Real Wine Tasting at Il Bottaccio

Another year, another trade tasting. Not to mention a rabble-rousing Rabelasian feast thereafter. But more on that, anon.

This year we chose to hold our real wine event in Il Bottaccio, a swanky venue opposite Buckhouse gardens with high ceilings and chandeliers. “You’re becoming more bourgeois”, remarked one of our growers with a smile. Well, nice wines should be enjoyed in a nice environment with plenty of natural light and space to move around. Too many tastings are bun-fights: merchants shoehorning a huge number of wines and growers into a confined space and inviting all their customers to scramble amongst them on a single day. We also believe that every tasting should have a distinct theme and that our customers should have enough time to taste a strong cross-section of wines without pressure and be able to meet and talk to the growers.

I’ve talked about the philosophy of Real Wine elsewhere; in a nutshell we aim to promote growers who produce natural tasting wines with minimal interventions – these are, after all, the wines we enjoy drinking. The sensitivity and balance displayed in the vineyard and the winery inevitably informs the final product. People call our list eclectic; our selection of wines may be unusual and individual, but there is a consistent style or running theme – call it real, or natural, or pure, or simply expressive of time and place…

There were nearly forty growers present at the tasting, and although I was mainly positioned (marooned) behind a table featuring the diverse unrepresented organic offerings, I did manage to sneak off and taste most of the other wines. First port of call was the table manned by Luc de Conti and Pascal Verhaeghe; Luc’s Bergeracs in their golden leesy glory have attained an even higher standard – they are simultaneously sumptuous and savoury with the characteristic Muscadelle seasoning making them totally individual. Cont-ine Perigourdin, made from 100% Muscadelle à Petit Grains, reveals aromatic layers of dried fruits (apricot), butter, wild herbs and pepper.  The 2007s in general are showing excellent texture and balance; Luc is sanguine that this is a great white vintage. His reds have supremely measured tannins and silky blue-and-black fruits. I tasted Pascal’s Chateau du Cèdre prestige 2005, a superb wine where all the components are singing in harmony. This Cahors has an impenetrable purple-ink colour and yields lifted aromas of sweet fig, ripe quince and plum with those secondary Malbec notes of fennel and pepper.

Pausing to refresh my palate with Jean-Bernard Larrieu’s super fresh Jurançons I tried the Vitatge Vielh de Lapeyre, a lively concoction of Gros Manseng, Petit Manseng and Courbu from sixty-odd year old vines. This nonpareil blend works brilliantly: the Gros Manseng confers coruscating grapefruit acidity, whilst the Petit Manseng, aged in new oak, brings mango, pineapple and a hint of vanilla, and the Courbu provides mouthfeel. I also bee-sipped the Vent Balaguer (made for friends and family), named after the eponymous warm autumn wind that funnels up from Spain helping to dehydrate the grapes which literally ‘raisin’ on the vine. The sweetest wines benefit from an added sugar boost by being left in trays (originally on straw mats) in the sun – ‘passerillage’. Harvesting is done mid November and the sweetest wines are not harvested until December. This extraordinary nectar is a rhapsodic expression of sweet fruits: mangoes, coconut, grapefruit and banana bound by crystal-pure acidity – the wine goes on and on in the mouth. The tasting note wrote itself: “Bravo!!”

Next to the Gassac table to sample anew their amazing baby white wine. Called Reserve de Gassac it is a fragrant, yet fresh blend of Viognier and Marsanne. We will only be receiving 1,800 bottles and I reckon we could sell this ten times over. The 2006 Mas de Daumas Gassac Rouge is forward with delicious fragrant cassis notes and ripe tannins, very different to the more structured 2005.

Ever since I stayed in the hamlet of Saint-Jean de Minervois I’ve had a tender spot for Clos du Gravillas. The wines have quirky names like “Sous les Cailloux des Grillons”, “Rendez-Vous du Soleil” and “Douce Providence”. Although the Muscat that gives its name to the appellation, it is Carignan that is king. It is most manifest in the pure Lo Vieilh, but appears variously in the blends mentioned above in conjunction with a variety of other grapes including Cabernet, Syrah, Counoise, Grenache and Mourvèdre. I personally love the white called L’Inattendu from Grenache Gris, a sort of rosé manqué that mutated into a rich oily lees-aged white, with a hint of oxidation. After a light pressing the must is chilled and allowed to settle naturally. Half of the juice is transferred to new barriques of Allier oak, whereupon it rests on the fine lees for a further twelve months. On one occasion I opened a bottle, drank three quarters and left it out of the fridge for two weeks. I popped the cork expecting to pour it down the sink, but the wine had not changed a jot. Whiffs of apple-skin, a nutty nuzzle of amontillado and an unexpected pop of caraway – a right savoury number.

Olivier Pithon’s whites and reds possess a nervous minerality and fine purity that mark them put from all other wines from Roussillon. Cuvée Lais, named after a cute Jersey cow, is a blend of Macabeu, Grenache Gris and Grenache Blanc grown on schist-scarped soils from yields as low as 15hl/ha. Mango, pink grapefruit and citrus arc across the palate allied to the hint of wild herbs within a yogurty texture. La “D 18”, named poetically after the little road that winds next to the tiny vineyard, has no Macabeu. The wines are raised in a mixture of new, one and two year old barrels as well as some demi-muids. “Grenaches particuliers pour Elevage particulier pour Reflexion Particulière pour Boisson particulière sur Route Particulière donc Plaisir particulier.” We think you’ll agree with those sentiments, particularly. Extraordinary wine – apples, almonds, and honeysuckle, slightly sherry aromas, on the palate notes of fennel, olive and dried fruit, mouth-filling and very long. A wine that remains on the palate and the memory for a long time or, in the words of Irving Berlin: “The song has ended but the melody lingers on”. A wine to be assimilated mouthful by meditative mouthful. La Coulée is an equal blend of Carignan and Grenache, a bonny soothing fruit-drenched red with singing acidity. Brilliant aromatic blend with notes of juniper and clove, sweet red and blackberries balanced by exuberant acidity and firm minerality. The inky-black, almost exotic Les Vignes de Saturne, now simply called Saturne, named after a Spanish republican called Saturne, who fled from Franco’s regime and ended up tending the vines, contains some Syrah as well as the traditionally low-yielding Carignan and Grenache. Grapes are macerated for 25-30 days and the juice is aged in a mixture of barriques and foudres for 14-18 months. Saturated purple colour, dense and powerful in the mouth with explosive black plums and sweet fig fruit, black spices, soy, grilled meat, huge tannins. Recommended for those of a carnivorous disposition: hare, young wild boar or saddle of lamb catalane-style. Olivier’s wines possess a purity that border on the intellectual.

Domaine des Foulards Rouge was a new agency that I was looking forward to tasting. Jean-François Nicq took over the domaine in 2002. It was then ten hectares and he planted a further two on beautiful schist and gneiss (very gneiss) slopes. In his first year he began the conversion to organic viticulture. In his previous job he vinified the wines at the co-op in the Cotes du Rhone (Estezargues) where he worked without sulphur and maintained this practice of natural winemaking at Foulards for his first vintage. The terroir is Les Albères in the Pyrenees-Orientales, 10km from the sea and Collioure, where the maritime influence brings the freshness that enables the wines to reach phenolic maturity without excessive alcohol. The nor-nor –east exposition of the vines compounds this character and finally the soils which make up this ancient granitic area bequeath a delicacy and elegance to the wines.

The yields are kept low by the climatic conditions; successive droughts over the years have forced the vines to develop deep root systems to search for water and mineral nourishment. Depending on the parcel the yields range from 5-25hl/ha. Purity is the watchword here; the first thing you notice is the freshness of the wines, and, dare one say, some pretty juicy fruit.

Frida is from 50% Grenache and 50% Carignan (80 year old vines) on shattered granite soils. The yields are a valiant 10 hl/ha (count those grapes) Viticulture is entirely organic. Grapes are destemmed and fermented at a low temperature on the wild yeasts for a month. No sulphur is added. Les Glaneuses is 70% Grenache and 30% Syrah from yields ranging between 5-15hl/ha (mad, I tell you, mad). Carbonic maceration for twenty days on the indigenous yeasts and no sulphur. Soif du Mal is made similarly except that it is a blend of Syrah 70% and Grenache 30%. If ever a wine tasted medicinal in a good sense then this paregoric potion fits the bill and hits the spot.  The rosé, also disporting the Soif du Mal moniker, is sensational, all wild strawberries, liquorice, pepper and garrigue herbs.

Positioned on the lower slopes of the “Alpilles”, the soils of Mas Hauvette drain naturally and this together with the stony surface and a north-facing orientation ensures that the grapes have every chance to reach full maturity. The vines are cultivated organically and yield less than 30 Hl/ha. Destalking is followed by two to three weeks maceration, during which the grapes are trod daily. The wines then spend 24 months in oak vats or barrels, are fined with egg whites but not filtered.

Mas Hauvette Rouge is a seriously bosky infusion of Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache, but what gives the wines their superb individuality and elegant purity is an adherence to organic principles in the vineyard for qualitative reasons. The culture biologique involves spraying distillations of herbs instead of insecticides, ploughing back leaf cuttings to aerate the bauxite-rich soil. The wine is rich in natural aromas: the classic bouquet des garrigues of lavender, rosemary and thyme as well as more animal nuances of smoked beef and reduced gravy. The palate is gripping; like all great wines there seems to be something different in every mouthful.

And finally to Philippe Pacalet, who, looking like a cross between Leo Sayer and a 70’s footballer ,and literally twinkling with irony, is one of nature’s iconoclasts. He works seven hectares of rented vineyards, where organic work is done and focuses on making “terroir” wines, which means that all wines should be representative of their individual location and retain their own unique flavour signature. Thus the wine-making follows a non-interventionist code as it is conducted without sulphites, using the stems of the grapes, with natural yeasts during fermentation (which takes place in wooden vat for three to four weeks) and finally matured in (mainly used) barrels on the lees without racking. Pacalet says he makes wine like his grandfather did, but with “more consciousness”. As far as he is concerned he is a scientist and an artist, respecting nature by trying to understand its processes, identifying how best to liberate those raw materials that great terroir confers.

The 2006 village Gevrey-Chambertin is from limestone-rich, organically farmed vines and aged for sixteen months on the lees. It is fresh, fragrant and mineral with musky red and black fruits.  The Gevrey 1er cru Belair from the same vintage has greater roundness and depth and an almost salty edge. Terrific length. These are beautiful harmonious wines, typically pretty and unadulterated with sexy-earthy notes.

The Nuits-Saint-Georges has compelling texture. Flavours of dark cherries abound, hints of grilled mushrooms, warm baby beets… yum. It is a substantial wine, yet light on its feet, virile, yet delicate.
The Chambolle-Musigny 1er cru is a delight and ticks all the boxes one might expect from this appellation being generous, elegant and rich with seductive fragrances reminiscent of amber, rose, violet, mignonette and fur. Philippe says this wine is all about easy virtue. Actually, his comments are more sexually graphic, but we will pass lightly over. The Ruchottes-Chambertin (total production 900 bottles, so I’m afraid it’s bottle allocation only) has fine mineral precision and exotic notes of wild flowers, red berries and sandalwood.

Pacalet is wont to describe some of his wines as “Cistercian”, characterised by monkish austerity and restraint! Tasting across the range of the reds you will discern some common features; they share this luminous purity and are beautifully aromatic as well as being light and graceful, rarely tannic, and never buried in new oak. Burg-yumdy!