Herding Cats, Day 2 in the Languedoc
Ξ March 3rd, 2010 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Uncategorized |
Donna writes:
I don’t do well my first days arriving in Europe, preferring to take some down time to regulate my sleep pattern, be a vegetable and do local stuff with locals preferably in local bars, down local old side streets and alleys.
But Sud de France had a full day of vinous activities scheduled and I am always supportive of all the opportunities they plan out for us. After all I am their guest and to do otherwise would be rude. And I’m probably going to say it about 20 times throughout my Vinisud reporting, but this organization is so top notch, so well organized. Doing these events is like herding cats with keeping so many importers knee deep in wine producers and French hospitality.
So, Saturday morning after a fitful nights rest, I stumbled into the Mercure Centre breakfast room and slugged down two espressos and sauntered downstairs to see the group. And what a group we had. Previous times the most I’ve ever traveled with is about 20 people. We were now about 100, two full coaches worth from all over the world. This year I was with Japan, China, Germany, Canada, Russia, Mexico, UK, and representing the states was California, Washington State, Washington DC, Virginia, Hawaii, Arizona and Texas plus probably someone else I left out.
I found out later the US contingent, normally together was split this time as there were other things going around France with wine in different regions and I think scheduling and timing made it impossible to have us all together. I prefer I’m with all USA importers because we form working relationships with each other and our portfolios, but I was pretty jazzed to be around so many different nationalities and for the opportunity to see how the rest of the world selects and imports wine.
So we piled into the busses, lots of languages buzzing in the air and set off for Cite de la Vigne et du vin Gruissan which the direct translation is “City of the Vine and of the wine of Gruissan”. This is the INRA or French Agronomical Research Institute based in Gruissan, France and a living museum for wine.
Gruissan the town is a very old coastal resort. Reminds me a little of Catalina Island, well except it’s a really old settlement and has an 800 year old watch tower to protect nearby Narbonne and it’s down from the AOC of La Clape and it’s all so very lovely and French.
It’s a really neat place. Sort of a natural history museum but for all things vinous and they have test rows of all sorts of grapes grown in the region plus examples of all the different types of trellising used in the region and inside lots of interactive displays where you can see/feel/touch/smell the good and the bad of wine making. I have only seen it in winter and to see this museum/research facility while the vines are in leaf would be amazing.
This was my second trip there and can’t say when I snagged where we were going I was all that thrilled as it was not in the good side of my memory bank. Nearly a year ago on January 24, 2009 I was on another trip to Languedoc and was caught up in a terrible winter storm at Gruissan. We endured 100 mph winds, were moving trees out of the road to get our van through, once we got to Narbonne we had to run through the streets to the CIVL with trees crashing and wind slinging huge clay roof tiles at our heads. I had tucked into a bar I saw was open (I thought most sensible at the time) and the locals are telling me, while I’m looking at the poor TV satellite of a serious storm with a good sized eye in the middle all the while 100 year old trees across the square were being ripped up and completely totaling cars to the thickness of baguette, that it’s just the winter storms. Which of course I reply, I don’t know where you come from but where I come from, if its got 100 mile an hour sustained winds, and it’s got an eye, it’s a hurricane.
Needless to say I didn’t see much of it and didn’t realize its significance the first time I visited. Anyway, so, we arrive at the Cite and Sud de France gave us a presentation about what to expect the next few days at Vinisud. Plus a brief talk about the new VDP rules now to be IGP and at the mercy of Brussels? In my first entry about this trip, I said I would attend some seminars and unfortunately they were entirely in French and while I can understand a bit, it was over my head.
We had some fine talks from the Sud de France group. It was a bit chaotic during the presentation because some were presenting in French or English and it all had to be translated in various languages by interpreters following our group. Looking back at the videos it was quite funny at the verbal chaos. The highlight of the presentation was the very charming Matthew Stubbs, MW who was the wine buyer for Safeway and is now a proponent of the region and now is running a wine school in the Languedoc. He didn’t go specifically into the terroirs of the region, but highlighted the 10 reasons why Languedoc-Roussillon is the place to be for wine in this day and age for France. I have this presentation on video and once we are up and running with video, I’ll do a highlight of Matthew.
We then retired to lunch, with such a large group, I decided to wander outside first, something I was physically unable to do my first visit and look at what the Cite was all about. I have to say I really was impressed. It’s not a huge place, but they have rows after rows of test grapes. Unfortunately it’s February and the pruning has just begun, so I am staring at gnarled sticks in the dirt, but the whole site is so interesting.
At lunch I met the lovely Henri Cases, a vigneron and president of the Carcassonne wine growers association. I forget the proper name. He was taking the group next to Carcassonne to visit the medieval walled city. This place is so famous. It’s been a settlement in one form or another for the past 5000 years and features proximately with the holy grail stories and saga. It was famously forced to surrender by Simon de Montfort in the 1200’s. Upon our arrival to Carcassonne a rainbow fell onto the lower town and it was a perfect afternoon strolling around the battlements. Though I’ve been there a few times, I get away from the center with all the tourists and shops and meander around imagining all sorts of fairy tale princess and handsome knight scenarios in my tired head.
Then Henri gave us all in the group a lovely bottle of wine which was so appreciated and off we set by coach to Boutenac. On the way we encountered terrible accident where a car was turned upside down. Luckily the driver was okay and after a very well managed rescue by the local authorities we were only delayed 45 minutes.
We arrived at Le Chateau home of Syndicat de Cru Corbieres-Boutenac and before us were multiple tables of producers to show us their products. Still a bit stunned by the accident I sat around and people watched for a while. Tasting in big crowded groups is difficult for me. Besides the wine being good, it’s very important for me to develop a relationship with a producer and when it’s very crowded it’s next to impossible to get a feel for someone. Not that I pick bad wines, but if I had to choose between a good wine to sell where the producer is a jerk and a wine that wasn’t so good, but the producer was wonderful and fun, I have to go for the latter every time. The relationship is what gets you through the hard times and creates stories to tell in the good times.
Anyhow, Corbieres Boutenac is an AOC from the Corbieres region specific to the town of Boutenac. Small low lying appellation of about 1400 Ha (about 2800 acres). It’s got rolling rocky hills with a soil structure mainly of molasse. It has 18 private producers and 4 co-ops. In writing this I realize I need to go into some serious geek stuff for everyone which I’ll do later in this series.
This was a rough tasting for me. This was shocking as there were some pretty heavy hitters in the room. One quite famous wine everyone gushes about wasn’t so good and was very expensive. Would it appeal to the big California lover palate? Yes. Do I think 90% of wine drinkers could finish an entire glass? No. And it definitely was a meal on its own. So heavily extracted it reminded me more of prune juice than wine. It was seriously thick, just not in a good way. Anyway, I’m not here to name names of the bad, I’m here to highlight the good.
I did find one wine in the room I got excited about. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name (dork), and why it’s not written down I don’t know. Exhaustion is the only excuse I can think of. I’m making inquiries and I’ll let you know if I find it. It needs to be imported, and drunk, a lot. I think the retail price would have been about $21 which I think is an insane bargain. I’ll keep you posted and you guys do your bit by bugging your local merchants and together we’ll land this wine.
I then retired early into the dining area and scanned the room and chose a table at the back with a lone figure sitting at it, ask if the seat is taken next to her and was invited to sit. Engaging a conversation I am sitting with Lauren Buzzeo who covers Languedoc for Wine Enthusiast magazine. I have to say she was the trooper of the day and had flown in that day from the US and it was now 10pm at night and we were just sitting down to start eating. She was a real delight to talk with over a lovely dinner.
During dinner, a magician did slight of hand tricks for each table to keep us entertained and vignerons roamed talking about their products. It went well into the wee hours of the morning. We returned to the hotel around 1:30am and just as I staggered into the coach for the days events that morning, I staggered with half-shut eyes back into my hotel room, where after I got settled in the bed for a few hours sleep, my internal alarm clock woke me up. Ugh.
Donna
