sommelier news - katie kelly bell

S ommelier N ews

February 2011

Basic Bordeaux By Roger Morris page 2

The Godfather of Paso Robles By Katie Kelly Bell page 8

Provence in the City page 11

First Press By David Wilkening page 13

Sommelier Jobs page 12

Basic Bordeaux Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur are the region’s little black dress

If you really want to get to the heart of Bordeaux, forget for the moment the bucolic cruise along

Route D2 through cru classé country between Bordeaux city and Pauillac. Abandon the name-dropping

confines of the small plateau around Pomerol and St.-Émilion. Instead, spend a few days a few days in

the countryside with Jana Kravitz and Luc Plissonneau.

I first meet Jana and Luc during a group lunch at Planète Bordeaux, the tourism and wine sales cen-

ter bordering the main highway between Bordeaux city and St.-Émilion near Salleboeuf. Planète Bor-

deaux is the brilliant brainchild of the trade group of the same name that oversees the two brands of ba-

sic Bordeaux – Bordeaux (often called Bordeaux AC) and Bordeaux Supérieur. Jana, an American, and

Luc, a Bordelais, both have extensive experience in the wine trade, and one of their duties is to help (Continued on page 3)

By Roger Morris

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Rare Bouchalés vines at Château de la Vielle Chapelle

consumers and journalists understand what basic Bordeaux is all about and the quality and value the

wines represent.

Over our simple buffet lunch, a group of producers explain the centrality of basic Bordeaux:

● It is the world‟s largest wine region - 62,600 hectares or about 155,000 acres which produce an

annual average of 3.3 million hectoliters of wine;

● Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur account for 55% of total Bordeaux production;

● It includes 6,300 individual growers and 42 cooperatives;

● Basic Bordeaux can be grown anywhere within Bordeaux, but most is concentrated north of Li

bourne and in Entre-Deux-Mers where we are having lunch, and

● Every second, 13 bottles of Bordeaux rouge or Bordeaux Supérieur rouge are being consumed

somewhere in the world – Planète Bordeaux to Planet Earth!

At a time

when many con-

sumers worldwide

are demanding

high quality at low

price, basic Bor-

deaux fits that

need. Not every

bottle is great – it

isn‟t in any region

– but gone are

the days of ubiq-

uitous “plonk.”

And while the

quality and prices

of the classified

growths get most

of our attention,

the fact is that

most people who

like the tastes of

white and red

Bordeaux drink

basic on an every-

day basis. If the

classified growths

are the red-carpet

gowns, then basic Bordeaux is the reliable little black dress.

(Continued from page 2)

(Continued on page 4)

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Stefaan Massart provides commentary during horse-drawn tour

of vineyards and botanical gardens at Château Vilatte

Over the next few days, Jana and Luc take us to almost a dozen producers to introduce us to the

people behind the labels. Here are four of their stories.

From Asia to Agritourism

After 10 years working on lan-

guage projects in Asia, Frédéric and

Fabíenne Mallier bought Château de la

Vielle Chapelle, a distressed property

near Lugon on the Dordogne‟s north

bank, in 2006. Like many winery

owners throughout Europe, the Mal-

liers discovered that tourists want to

“drink in” more than just wine. They

set up a two-room B&B, and Fabíenne

offered cooking classes that attracted

locals as well as weekend guests. As

the 21-hectare property (7.2 in vines)

sits behind a 4-foot levee paralleling

the river, it is prime property for tour-

ists who like to fish or come to surf

the Dordogne during mascaret – a pe-

riodic, predictable, small tidal wave,

or “bore,” influenced by full moons.

The wave slowly comes upriver, often

allowing surfers to ride for several

kilometers. By chance, La Vielle

Chapelle is also the only known pro-

ducer of single-variety Bouchalés – a

long-forgotten variety that composes

one old-vines block in their vineyards.

It is only sold in their 12th Century

tasting room along with more-typical

Bordeaux blends.

An Eight-Hectare Dream

Olivier Casenave comes from a négociant wine family in Bordeaux, and his wife Anne hails from St.-

Émilion. But they met in Paris, where she worked – and still does – as chief purser for Air France. Like

many young couples, they wanted a small winery where they could raise a family and perhaps make

wine that would cause people to take notice. Buying a property with a basic Bordeaux appellation is the

most affordable route to this dream, but it also one that throws them into a sea of producers, all trying

to catch the attention of passing ships known as importers and consumers.



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“We moved here in 2003,” says Anne Casenave as we drink their 2009 “Aux Plantes” Rosé on a riv-

erside deck along the south side of the Dordogne where their eight-hectare dream, Château de Bel, is

located. They got off to a great start. His first reds, from Cabernet Franc and Merlot, won critical acclaim

in France, and his Bordeaux rosés drew attention in England. “Because of my work as a négociant, I

knew importers who could get my wine into the United States,” Olivier Casenave adds. There are many

markets that are attractive to the Bordelais, and high on everyone‟s list are two growing ones – the

United States and China. And the U.S. is closer and easier to access and navigate. It also helps that the

Cazenaves know Luc and Jana, and now a crew of American journalists. Hard work and talent. Risk-

taking. Valuable networking. The Bordeaux dream continues.

From Commodities Trading to Sorting Table

Middle-agers can have dreams, too. “I wanted to change lives,” says Antoine Touton. “In commodi-

ties – vanilla, cocoa – where I had a career, all you do is deals. There‟s not much you can build. I had



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Antoine Touton (left) and Frédéric Mallier (right)

something inside myself. I wanted to build something.” And now he is. Touton and his wife Lucy looked

at vineyard property all over Bordeaux – even discussed moving to Chile – before finding Château Sainte

Barbe in 1999.

Sainte Barbe is located on the right bank of the Garonne River 12 miles northeast of Bordeaux city in

Ambes, a small point of land just before the Garonne joins the Dordogne to form the Gironde estuary. It

was once a vibrant neighborhood as steamers chugged upriver to the quais of Bordeaux. Not many peo-

ple live or come here now, and the once-grand homes are mainly in decay and their vineyards not well-

tended. That was the Toutons‟ find in 1999 – a handyman‟s special – but in the 12 years since, the cou-

ple has renovated the house and the vineyards, 30 hectares of vines planted on gravel and alluvial soils.

Eighty per cent is Merlot and the remainder Cabernets Sauvignon and Franc, making exquisite wines that

continue to get better.

As we talk, Touton rises to get us both another cup of coffee. “We were harvesting until 8 am,” he

says, “and I left the sorting tables at 4 am” Sometimes the dream leaves little time for dreaming.

The Renaissance Farmer

Stefaan Massart hearkens back to centuries past when gentlemen farmers were self-reliant and

adept at everything – agriculture, philosophy, invention, statesmanship, writing, even poetry. When we



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Stefaan Massart of Château Vilatte

visit him at his Château Vilatte in Puynormand, he bakes

bread for us in a 19th Century oven from flour he made

from wheat he has grown on the property, takes us on a

horse-drawn wagon ride through his botanical garden

along a parcours botanique and leads us on a tour

through his museum/barn where he has collected historic

farm instruments and invented his own machines and

parts when what was available didn‟t work the way he

wanted. His wife, a teacher, is away at her school for

the evening, so he invites us to a traditional meal that he

had been simmering on the stove all day. On the side,

he runs a small gite or tourist accommodation.

And, yes, he makes delightful wine – covering about

every category, including a Crémant de Bordeaux. His

family purchased the section of once-feudal farmland in

1973, and he took over running things when his father

died. Stefaan was 19 at the time. Today, he practices

sustainable agriculture on 37 acres of vines.

At the End of the Day

One of the attractions of wine – from the consumer‟s

side at least – is the romance in the bottle. It‟s one mat-

ter to drink a well-made wine with dinner. It‟s quite an-

other to know the story behind the bottle – the people who made the wine and the land on which it was

grown.

Even a little black dress can be cut many ways from different fabrics.


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Roger Morris is Managing Editor of Sommelier News and also regularly contributes to Robb Re-

port, Saveur, Wine Enthusiast, Beverage Media and epicurious.com. He is also author of The

Brandywine Book of Food, a book about regional culinary terroir.

Become a Friend of The International Sommelier Guild at Facebook.com

Limestone cellars at Château

Lamothe de Haux

Long before today‟s luxury accommodations

and gourmet restaurants came to Paso Robles,

Gary Eberle was planting grapes where none had

been before – and hoping for the best. In the

early 1970s, after finishing at U.C. Davis, Eberle

started out as winemaker at Estrella Vineyards

and has been going full tilt ever since. Now, with

Paso on the rise in the eyes of both collectors

and everyday consumers, Eberle talks about the

past and future of his beloved terroir.

How did you make the leap from New Or-

leans to Paso Robles in the 70's?

I was at LSU working on my doctorate in cel-

lular genetics at the time, and one of my profes-

sors was opera fan like me. We‟d enjoy opera,

and, to enhance my wine knowledge, he‟d serve

wines like Château Latour. I‟d try to enhance his (Continued on page 9)

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The Godfather of Paso Robles Gary Eberle talks about the joys of helping build an appellation

By Katie Kelly Bell

Gary Eberle

experience by serving Lancers. It was during this time that I had an epiphany, probably the only one in

my life. For me, wine was love at first sight. Suddenly I was buying Burgundy and Bordeaux; they were

cheaper then. And I started reading about wine and decided to make a pilgrimage to UC Davis where

they accepted me into a doctoral program in fermentation science. I discussed the move with my wife

Marcy for about 7 seconds, and off we went.

Talk about your role in the development of the Paso Robles AVA.

While at Davis I was involved in doing soil sampling in Paso. In June 1973, I completed my course

work and needed to finish my dissertation on the job. I headed down to Paso to plant the Estrella vine-

yards (now Meridian).

During the early 1980‟s we started work on mapping the Paso Robles appellation. We sampled the

soil, observed the climate and drew the boundaries to create a monster appellation in order to include

everyone who could be potentially growing grapes. We didn‟t create it to exclude anybody; we wanted

include everyone. At that time my UC Davis professors were all promoting Paso as the potentially the

next great wine producing region in the state.

What did you think about Paso when you first arrived?

I loved it right away. It‟s hard not to like the area. Paso has a natural beauty and everything a wine-

maker could want: relatively poor, infertile soils that are perfect for concentrating fruit, adequate water,

bright sunny days, very cold nights and a late frost season in the fall. The lack of humidity (often in the

single digits) relieves us of typical mildew and mold concerns. Paso is warm, but not as hot as it‟s given

credit for. When you look at the 24-hour average, the temps can be 103 degrees and humidity is 6% but

feels like 98 degrees – because it‟s so dry here. Nighttime temps rise and fall rapidly. In July and Au-

gust, the nighttime temperature mean is in the 50‟s.

Did you ever see it getting to the point it is at now?

I saw Paso evolving viticulturally to the point that it is as right now, but the wine tourism has been a

nice surprise. When I came Paso, there were about 7,000 people. And one-third of the buildings in the

town square were boarded up. As an agricultural place known for almonds, the town was struggling.

Grapes really saved it.

However, I expected Paso to grow faster than it did. We were initially slowed down by the great

white wine revolution elsewhere in California. Today I am amazed at how much the grape and wine in-

dustry has brought to Paso – the hotels, boutiques, restaurants and amenities, largely because of the

wine tourists. Now you can visit the main square on a Wednesday night in January, and every restaurant

is full. That‟s exciting.

What are some of the hurdles this AVA still has to overcome?

There is still a perception of Paso as a backwater, but that‟s breaking down pretty rapidly. We‟ll

never be Napa, we don‟t have a big commercial airport, or a city, but it‟ll grow. The best we can hope for

is a really nice Sonoma.



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Which grape varietals do you think grow

best in Paso? Why?

I think the grapes that have proven they

do well are the Bordelaise and Rhone varietals.

The ones that haven‟t done as well as I antici-

pated are the Italian varietals, with the excep-

tion of Barbera. We do that grape better than

the Italians do. Burgundian varietals don‟t do

so well here; you can grow some nice Char-

donnay, but it‟s not easy. We work harder at

making our Chard that we do any other varie-

tal.

Which varietals are ones to watch from

Paso?

There are so many to choose from, it's

hard for people to know which varietal is

“Paso's thing.” Like I said, pay attention to the

Bordelaise varieties. I also see many winemak-

ers working with Viognier; it does remarkably

well and may well be our best white for the

region.

Talk about the phenolics in Paso's wines?

Why are they so amazing? Is it the soil?

The sun?

The phenolics are very stable. I am never

surprised at how well our wines age. Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Barbera really age well. In our

older wines, we still get that dark garnet color with stable flavonoids and pigments. There is no “bricking”

in the color, but some changes in the nose from bright fruit to more of a dried, old-cachet-from-

someone‟s-attic aroma. On the palate, the flavors are there. After 30 years, you can still get the fruit in

the wine. I suspect our cold nighttime temps have as much to do with this aging quality as anything, act-

ing as a preservative in some ways.

Who are some of your favorite age-worthy producers right now?

Some of the wines I consider truly age-worthy right now? Eberle, of course, L‟Aventure, Victor Hugo,

Dover Canyon, Castoro, J. Lohr.

What are you doing now in Paso? Got any secret plans we should know about?

Coming out this spring is an „07 Cabernet Sauvignon called “Love and Kisses.” It‟s the last wine I

made, so that should be fun. Also look for very small amounts of another Cabernet, “Spousal Abuse.” My

wife will be winemaker of record, and I‟ll be her mentor.


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Katie Kelly Bell is a frequent contributor to Sommelier News. Based in Atlanta, Bell writes

about wine, food and travel. Visit her at www.katiekellybell.com.

Among the vines in Paso Robles

Provence in the City

Experience Provence Rosé: The Dry Pink

Members of the wine trade are cordially invited to join us in sampling the top rosé,

red and white wines from the Provence region of France…

Meet leading producers from the world’s first and finest dry rosé region

Taste why imported rosé remains one of the fastest-growing wine categories

Encounter Provence wines new to local markets

New York City

Monday, February 28, 3:00—6:30 pm

Midtown Loft and Terrace

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Thursday, February 24, 3:00—6:00 pm

Asia de Cuba at the Mondrian Hotel

Boston

Wednesday, March 2, 2:30—5:00 pm

Gaslight Brasserie du Coin

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Hosted By

Vins de Provence

www.WinesofProvence.com

RSVP

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American World Services Corp.

[email protected] (202) 296-3524

www.Wines ofProvence.com/pitc

Needed urgently for prestigious wine and spirit tastings

Demonstrators - Wine, Spirits and Beer

Location: Ontario, Canada

Responsibilities:

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Qualifications:

- Keen interest in wines, spirits or beers, which has ideally been developed by wine

appreciation courses such as ISG.

- Strong interest in sales / marketing.

- Ability to effectively communicate product benefits to consumers.

- Basic computer skills.

- Retail sales experience, or event, restaurant, or bar experience would be advanta-

geous.

Compensation:

- $65 Cdn for 4 1/2 hour tasting.

- Long-term opportunity which can be leveraged for other opportunities.

Contact

Ivan Stephen

Sips Field Marketing

905-688-5270

[email protected]

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Sommelier Jobs

[email protected]

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First Press By David Wilkening

Washington wines at White House

The White House state dinner honoring China's President Hu Jintao featured what spokespeople called a

"quintessentially American" meal, capped with apple pie, of course, and Washington state winesRelated.

The first course included a d'Anjou pear salad with farmstead goat cheese, fennel, black walnuts and

white balsamic dressing. The main course was a dry-aged rib eye with buttermilk crisp onions, double

stuffed potatoes and creamed spinach, paired with a 2005 Columbia Valley Quilceda Creek Cabernet. The

apple pie with vanilla ice cream was paired with a 2008 Poet's Leap Botrytis Riesling.

Oz: Can quiche be far behind?

The stereotypical image of a rugged Australian cracking open a “tinny” in the outback could soon be a

thing of the past. Wine sales Down Under are set to overtake beer within a decade, reports the Tele-

graph. The consumption of beer has dropped by almost half to its lowest level in 50 years while wine

sales have increased three-fold during the same period, a report compiled by the Australian Bureau of

Statistics has shown. The title of their report tells is all: “No Longer a Nation of Beer Drinkers.” Said Sa-

vanth Sebastian, an Australian economist, "We are seeing a shift from beer to wine. If the trend contin-

ues, in the next decade wine will pass beer.”

Two Buck Chuck need not apply

China's booming wine market has created what the Telegraph calls an “astounding demand” for empty

bottles of famous wines, with fraudsters paying up to $400 for a good bottle that can be filled with a less

-celebrated vintage. “Counterfeiters have begun collecting empty bottles and then refilling them to scam

rich Chinese,” the newspaper says. A particular favorite is Château Lafite Rothschild 1982, which sells for

over $3,500 a bottle at auctions.

Frankly, Scarlett, I do give a damn

Moët Hennessy‟s Moët & Chandon Champagne has released a new international ad campaign featuring

actress Scarlett Johansson, the brand‟s first celebrity ambassador. The campaign revolves around three

photographs of Johansson, set within Trianon, a 19th century residence on the Moët & Chandon estate in

France. The ads, the company says, seek to evoke a “sense of glamour, grandeur and generosity inher-

ent to the brand.” The images will appear in print, outdoor and digital advertising platforms.

Warning: Millennials read wine labels

Millennials, that group of individuals aged 21 to 34, are increasingly pursuing wine for a variety of rea-

sons. “They equate it with sophistication, it allows them a means to connect with friends, and they see it

as a more healthful alternative to other alcoholic beverages,” says Reuters. “It isn't just cheap Australian

wine that has gotten their attention," says John Gillespie, the president of the California-based Wine Mar-

ket Council, a trade group. He notes that millennials tend to purchase more imported wines than baby

boomers. He urges wine producers not to “dumb down” their message when marketing younger consum-

ers.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/

First Press

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It’s a Matter of Taste

Exuberant fruit on the loose in California

They say it's not a time to jump into the wine business, notes the San

Francisco Chronicle, “but one of the pleasures of 2010 was how many

small labels are on the rise, where vintners are making wines that are

starting to redefine the standards of California wine.” As a group, these

small labels are casting a new mold, the Chronicle contends, one that

trades away big, impact-driven wines for the values that originally

brought fame to California: “exuberant fruit, nuance and a willingness to

break the rules.” Wineries cited included Porter‟s Creek and Native9; in-

dividuals included Jared and Tracey Brandt, Alex Davis, James On-

tiveros, Paul Wilkins, Dan Petroski and Matt Taylor.

First screw caps, now organics

Organic Winegrowers New Zealand (OWNZ) are driving a campaign to

have 20 percent of vineyards certified organic by 2020, say press re-

ports. OWNZ is a 140-member national association led by growers pro-

moting organic production. " By 2020, even if we only achieve 20 per-

cent of the vine lands in our country as being certified organic and bio-

dynamic, it will be a giant step towards enforcing our very precious envi-

ronmental image to wine connoisseurs all over the world," OWNZ chair-

man James Millton says.


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President

Joseph Miller

Vice President

Wayne Gotts

International ISG

Development &

Director of Marketing

Communications

Jennifer Janssen

Dean of Education

Roberta Belfry

Department Heads

Peter Bodnar Rod

Catherine Rabb

Michael Muser

Michelle Bouffard

Cellar Masters

Franklin Ferguson

Karim Ladhani

The First Press features monthly wine related news selected by roving correspondent and long-time professional

journalist, David Wilkening.

sommelier news - katie kelly bell

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