvon Métras, bitingly mineral Brouilly from Domaine Lapalu and the inimitable Morgon from Jean Foillard. Here be premier cru-sading Beaujolais, intense, naturally made wines from old vines and low yields using minimal sulphur. Gimme that Gamay!
Our love of Parisian wine bars and our desire to capture the spirit of drinking moreish wine led us to reassess the Gamay grape and the Beaujolais region. The grape itself has lived in the shade of Pinot Noir. In July 1395, the Duke of Burgundy, Philippe the Bold, outlawed the cultivation of Gamay as being ”a very bad and disloyal plant"-due in part to the variety occupying land that could be used for the more “elegant” Pinot Noir. 60 years later, Philippe the Good, issued another edict against Gamay in which he stated the reasoning for the ban is that ”The Dukes of Burgundy are known as the lords of the best wines in Christendom. We will maintain our reputation”. The edicts had the affect of pushing Gamay plantings southward, out of the main region of Burgundy and into the granite based soils of Beaujolais where the grape thrived. Had we been around Philippe the Most Excellent would have issued an edict that Gamay was where Le Bang for Buck was at.
The Beaujolais revolution started with Jules Chauvet. Chauvet was a rare combination of winemaker, research chemist, and supremely gifted taster. He argued for naturalness in wine from a position of scientific expertise and immense practical experience. And he didn’t just argue for natural wine. He explained exactly how to make it. His few published works have become textbooks for young natural winemakers.
Marcel Lapierre was highly influenced by Chauvet and his brilliant wines in turn influenced a group of young growers including Foillard, Lapalu and Descombes. The latter makes unfiltered and unfined wine with terrific intensity in Villie a-Morgon, farms organically (using a little copper and sulphur) throughout his 15 hectares of vineyards scattered in Brouilly, Morgon, Chiroubles and Beaujolais-Villages. In a good year yields will achieve 40 hl/ha but 30-35 hl/ha is common. Take note Burgundy.
Descombes uses a single slow press which allows a long smooth pressing of grapes and ferments in cement vats of 60 hl. After filling the vats, the grapes are covered with CO2 and begin to ferment by themselves with their wild yeasts. Long fermentations are sought as they give the best results in the wine.
We enjoyed his Régnié with its transparent violet purple colour with immediate fresh violet, cassis and sweet raspberry smells and more than a hint of earthiness. This wine is all fresh fruit on the palate, tinged with salt and underlain by leather notes in a manner more familiar from a cru like Moulin-a-Vent. This finishes with ample fruit, but a surprising and impressive emphasis on the mineral and carnal.
Descombes’ slow vinification and tendency to hold back his wines yields wines with amazing length and concentration - witness his oh-so-impressive Brouilly. According to Wine Spectator: “This well-balanced red has sweet and smoky spice notes weaving through a subtle mix of strawberry, black cherry and cream flavours. Fresh acidity keeps it clean and lively, leading to a lingering finish.” The savoury-sanguine meaty-animal notes detected in the Regnie are even more palpable here. This would work particularly well with spicy chorizo cooked with puy lentils.
2008 Brouilly
2008 Regnie
At the same time we also tried a wine from Georges Decombes’ son-in-law, Damien Coquelet. The wine is in the same idiom as those above in terms of viticulture, wild yeast ferment and winemaking method and tastes delightfully natural.
This Chiroubles has a pure and inviting nose, nice minerality with bright fruit (cherry, cranberry and plum) with a hint of liquorice. Earthy and floral, it is quite complex in the mouth. Balanced, delicious with toothsome acidity, a wine you can drink throughout the year with a wide variety of meat and poultry dishes.
2009 Chiroubles
Cherubic Chiroubles