Tickety-boo wines at the home of crickety-poo

FUOR rather than PHWOAR! at Lords.

I don’t mind the generic trade tastings – the trade does not really turn out en masse - one might without difficulty distinguish between France Under One Roof at Lords and a rush hour commuter train in Tokyo - so the rewards in terms of sales and follow up are not vast, but they are relatively relaxed, blithe and sunny occasions. The occasional journo flutters by, alights like a butterfly on one wine, sips, ticks and vanishes with a smile. But even they are becoming rarae avises. Only the retailers really are present to investigate adding excitement to their portfolios.

This year we upped the ante with some fine (mainly) organic and biodynamic wines including a nice slew of youthful Burgundies. I figured that if you come to the temple of cricket you want a bit more than vin de bog-standard. It was an opportunity for us to broach some lovely wines and show the brilliance rather than the cheapness of France…

I like the venue. Light pours in from the south west and illuminates the room. And, of course, you are a hop, skip and a no ball from the sanctum sanctorum. I remember as a wee boy going every Sunday to Lords, being allowed to roam over the grass during the tea interval and go right up to the edge of the pitch itself. One could even take a bat and tennis ball and play an impromptu game of cricket on the outfield. I recall sneaking on a real ball once and bowling a leg break at my dad; the ball bit the manicured grass and spun sideways with a hiss. I nearly then-and-there gave up my fantasy career of being Denis Lillee terrorising batmen with brutal, rib-crunching bowling to concentrate on becoming arch-bamboozler and prestidigitator of the dark arts of spin like Chandrasekhar.

Anyhoo, now you can’t even look at the grass in the Nursery area practice end without being castigated angrily by some puffing purple-faced official.  It reminds me that Copenhagen was recently declared to be the most pleasant city to live in (in Europe) because of its lack of hectoring signs and restrictive “street furniture”. It is a city for pedestrians and cyclists, where the rules are determined by people taking responsibility for their actions, rather than being regulated to within an inch of their lives.

I digress.

My highlights of the tasting:

2005 Jurançon vitatge vielh, Clos Lapeyre
Sheer mountain magic from Jean-Bernard Larrieu. This extraordinarily intense dry Jurançon is without equal, the result of an infusion of late harvest Petit Manseng and old vines Courbu. Oof – it strikes you amidships, beginning with a bracing, lacy blast of pith and kin, like biting into crunchy flesh of pink grapefruit, then you are plunged into tropical melange of passion-fruit and mango which is topped with grated fresh coconut and almond. The wine develops in the glass as the Petit Manseng assumes command, and displays secondary notes of toasted nut and white truffle balanced by that familiar shimmering acidity…

2002 Cahors, Cuvee Centenaire, Clos de Gamot
One can imagine black-hearted, sour-pussed tricoteuses drinking this during the French rev. Fennel, red cherry, liquorice, liberal dusting of dried herbs and crushed green peppercorns. The acidity purrs and the tannins have bite (but are not bitter). Malbec as nature intended from 125 year old vines.

2005 Clos Baquey, Cotes du Marmandais, Elian da Ros
The last time I tasted this it was clad in a sinister cowl of new oak. I felt then that Woody Woodpecker would have knocked himself unconscious trying to get through to the sap.  Today it was hale and hearty, firm and meaty, an educated monster of a red. Almost black with an intense expressive nose of plums, cassis and black cherries and restrained notes of coffee and vanilla from the oak, it revealed additional balsamic flavours of resin and liquorice.

2005 Domaine de Montcalmes, Coteaux du Languedoc
This Languedoc classic is a blend of between 65% and 70% Syrah, with the remainder comprising Grenache and Mourvèdre. The parcelles and varietals are vinified separately, and the wine undergoes 24 months élevage in barrique, with the Grenache being transferred back to stainless steel after the first 12 months of oak ageing. This is yet another domaine on the famous plateau near Aniane, with varying soil types, including friable limestone, and even the classic galets roulés of Chateauneuf fame. Frédéric is looking for very small yields, producing around 20 hectolitres per hectare from his old Grenache, 10 hectolitres per hectare from his Syrah, and only 30 hectolitres from two and a half hectares of Mourvèdre. The grapes are de-stemmed, and undergo a long cuvaison, followed by ageing in one to three year old barriques from Domaine de la Romanée Conti.

This wine is so supple and smooth – imagine a dapper Burgundy crossed with sunny Chateauneuf-du-Pape – plums, black cherries, notes of kirsch, cocoa, a gentle brew of herbs, a whisper of smokiness. It is amazingly impressive, and, like the wines from the neighbouring estates of Mas de Daumas Gassac and Terrasses d’Elise, beautifully self-contained.

2006 Jasnières Kharakter, Domaine Le Briseau
I like this notion of a terroir, notoriously temperamental, that unabashedly fixes you with its glittering eye and declares: ―I am what I am – take me, or preferably, leave me! Most certainly the vagaries of vintage determine the style of the wine: the difference, for example, between 2005 & 2006 is profound. Even the more sumptuous examples have an astringency that keeps your palate guessing. There‘s warmth, waxiness and those almond notes typical of Chenin, some sly sherry aromatics and pulped-pear-mingled with-flint-fruit. And here‘s the rub, the longer you leave it the more profound it becomes, so please carafe in order to allow the dry honey to become runny.

I had an interesting discussion with Simon Woods who said that he really didn’t get on with this wine (he’s not the only one, I’m afraid) and that the oxidative character (or Kharakter) was detrimental to the grape and the terroir. Balance is crucial and where you draw the line in taste is whether you feel that flavours conferred by wild yeast ferment and ageing in old barrels are obtrusive, or part of the nature of the wine itself. Le Briseau Jasnières is a typical expression: I smell earthy, cool-climate Chenin, the edgy quince fruit and the profound minerality (like rainwater on stones). Amidst that framework is the primary yeastiness of low sulphur, and the secondary nutty notes of oxidation. I believe that these elements are an integral feature of the wine, this very particular wine. The taster has to beware of defining wines (natural wines especially) in terms of how they should be.

We‘ve heard of nature red in tooth and claw, but most would prefer the tooth and claw filtered out. Call me perverse, but we live such mappined lives, that it is salutary, refreshing and darn therapeutic to glimpse life on the wilder shores, in this case, a wine that does not conform to our notion of tutti-frutti correctness. As Ralph Waldo Emerson says: ―A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. I wonder who laid down the primer for correct and incorrect wine. It is the coldly reductive logic of the Consumer Acceptance Panel which ignores the fact that individuality and unpredictability are what makes wine a living drink. Our list would be a pale shadow if it were missing wines from Cousin-Leduc, Bera, Princic, La Stoppa, Bea and Valentini. To some these may be the taste equivalent of Joan Crawford’s fingernails scratching the underside of an iron coffin, but to others a welcome diversion from the smart, clean-chopped-identikit- oenologically-smoothed clones that bestride the supermarket shelves. We love these wines for their faults; in fact their faults make them what they are. Made with wild yeasts, handled gently without filtration or addition of sulphur, the wines are alive, constantly in flux, rarely the same one day to the next. A lot of people, if they don’t see the wine, attribute it as a fault of the wine; sometimes, truths are not self-evident.

2000 Arbois Pupillin Blanc, Emmanuel Houillon
Summa cum laude in the puzzled-frown-followed-by-gradual-dawning-of-love stakes was the Arbois Pupillin Blanc from Emmanuel Houillon. The colour is churned buttercup yellow, the nose is crazy-fantayzee – imagine an oatmealy Meursault combined with the Amontillado “cut me some nutty slack” sherry nature of a quasi vin jaune bolted together by a withering streak of lemon acidity. It is a brilliant, dangerous wine, seemingly fragile yet utterly wise.

It was vigneron Pierre Overnoy who established the unyielding purist precept that wines should be made without the addition of sulphur. Pierre‘s father originally made zero-sulphur wine, but Pierre, who did his internship in Burgundy, experimented with it, until tasting the difference between his father‘s wines and his own convinced him that the zero-sulphur wine had a finer aroma. The vines and the cellar are now in the hands of Pierre Overnoy’s protégé, Emmanuel Houillon, who fully espouses the philosophy of his mentor. Without sulphur the quality of the grapes has to be exceptional; everything in the vineyard is done totally organically, yields are never more than 35hl/ha and Houillon turns the top six inches of soil, cutting the surface roots and thus depriving the plant‘s of the topsoil‘s potassium which otherwise combines with tartaric acid and lowers their acidity. The white grapes are immediately pressed and their juice is also protected with CO2. After the initial active phase some of the white wines continue to ferment a year or more, virtually all in old oak barrels of various sizes.

All-in-all the wines were hunky-dory. Zero corked bottles amongst one hundred opened, although one wine was monumentally reduced. The Burgundies are on the second table were young but utterly delicious, confirming my supposition that 2007 will be the perfect early-drinking restaurant vintage. I’m looking forward to renewing acquaintance with the Domaine de Chassorney wines from Frederic Cossard again. Some wines were genuinely great, whatever one’s criteria for judging are. The Brouilly, Croix des Rameaux, Domaine Lapalu was rich, phenomenally concentrated, smoky and multi-dimensional, whilst the Chardonnay, Les Grandes Teppes from Jean-François Ganevat makes me think what a profound Puligny would taste like if it were made in the Jura.