I read or heard somewhere that the million dollar nose Parker ignores Burgundy and rates Alsacian wines highly instead. A bit childish if you ask me. I don’t think he means the pinot noirs of this Rhineland region, but probably the whites. I have never tasted a particularly good Alsacian pinot noir; I find them thin and lacking the earthy complexity of Burgundian or even some Californian versions. Alas, this Lucien Freyermuth 2004 is no exception. A posh yellow label, nice long bottle, but no length in the finish. I am not being bitter either, it just doesn’t shape up. If anything, the wine itself has a bitter aftertaste. 

A pretty flat D- rating for this, scraping a pass. I don’t remember if I had a hangover from it, it certainly didn’t fill me with that amorous feeling. Okay, I am willing to believe this was an off year, or not a great grower, so please if you know of a great Alsacian pinot noir, do tell us where and how.

photo by Kriss from flickr1 July08, Rights reserved

This photo I grabbed from Flickr, by Kriss. Rights reserved, hope they don’t mind. Kriss is Paris-based, a talent in a city of lights. See Kriss’s other terrific photos here.

As we are on to tannats, here is one I have kept for years, an Irouleguy from the Basque country in the south-west of France. Patience certainly pays when it comes to good wines, and this one has aged very well since buying it in some shop near Pau in 1997. We were at  wedding and it was one of the local wines we came across, thanks mainly to an English chap and his French wife who were swishing it around in the hotel restaurant. It was a Domaine de Mignaberry, which seemed quite tanic but a little less gummy than some other cheapish local offerings. I bought one bottle in the nearby shop, a 1996. As the French lady happened to be an aquaintance of my own French wife, I decided to keep it till we all next met. Well, we haven’t had the opportunity and my patience finally ran out (or rather my curiosity took the better of me). So, eleven years later (last night) we opened it. Patience rewarded: medium rich, calm, supple, some fruit still and softly tannic. Perfect with a melted Mont d’Or cheese and some baby potatoes and fried buttered mushrooms; not a confit, but fitting nonetheless. I wouldn’t hunt high and low for Domaine de Mignaberry, but I take my hat off to smaller wines that yield up such pleasure after so long lying down (beyond the recommended six years).  There are three factors at play here, apart from that little bit of luck that all wines need: first of all, the domaine itself, which  not only clearly works the 80% tannat and the oak with mastery, but also deftly rams in a cork that is up to the job (so many good wines are let down by forgetting this “coup de grace”); a second factor is our cellar, which though in Paris is away from metro lines and elevator shafts, and continually performs wonders for us; and the third is, well, it must be the tannat. It seems to melt in better than cabernet sauvignon or merlot, rather as duck fat to butter. 

The one downer was that as the wine breathed glass by glass, it began to wane like a flower. It also developed a slightly bitter sharp flavour. This waning happens to older wines, but it seems to happen more to the large tannic types. They open well, punch good and strong by about the middle of the bottle, and then ease off. A good Burgundy on the other hand tends to go the other way, with a kaleidescope of myriad flavours racing around even faster in all directions by the last third. I don’t think the infamous Robert Parker ever quite got that point, or perhaps as a marketing man he did, knowing that customers are impatient and the big sells would punch big right from the start. If you have the patience to wait a few years, and lying down a wine while waiting for a friend helps as an incentive, then that early punch will be all the richer. Anyway, despite the fading, 14/20 for this wise old Irouleguy from Domaine de Mignaberry, from Saint Etienne de Baïgorry.

©RJ Doyle

I notice alot of interest in Madiran and SW France wines out there.  I even write about them from time to time. Researchers claim they are good for the heart, and correspond to regions with good male longevity. Darby’s comment on my Pellehaut article even suggests Uruguay as a good source of Tannat rich wine, with its magic artery friendly ingredient, procyanidins. Most interesting and no doubt all true. But let’s be wary of over-marketing or jumping to conclusions: first, life expectancy is high in other parts of France without the Tannat, which suggests something else at play, eg general diet, moderation, and other good wines; second, trade figures show the Japanese prefer Burgundy (even at times when the Yen was low they raised their orders!) and have low heart disease. One Madiran convert even suggests quitting bland Burgundies. Absurd, really, for though I agree, there are bland Burgundies, there are also far more excellent Burgundies for the reasonable prices, eg 10-20 euros from the Beaune region or Côte Chalonnaise, and stupendous First Growths (Premier Cru) for just over 20; third, while a great drink, good Madirans are to good Burgundies what a fun Renault Clio is to a Renault Espace; and finally, not sure about Madirans, but compared to Bordeaux, Burgundies I am convinced are an aphrodisiac, which is also probably good for the heart! Maybe a good idea is to mix them all. Santé.

Top heavy Family

Now here’s an interesting wine from the Gers department in the South-West of France, the so-called home of the legendary musketeer, D’Artagnan! Le Gers is beautiful, with Roman roads, walled villages and towns and a good, if slightly heavy, local gastronomy. Their confit de canard and Cassoulet of white beans can be had right in the middle of a hot August. Luckily, there are local wines too that are up to the job of degreasing palet, and this Pellehaut is one of them.

Again, we got it in that Caviste Contemporain on rue Saint Honoré, which I have just learned via the Pellehaut website is in fact called Lovin’. Not a great name for a wine shop, a clumsy play on English and French (Love-Vin) by someone who is evidently far better at wine than at poetry. The shop stocks two Pellehaut, one called Family Reserve, which I tried and at nearly 20 euros is in fact more expensive than the other Pellehaut for around 10 euros or less. 

The Family Reserve 2005 was big and steady, plenty of chewy earthy flavours, with just enough fruit from the 10% Merlot and 90% Tannat, which is a grape I didn’t know by name, but which is tannic (as the name suggests) and is common in Madiran wines. It gives the wine balance and elegance; the cheaper Pellehaut that I have not tried comes with 70% Tannat and 30% Merlot. My guess is the Tannat provides the body and velvety elegance.  One great thing about this wine is the bottle: big, very heavy, with a gently broader top end. This weightiness may well bump up its export price! The shape also makes drinking, say, half a bottle a little harder to measure and you may end up drinking far more than you think! At 13.5%, prepare for an afternoon snooze.

When I first visited le Gers in 1982 I was with some student friends in search of grapepicking. Though we loved the region, we never found any there, partly because we spend our nights out and our days in bed, and partly because the countryside did not seem at all rich in vineyard landscapes. We simply concluded we had come to the wrong place and decided to sow some wild oats instead. We were ignorant of course, for this is the Côtes de Gascogne after all. Still, I wonder if Pellehaut was quite as dynamic then as it seems now. Well worth the visit to Lovin’ or any of the stockists, which are listed on the Pellehaut website.

©RJ Doyle 2 December 2007

The problem with classic Bordeaux-style wines, even some of the best, is their long steady finish, like licking polish. Tanic, chewey sometimes with some velvet, but no surprise. And don’t we just love’em. It is true that after a complex affair with big Burgundians, a nice uncontroversial Clarety wine can be appeasing, a sort of comfort zone.

This wine is not from Bordeaux, yet understands this sentiment perfectly well. Indeed, if you want to taste a postcard of a very good classic, get this one. Vieillefont Domaine Mouthes Le Bihan 2002 is good stuff indeed. Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Malbec all combine exactly as they should. Nothing exciting, but after the Vaillard, reassuring. It is this kind of experience that has many wine drinkers convinced that Bordeaux is better and it is hard to argue. Vieillefont is not strictly a Bordeaux though, but Côtes de Duras (or St Jean de Duras to be precise). That’s effectively in the Bordeaux region, straddling the Garonne, Dordogne and Gironde (Bordeaux’s department). It has its own “appellation contrôlée” though.  We got this wine in a rather original wine bar in central Paris called Le Garde-Robe. A hip and slightly pretentious place where you can sip wine, check out the ageing goaties and buy from an extensive range of obscure and not so obscure wines. A woody rather than a pebbly finish to this shop, but with erratic advice leading to sometimes disappointing buys. While it is fun to discover some of these wines and hats off to them for trying, in this shop they are soemtimes ridiculously over-priced. Maybe they buy them in expensive from wineries that are themselves overpriced, or maybe the shop’s owner just wants a big fat margin. Vieillefont from Duras is steady as she goes though, and a good buy, and worth Doyle’s 12/20.

Chile is one of those wine exporters that people politely agree produce good value wines of appreciable quality. I have to say, I have never had an excellent Chilean wine. Last night at dinner we had Villard’s Expression Reserve from Casablanca Valley. A 2006 bottle was probably far too young to drink. I got it in a good shop, or rather a well-appointed shop, of the new designy variety: nice balance, crisp, pebbly finish…I mean the shop. The wine itself did not qualify for such attribution: over-oaked and over here. At 14% it was probably slightly too heavy in alcohol, though perhaps this has something to do with exporting it. I could taste the pinot noir in there though, which is an achievement for some countries, for we all know how hard it is to reproduce real Burgundian style pinot noir, some French-inspired Californians being a notable exception.  The Chilean bottle looked suitably Burgundian though, the contemporary kind, light with a gentle midrift shape. It says on the bottle that Casablanca Valley enjoys sea breezes, which it says extend the ripening period of the hand-picked grape. It is rare for pinot noir not to be hand-picked, and I am not sure why the ripening season has to be long, since a grape is not an apple and the magic moment that gives the grape its excellence is not easy to identify. I disagree with the bottle that it is well-balanced, but I have had worse. Slightly too tarty for me (that strawberry flavour was a little too sugary for my taste), which ageing 50% in French barrels could not fight back. This was confirmed by tasting another heavier, more tanic, non-pinot wine and then going back to the Villard. Unfair? No, a good pinot noir can hold its own against even a tough Syrah or shiraz. The price was not bad though, so if you love pinot noir and want to try it, go for it. Perhaps a 2005 or 2003 would be better.  Doyle gives it a generous 10 out of 20.

Anyone out there know the town of Metz in northern France? Worth a visit, with its elegant cathedral area all built on a hill, and grand esplanade by the river. See also Avenue Foch, also known as the Imperial Quarter, described by some as an Urbanistic Jewel in Europe and now on UNESCO’s world heritage list. See pages 12-13 of this local magazine, Vivre à Metz.

If you want a wine that explains why Burgundy pinot noir is “miles” ahead of other grapes, then read this shorty.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/thought/week.shtml