Wine Tasting, Vineyards, in France

Walk The Wine

A Search for Health and More Good ThingsLast sunday in the Loire.
What do you think can make so many people get up early on a sunday morning and walk 10, 12 or 18 kilometers accross woods, fields and vineyards ?
Many villages of the Loire (and France) have found out how to gather in one day more people than the official count of inhabitants (450 for this particular village) for the sole (well, quite the sole...) purpose of doing some healthy exercise...Welcome to the "marche avec ravitaillement" (walk with buffets), a yearly ritual where you can treat yourself with good food and drink wine all the while exercising and visiting the hidden sides of backcountry villages. If you stay long enough in the Loire in spring and ask, for example to the nearest Mairie (city hall), there is a chance that you may find a village in the region where a "marche" is organized.
Many rural communities, with the help of the local chapter of a non-profit health group named UFOLEP, organize once a year such nature walks. Here is as it goes : village employees and volunteers of the local "Comité des Fêtes" are in charge of all the details, marking of the itineraries, cutting the grass on the grass roads and preparing the food and drinks. It seems easy at the first glance but this is a lot of work and these people are doing a great job for their community.

Wine News17

Pivotal Scene of the animated movie "Ratatouille"Remember this scene of the animated movie Ratatouille when stilt-legged food-critic Anton Ego suddenly freezes in wonder as he tastes the perfect dish ? During a few seconds of divine surprise, the usually-merciless food critic flashes back to the meals oh his childhood. We are also looking for these timeless instants when we taste a new wine. Alice Feiring writes on her blog that she is looking for the Philip Roths and Leon Trotskys of the wine world. My own metaphoric comparison for a great wine would rather be music. When I discover a beautiful wine piece of music by a new vintner composer, I feel the same amazement and difficulty to translate the emotion in words. How about the complexity and depth of Sibelius' Lemminkainen Legends. Sibelius' music is one of the most compelling experience that I know. This sympony transports me in the far North and I am moved by the strong Russian feel of all of Sibelius' music (even though I know Finland is supposed to be very un-Russian). Richard Strauss' works, like Eine Helden Leben, Malher's, or most of Mozart's would also pair with the top-tier wines of Bordeaux or Burgundy and the Monte Bellos that we seldom have the chance to drink. For the Loire and other Northern delicate and subtle wines, I would think to Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit (actually most of Ravel and Debussy) or Miles Davis' Flamenco Sketches. When I drink a natural-wine gem, say, a Claude Courtois Nacarat (a hidden message to Claude who wanted to give up this cuvée), I think to the endless magic of Almendra, a danzon played by Cuban pianist Ruben Gonzalez' , 9 minutes of musical fireworks (listen to Ruben Gonzalez on Youtube)...Like this wine, this danzon opens slowly and after a minute or two (1 minute and 44 seconds exactly...) it reveals itself in a jubilatory and intense emotion with a cascade of wonders.
And now, what about industrial wines ? As we're in Cuban music, I would compare them with the rivers of commercial salsa-music that you hear sometimes on commercial Latin radio stations : industrially-produced-sounds, predictable and boring junk. Every music genre has its cheap Muzak counterpart but happilly, it can't imitate the real thing.

Paris Wine Bars : Racines

Racines. Pierre Jancou Pouring a Claude Courtois to CésarPassage des Panoramas, Paris
Racines is a natural-wine bar which is located in one of the remaining Napoleonian shopping arcades of Paris. These arcades were some sort of early shopping malls and allowed the Parisians of the Napoleon era to do window shopping and stroll in a clean, well-lit and heated street (in winter) without being bothered by the rain and the horse carts. There are quite a number of these "passages" and "galeries" in Paris and most of them are located around the Palais Royal and the Grands Boulevards on the right bank. See this map (mouse over for names and click) for their location and details The Passage des Panoramas was built in 1799 and it was probably the very first covered arcade in Paris. Emile Zola writes at length about the passage in his novel Nana, which features an intriguing and energetic young Parisian prostitute. Read the chapter 7 of Nana (in English), where you'll have a taste of the sexual freedom of a high-class prostitute under Napoleon III and glimpses of this lively shopping arcade in an era that historians deem as having known "the most rapid economic and social change in French history".
The wine bar looks like it has always been around, it melts perfectly into this bustling neighborhood and in this arcade lined with traditional local stores. The shop facing Racines, at N°57 of the passage, is where the famed "chocolatier Marquis" stood in the 19th century. Zola's Nana loved this "perfume of vanilla emanating from a chocolate dealer's basement". It still has some of its period fixtures and it is also really worth a look, even if you didn't read Nana.
Although these Napoleonian covered arcades have begun to come to light these last few years, they are mostly still largely ignored by mass tourism (we wouldn't complain about that) and out-of-town visitors need to do some research to reach these havens of authentic local life. At least with Racines, wine lovers will have a chance to be introduced to one of these architectural gems in addition to sipping some of the best natural wines around.

Hervé Villemade (Loire)

Hervé Villemade in the VineyardCellettes (Cheverny, Sologne - Loire).
Sologne is a large wooded area south of Orleans, stretching between the rivers of the Loire and the Cher. The impermeable tertiary clays that characterize the soil of a large part of the area have largely prevented it from becoming a crop-growing region and explain the high number of ponds and lakes which give it this taste of wilderness and virgin forest. Sologne is foremost a hunting region with a very rich diversity of gamey, and this royal hunting groung is dotted with some of the most beautifull chateaus of France, like Chambord, Cheverny and Chenonceau.Hervé Villemade's Domaine du Moulin is located near one of them, Cheverny, on the same-name AOC Appellation.
Hervé Villemade makes red and white wines from a 17-hectare surface near Cellettes on the Western wing of Sologne, mostly on the Cheverny and Cour-Cheverny Appellations. The vineyards sit on a light slopes with a clayish/sandy/flint-stone soil where the water doesn't stagnate. Part of the area is the former bed of the Beuvron river which flows nearby.
Villemade is foremost known for his whites, the Cour-Cheverny (Romorantin grape variety) and the white Cheverny which is made of 60% to 85% Sauvignon, plus at least one of the complementary varieties : Chardonnay, Menu Pineau and Chenin. He also plans to plant both Sauvignon and Menu Pineau on Sigolelle, a full-East-exposition plot, and have them both grow and ripe together. About the red Cheverny varieties, he grows Gamay and Pinot Noir. he also has some Cot (Malbec) which he could blend into the red Cheverny, but he prefers to keep the Cot separate and bottle it as "Vin de pays du Loir-et-Cher". We walks through a 1977 massal selection of Pinot Noir (this is a very good terroir for Pinot Noir here), further another from 1980, others from 1980 and 1992. He also has massal grafts that he got from Prieuré Roch (this was before a new rule which forbids such inter-regional transfers).

Domaine Les Roches (Chinon)

Alain & Jérome Lenoir in the CellarBeaumont en Véron (Chinon, Loire)
Domaine Les Roches is a small family estate near Chinon where father and son Alain and Jérome Lenoir make long-elevage wines from Cabernet Franc. Working from a very small vineyard surface (3 hectares), they have mostly a single wine every year, but this wine leaves their cellar only after an enormous amount of time. By long elevage, I meant it : 3 years at least in old casks and big-capacity foudres in this deep cellar which hasn't changed (except for the now-old electricity wiring) since it was dug into the "tuffeau" limestone rock between 1400 and 1500 A.D. I tasted their wines for the first time at a Caves Augé Loire tasting and was struck by their substance and character. These earthy, unfiltered wines show themselves without subterfuges, as if this long cellar life had imprinted the simple beauty of the place.
Beaumont en Véron is a small village 7km East of Chinon, on the way to Bourgueil, whis is a mere 10km further. It sits in Touraine, which is roughly in the central part of the Loire Appellation region. This is very close to where the Vienne river joins the mighty Loire. When you look at the Bourgeuil-Chinon map, Beaumont-en-Véron is right in the middle or the area. The Domaine Les Roches lies outside of the village, on a hill not far from the next village, Avoine.

Wine Pairing Story (12)

The Best of WinterWinter is officially over but we still had freezing temperatures at night in France these past few days. Barbecue is usually associated with warmer, gentler days, but I consider that the cold season is also a great barbecue season, assuming that you manage to do your thing indoors. In the Loire, we usually set the barbecue in the middle of the fireplace, this way we enjoy the heat plus everything associated with an outdoor barbecue without setting a foot in the rain and cold. The winter barbecue connects you with your ancestors' genes and make you share what they could feel when they grilled some wild-animal meat in their caves and rejoiced around the fire. Unlike a summer barbecue where you take care to stay at a comfortable distance from the fire, here you can't get away from it and you take your time watching the grilling and cracking, with the juice dropping on the embers and bursting into full-fledged flames...

Wine News (16)

Omotesando, TokyoHow is the Japanese youth coping with alcohol ? Are the youth trying early and are they moderate in their approach ? One day or another they discover the charms of alcoholic beverages through the alcoholic drinks sold in these jido-hanbaiki (vending machines) that you see at every corner in Japan (there is one such machine for every 23 people in Japan !). Some young Japanese as elsewhere may be involved in some excesses but I'm not sure that they drink much on the whole. This Japanese study interviewed 12/15-year-old young Japanese in 2003 and seems to say that many high schooll teenagers have been trying alcohol (58-76%). According to the study, drinking and smoking have been listed as reasons for putting some of these youth under the protective custody of the police (41,8 for smoking and 3,4% for drinking). I imagine the scared youth being brought to the nearest (and tiny) koban (neighborhood police kiosk) with their parents having to retrieve them... Japan is obviously far from the binge drinking culture of the UK, and young Japanese are more likely to buy a soft drink from one of these flashy vending machines that we Europeans envy them so much (they'd be looted overnight in France). The study adds a very interesting paragraph to explain why the Japanese teenagers don't cross too much the line :
"Importantly, these risk factors for adolescent smoking and drinking have been studied in countries of Western culture, but not in Japan. Japanese people have some unique characteristics, such as interdependent orientation and collective cultural thinking, which stresses conformity and intense competition for sameness within intragroup relations. These characteristics may influence the prevalence and etiology of adolescent smoking and drinking."For Tokyo lovers only :A 10-minute soundtrack from the Yamanote subway line...

Osaka Wine Bar : Phylloxera

Mr Seiji Takamiya, Senior Sommelier at Phylloxera

Osaka, Japan.
This is another good wine bar located in the Minami district in Osaka. It is close to the other wine bar I posted about, Pinot Noir. This one is in a basement and you just walk down a few steps from the street. Mr Seiji Takamiya opened this wine bar in july 2001 after working several years at Enoteca in Umeda, osaka. Enoteca is btw close to another top place for wine : the Ritz Carlton Osaka which has the best well-stocked restaurant and bar in regard to wine in town, although with Alpine prices which pair well with Umeda's high rises...The Wine Spectator noted as outstanding the 400-bottle wine list of its Splendido restaurant, and its bar has a similarly exceptional whisky and wine list. This is another proof of Osaka's epicurean extravaganza made possible by its age-old opulent merchant class. When Mr Takamiya became a Sommelier in 1991, the profession was very little-known in Japan but still, the Union of Japanese Sommeliers is 30 years old today. The wine-bar boom came later and with it the use of "sommeliers" for all kind of non-wine-related fields...

Osaka Wine Bar : Pinot Noir

The Lights of MinamiOsaka, Japan.
The wine-bars craze has come to the Japanese provinces and Osaka has a certain number of good wine bars. Osaka people are historically known as merchant people with a pronounced taste for good food. With a tradition of plentyful access to fresh fish (Osaka is a port) and to foreign imported delicacies, Osakans are the epicurian side of Japan. There's a cliché word to describe this passion of Osaka for good food : Kuidaore, litterally "eat oneself bankrupt"... The cliché goes on to say that Tokyo people ruin themselves on fine shoes and Kyoto people on expensive cloths. And what about about Louis Vuitton bags ?...
The place to go to experience this intense local dining culture is Minami (means South), and more precisely Shinsaibashi. In Osaka you have roughly two districts for the night and restaurant pleasures : Minami (South) and Kita (North). In short, the "serious", business-minded district is Kita, this is also where Umeda's high rises, important businesses and large train stations are located. Important businessmen or yakusas will rarely bring their guests to Minami (although for the latter we saw a couple of cars with blackened windows there which could hint that it is changing...) and artists or students will rarely choose Kita for their evening outings. There are also wine bars in Kita, but the price will be also much higher than in Minami.

Tengu (Tokyo)

Casual Dining at TenguTokyo, Japan
Where do the Tokyoites drink ? This is a question that you may ask yourself when you visit Tokyo. While this city has the highest ratio of bars and restaurants in the world, many of these aren't seen from the street and if you don't read the Japanese you will come accross only what is the equivalent of a tiny piece of the iceberg. One thing is sure : the Japanese often drink AND eat at the same time, and the well-known format for this eat-and-drink culture is the izakaya. The izakaya is typically a tavern-style format where friends and co-workers spend hours in the evening drinking while eating a variety of small dishes.
On the top-tables front, the Michelin-guide people made a sensation last year by declaring that Tokyo, not Paris, was now the capital of gastronomy. Their inspectors had spotted there the highest ratio of high-end gastronomic restaurants : just look at the figures, Paris : 98 stars, Tokyo 191 stars, and from several observers, Japan's capital could have riped even more stars but there were so many places to test that the guide's inspectors were in shortage. This was a shock for the Japanese public who is not always aware of the excellence of its cuisine and when the Michelin guide went out last november 2007, it was sold out in 2 days...
Whatever, these restaurants are from the top-tier layer and are way beyound the means of us proletariat of the dining scene. But they are just the now-visible part of the often-excellent cuisine encountered in the middle-market restaurants of Tokyo. In this regard, we'll take a look at Tengu, a chain of restaurants owned by the Japanese company Ten Allied Co. which is both a good example of where Tokyoites drink, and where the food is also worth the detour (and within the means of real people like us).