(Anything But) Chardonnay

It is the weekend of the Saint Vincent Tournante here.  Every year a village hosts the event and lots of people turn up, drink wine and have a nice time.  It's one of the bigger events here and this year it was hosted by Macon.  Not a village at all, more of a city but it's the first time it's been hosted outside the Cote d'Or and so it is centred on Macon with supporting roles from the villages Pierreclos and Chardonnay.  Yes, the village the grape is named after.

Not a very original photo perhaps but as a wine 'amateur' it's kind of cool to visit a place that gave its name to one of the most ubiquitous grape varieties in the world.  It's a pretty little village by the way, in rolling hills that are only about a third covered in vineyards, which is quite low around here.  Anyway, the tastings were limited to 11 special cuvees prepared by the committee to demonstrate the Maconnais terroir.  My favourites were the '07 Macon Villages white which had a lovely semi-tropical fruit nose and excellent palate weight, nice ripe fruit and a minerality that carried through the whole affair.  The other good white was the '07 Macon Verze, from the village Verze, quite ripe nose but a lovely tight palate despite the evident malo impact.

The reds were nice and fresh, Gamay is the grape of choice around here (around 80%) but there is approximately 8% Pinot so you never know your luck.  The favourite reds were the '06 Macon Aze which was light, red fruity and tight as a whip.  The '07 Macon Mancey was a cracker though, really quite a fine almost Pinot like nose of red fruits and subtle complexing pepper and mineral.  Palate was fairly acidic but crunchy red fruits, a little speculoos biscuit and quite a long cherry skin finish.

All in all a lovely day with the usual side shows of music, tractors, blacksmiths and food.  The most entertaining of which was the spot where you could try your hand at miniature dry stone construction, I was very proud of the bridge below entirely constructed by me (with a little help from my 4 year old daughter).

Vineyard Equipment

Burgundy is blessed with two types of wonderful vineyard equipment.  One is the Bobard tractor that is used to go up and down these very narrow vineyards.  They are extremely strange and have the sort of cute ugliness you can but love.  I hope to get a decent photo of one of these tractors to post here soon.

The other is the brazier wheelbarrows that are used to burn pruned canes all over the Cote d'Or (la brouette aménagée en brasero).  The photo was taken at the premier cru Puligny Montrachet vineyard 'Les Murgers des dents de chien' yesterday on a very cold and blustery post Sunday lunch walk.  The machines themsleves are very simple, the vigneron starts a fire in the drum and then adds the canes ('sarments') and wheels the thing along as he goes down the vines.  The thing that gets me is that there are at least one of these things in pretty much every vineyard around here, and every single one of them looks exactly like this, rusty, battered and not a little like an antique.

1978

What better way to bring in 2009 than with a wine from 1978?

Well, yes true, but anyway, that's what I did.  To be precise a 1978 Chateau de Madere (Bordeaux, Graves AC - pre-Euros) white bordeaux.  As I opened the bottle I thought the chateau name might end up being a little ironic but amazingly, this thing that has been around since I was a child and has seen everything from proper cellars to cupboards under the stairs, moving vans to floods, with only a swathe of tissue paper to protect it (a clear glass bottle no less) is alive and kicking.  Subdued nose but incredibly clean, slight toasted honey notes with a little lemon pith, palate is vibrant, multi-layered, slight minerality and citrus fruit with a roundness and length that is suprising.  Heaven only knows what this thing was like to drink 30 years ago but it is still as taught as a bow.

Christmas was fantastic, the lunch saw a magnum of 2005 Les Genets Cotes du Rhone Villages Chusclan (Rhone Valley, Cotes du Rhone Village Chusclan AC - 18 Euros) that was delightful - full, rich and ripe fruit but elegant and balanced in a way many New World GSMs don't even understand - a genuine delight.  After a couple of bottles of Savigny-les-Beaune were equally appreciated the attention focused quite rightly on presents and family and I didn't think about wine again for the rest of the day.  So the tasting notes are weak but the day was perfect and all is right with the world.

Pruning

Today I was pruning.  We were in the Savigny-Les-Beaune 1er cru Haut Marconnets vineyard.  It is basically the same vineyard as the Beaune 1er cru Marconnets vineyard except that they stuck the A6 freeway in between, and that makes life a bit too dangerous for the vineyard workers so they gave a bit to Savigny and a bit to Beaune.  A6 apart, it's a beautiful spot, gently sloping down towards Beaune and with the oh-so-perfect hill of Corton to the East.

I think I love pruning.  To be fair I haven't been doing it every day for the last 6 weeks but given my limited exposure it strikes me as exactly the type of honest, meaningful, manual work that I dreamed of doing whilst getting paid too much money to do very little in an office in Sydney.  Whilst pruning, even when working in a team, you are alone with your secateurs and the vines.  Examing each one for the best cut, which cane will yield best next year, which is simplest to train, is the vine still healthy?  A dozen questions for each vine that are answered with three decisive cuts, one for the spur (a short cane with two buds on it), one for the fruit bearing wood (a longer cane of about 6 buds) and one big one to get rid of last year's fruit bearing wood.  It is incredibly simple, and yet, as is only too obvious after writing the last sentence, incredibly difficult to describe.  I have tried to show the 'before and after' in the above photos... I know, you have to do it and then it makes sense.

It snowed whilst we were pruning, it was wonderful, better than rain.  And whilst my knees ached from all the bending (each trunk sits about 45-60cm high) and climbing the slope I was sad when it was over.  In order to commemorate I wanted to drink a wine from that vineyard, however, all I had was a Savigny-les-Beaune 1er cru Dominode (Domaine Pavelot) which is about 400 metres to the East.  I was also keen to try another Savigny wine to see whether it would make a good pre-Xmas purchase so I opened it instead, it was a 2005 Maison Francois Martenot Savigny-Les-Beaune Le Village (Burgundy, Savigny-Les-Beaune AC - 12Euros).  Jackpot.  From a Village vineyard that nudges the main premier crus of the area this is splendid, nose is certainly marked by oak but in a comfortable way, the fruit still getting a good word in and having a good time, the palate was sublime, fine, almost silky tannins, great linear structure, plenty of juicy cherry fruit, a little oak and a decently long finish with a little cherry pit to close.  More of that please.

Great Wine

Great wine is of course a subjective thing.  There is an argument to support pretty much any wine as a 'great' wine, plenty of 2 buck chuck wine could be said to offer excellent value for money and therefore be 'great' wine.  But if we take greatness as reaching the pinnacle of wine appreciation both technical and hedonistic then we surely must be looking at fewer options.

I have had two wines since being in Burgundy that I think are truly great.  Both had the same general characteristics of elegance, power, complexity and depth.  But both had an extra dimenson that set them apart.  Both had length, not just a taste that remained in the mouth, but a new level of taste and intensity that resurfaced at the back of the palate after swallowing/spitting.  I hadn't experienced it before (that I can recall) and it is truly an amazing trick.

The first was the 2005 Chanson Pere et Fils Clos des Mouches (Beaune 1er Cru, Burgundy - 60Euros).  Now this cleaned up at the 2007 London International Wine Challenge winning pretty much everything including best white wine overall so I'm not exactly going out on a limb here, but....  Wonderfully expressive nose of citrus, white peach, white flowers and hazelnut, the palate is intense, tight, fruit laden and razor sharp.  The length is perfect and then once it's gone there's this amazing comeback and your palate is bathed in aromas of citrus nuts. Incredible.

The other was last week, a barrel sample of 2008 Antonin Guyon Charmes Chambertin (Charmes Chambertin Grand Cru AC, Burgundy).  There is only one barrel (300 bottles) of it and it's new oak.  It hadn't gone through malo and was not surprisingly fairly acidic and heavy on the oak at this early stage but holy cow - a finesse that was incredible, a nose of charry French oak, strong yet not overpowering the fine red fruits.  The palate was surprisingly well balanced, inevitably tight but already drinkable and the finish was wonderful, coming back way after you've finished to remind you of the pleasure.

Both were genuinely wines that made me stop and smile in wonder.  Which I think from now on is going to be my definition of greatness in all walks of life, from food to music to views to people.  Each to their own.

Christmas Markets

Tonight we went to the Christmas markets in Beaune. The Christmas lights are lovely in the town with the main streets having suspended strings of light running the length of the street and the trees beautifully decorated in blue and white lights. Every shop has a tree or Christmas decoration outside and the result is delightful. Christmas markets are a big tradition in France but evidently not so much in Beaune. They were very small, about 10 stalls selling everything from amber jewellery to crepes - odd. Still we had a nice time and drank a lovely Pommard '05 in Bar Gaspard afterwards that I didn't get the name of unfortunately.

Upon arriving home we settled into the Johnny Hallyday farewell special. As my wife pointed out; when you reach a certain level of superstardom you are permitted an extraordinary amount of self-indulgence. It was dramatic, emotional, poignant, awesome TV. The wine that accompanied it, 2006 Col de l'Estrade (Languedoc, St Chinian AC - 4 Euros) was significantly less awesome. One of the most reduced noses I remember, like someone lighting a box of matches in a salami factory. The palate was disjointed and a little thin, the finish dry. You might say 'what do you expect for 4 Euros' - well that's the beauty of this country, you expect more at this price.

Burgundy palate

They say you develop a Burgundy palate, meaning after spending too long here you only like Pinot Noir. I say they might be right.  However, one of the things I love most about wine is how much variety there is so I am determined to keep my palate well traveled and occasionally venture to other regions. Given that I live in France that is likely to be limited to French wines at the moment - not a total disaster of course.

Anyway, last night it was a 2005 Chateau Balac (Bordeaux, Haut Medoc AC - 8 Euros), nice deep red colour with an interesting nose of dark ripe fruits, a hint of cheese and some strawberry yoghurt. Unfortunately it was slightly corked which I only picked up on the palate and from then on I was a little sad. But despite that the tannins were fine and it was well defined and structured.

Welcome

I once remember a guy talking about advertising and the fact that advertisers constantly complain about 'clutter', i.e. there is too much advertising in the world so people no longer take notice. As such, they are always trying to 'cut through the clutter', namely do advertising which stands out from all the other marketing messages out there. As the guy quite rightly (and a little smugly - hey, this is advertising) points out, every time someone tries to cut through the clutter, they are, in fact, just creating more clutter.

There is a tremendous amount written about wine in the world, lots of it useful, much of it wonderful, some of it cynical. This is my addition to the clutter. Why? I always wanted to read about winemaking as well as wine drinking. I wanted to hear about vintages and weather and flowering and veraison from the horse's mouth. Well I am going to attempt to be that horse.

I worked vintage in Burgundy this year, I guess you could say I make wine. I am going to stay here for a little while and get to know the place a little. I thought I'd write about it. Might even put a photo or two up. We shall see.