Cruising Down the River

We’re back from France and readjusted to reality. While our hoped-for sunny journey down the Rhône and ancillary vineyard visits didn’t work out as we wished – the weather was cold and grey, and the hours at anchor just didn’t permit the kind of excursions we wanted – we nevertheless had an enjoyable time. There was plenty of quite drinkable wine on board, though none of what a visit to Chapoutier or Jaboulet or Chave might have yielded, and the MS Camargue’s kitchen provided meals of a quite decent French hotel standard, so our sufferings were all of the imaginative, what-might-have-been sort.

I’m not really a cruise person, especially not on one of those floating apartment buildings I see lumbering up and down the Hudson, so the 104-passenger Camargue was quite big enough for me.

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I thought its beverage policy enlightened: The cost of all basic wines and spirits, available all day long, were covered by the basic trip fee. A slightly better selection was offered at modest extra charge, and that seemed more than ample for the week of our cruise.
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Indeed, as the choices of our tablemates, a charming and well-travelled New Zealand couple, showed, it was more than enough for everybody except us winos. Living as Diane and I do among wine-and-food fanatics, we tend to forget that not everyone judges the quality of their day by the caliber of their dinner wine. A sobering reminder it was.

That’s enough scene setting: Here’s what we drank. (For what we ate, see this post on Diane’s blog.)

With lunch, we drank one or another of the ship’s basic offerings. These were a nice white blend from Alsace, the sort of wine they used to call Gentil (in this case a Saveur d’Alsace from Maison Pettermann); a Pays d’Oc Chardonnay from St. Anian; a Syrah rosé from Pays d’Oc called La Jasse Neuve; a red St. Anian (a Carignane-Merlot blend); and a 2018 Côtes du Rhône Domaine de Lascamp – the latter especially pleasing.
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As you can see, nothing startling, but good basic wines from a variety of interesting regions.

At dinners, we tended to choose our wine from the boat’s larger and more interesting supplemental (quite reasonable) fee list. This was organized loosely by broad regions, and we chose wines from areas we were sailing through or near enough to consider local. So: We especially enjoyed a very fine Beaujolais Morgon, Les Vieux Cèdres, at six years old full of fresh, round, black-hued fruit; a 2016 Crozes-Hermitage Petite Ruche from Chapoutier; and a quite intense, deeply aromatic 2012 Cahors, Chateau Eugénie Tradition.
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For after dinner, the bar offered a nice battery of digestifs – Hennessy Cognac, an eau-de-vie Poire, a sound marc, as well as, for those so inclined, Port. On more than one evening we would have wished to take a marc or cognac up to the open top deck of the boat to enjoy the evening breezes. Alas, they were whistling down at about 25 miles an hour from the north: The Mistral was making the outdoors very uncomfortable, so it was seats at the bar most nights, just as in my misspent youth. What a tough trip.

More next post about our extra days in Lyon and wines ashore.

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Wine Writing Again: Born Yesterday

Nobody complains more about wine writing than wine writers, and I admit that I am not the least complainer of the lot. But this time it’s personal: My ox is being gored.

For the New York Times food section of September 13th, Eric Asimov wrote a nice, informative essay about the wine of Cahors. Asimov is one of the best wine writers the Times has had, and he did a good professional story about his discovery of the revival of the traditional, Malbec-based, “Black Wine” of this historic region. The problem is, the story has been written before – probably several times, because this news isn’t new; but the time that concerns me most is the article on this subject Diane and I wrote for Food & Wine magazine 35 years ago.
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The resurrection of the fabled wines of Cahors apparently is an often-repeated – or continuous – process. Our article reported then the same facts that the Times story does now: In the Middle Ages, the wines of Cahors rivalled those of Bordeaux, particularly in the English market. They lost ground as the English armies that had occupied much of central France – including Cahors – gradually retreated to the coast, enabling Bordeaux to establish its ascendancy. That dominance was completed when the phylloxera devastated the Cahors vineyards. In the aftermath, it proved too difficult and too expensive to replant the vineyards on the steep slopes that had provided the Black Wine’s greatness, and viticulture largely retreated to the valley floor and viniculture to mediocrity. But lo! a new generation of winemakers is now arising, and they are reclaiming those difficult slopes and with them are restoring Cahors’ historic greatness.

The hero of the Times story is Jean Marie Sigaud, who is credited with, in 1975, having the “brilliant idea” of planting grapes again on the hillsides. Well, our article’s paladin was Georges Vigouroux of the reclaimed hillside vineyards of Château Haute-Serre, who since 1976 had been making big, powerful, elegant wines there, which, by the time of our visit in ’82, were being hailed in France as reviving the glories of Cahors.

I’m not complaining here simply that Diane’s and my work has been ignored (though obviously that irks me, and if the Times didn’t maintain its stupid policy of isolating its wine writers from their peers and colleagues, it could easily have been avoided), but about a common fault of the wine writing profession that I think is far more serious – the total failure to acknowledge, or, in many cases, even be aware of, the work of predecessors. In almost every other discipline, writers are expected to recognize previous efforts, especially those substantially in agreement with them. In wine writing, articles are written as if history began yesterday – and that’s deplorable.

I realize that most writers can’t afford the luxury of a research staff – but surely a Google search is within reach? Some reading around in the area you’re writing about? And publications the size and authority of the Times could afford to pay someone for an hour or two of archival work? Or am I just being an old pedant, and demanding something no one is really interested in?

Probably the latter, I suspect.

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Midsummer Miscellany

A few smallish items of interest have been accumulating over these balmy days, so I will depart from my usual format and try to bring you up to date, as well as clear off my desk – the latter, of course, a hopeless endeavor.

2015 Beaujolais

All the reports I’ve read and heard about the 2015 vintage of Beaujolais have been ecstatic. Almost everyone agrees that, especially for the Beaujolais crus, 2015 is the best vintage in living memory, and the excitement is mounting as the wines have begun arriving – very slowly, it seems to me – on these shores.

I haven’t seen many of them in the shops yet, but I’m keeping my eyes open. For more detailed information, I heartily recommend Michael Apstein’s very authoritative account in Winereviewonline.com.

Great Dolcetto

Dolcetto is an excellent wine too little loved in this country. It has wonderful refreshing fruit, usually moderate alcohol, and lovely Piemontese structure. Though a little light in acidity compared to other Piemontese red wines, it companions beautifully with most meats and vegetables, and it especially makes a great summer lunch and dinner wine. I’ve written about Dolcetto before, but it bears repeating that the very best of them are quite distinguished wines indeed, so much so that a few years ago, those from the Dogliani zone were granted the DOCG, and the right to call themselves simply Dogliani – though no one in the US seems to have paid much attention.

The best of these that I have so far tasted have come from two producers, Chionetti and Pecchenino, and they are truly lovely wines. I’ve been reminded of this very forcefully by two bottles of Pecchenino’s best crus that I recently tasted: San Luigi and Sirì d’Jermu (deep Piemontese dialect here).

Pecchenino describes San Luigi as “ruby red, fruity, with good acidity and a slightly almond aftertaste.” Sirì d’Jermu is described as having “intense ruby red color, hints of small red fruit, good acidity, and well balanced with silky tannins.” I’d describe them both as delicious, and very convincing proof that Dogliani deserves the DOCG.

The Vietti Sale

The most surprising news of the summer surely was the recent announcement of the sale of the Vietti winery and vineyards – the whole operation – to an American firm not in the wine business. Piemontese winemakers – especially those in the Barolo and Barbaresco zones, where the Vietti firm is almost a landmark – do not lightly part with land, and a sale to an outsider is almost unheard of.

A Vietti Vineyard

The aftershocks of the deal were very reminiscent of a few decades back, when California’s pioneering Ridge Vineyards was sold to a Japanese firm. Happily, when the dust cleared on that deal, nothing terribly substantial seemed to have changed: Paul Draper was still in charge, and many excellent Ridge vintages continued to be produced. It looks as if the outcome will be similar with the Vietti sale, once all the fluttered pulses return to normal. For a very clear account of this important transaction, see Tom Hyland’s two key interviews, one with Luca Currado, the now former owner of Vietti, and the other with Tanner Krause, the new owner.

Cahors/Malbec

Given the current popularity of South American Malbec, it is really a shame that more consumers don’t know or appreciate the once famous “black wine of Cahors” – which is Malbec, all Malbec, and nothing but Malbec, from the patch of France where Malbec originated. Cahors is a charming little city located in a loop of the river Lot in south-central France. It is the capital of the hilly, stony region that produces the wine that bears its name. And it is an almost black wine, deeply colored and full-flavored. Once upon a time, it was very tannic and aggressive and needed plenty of aging to soften and become palatable, but that’s not so anymore, as both climate change and new viticultural techniques have rendered the wine gentler on the palate and approachable much sooner.

There are many good producers, most family-owned estates such as Domaine du Théron, now owned by three brothers who work some very old vines, and whose 2011 Cahors Malbec Prestige, tasted at dinner just a few nights ago, prompted this note. The 2011 Prestige had positively velvety tannins and drank very well already, just five years after harvest – which for a red wine of structure and interest aint bad at all. Malbec fanciers owe it to themselves to explore Cahors:  All the fruit flavor they love is there, plus some real finesse.

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Old World/New World: Cahors/Malbec

I have never been a great fan of New World wines. For my palate, they are – generally – too fruit-forward and simplistic, lacking in depth and complexity, and often too tannic and insufficiently acidic to match well with food.

I recognize, however, that what I call deficiencies many wine lovers regard as plusses, and that that style has many admirers. Just read the tasting notes in any issue of The Wine Spectator to see what I mean. More important, New World wines are evolving (so are Old World wines, for that matter, but that is a topic for another post). Many of them have been, by my standards, steadily improving, becoming more food-friendly, which I think is crucial. Almost as important, many have dropped the almost confrontational, fruit-forward style in favor of an increase in elegance and complexity that makes them for me much more interesting to drink.

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Trivento vineyard, Andes in the background

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I had this change underlined recently when I had the opportunity to taste a few Malbecs from Bodega Trivento in Argentina’s Mendoza Valley. I don’t attend many of these occasions, anticipating disappointment, but it seemed about time I opened my mind and my palate to see what was going on below the Equator. I’m glad I did.

Malbec first entered my consciousness decades ago as the major grape variety in Cahors. The town from which the wine takes its name is deep in the heart of La France profonde, situated picturesquely within a horseshoe bend of the river Lot in Quercy – truffle, chestnut, foie gras, and game country, well worth a gastronomically minded traveller’s attention.

 

Its wine, hearty, deep, a bit rustic but capable of long aging, was once almost legendary in England as “the black wine of Cahors” for its depth of color and flavor. I loved it. Diane and I even made a pilgrimage there back in the Seventies, when Cahors was just beginning to reclaim the importance it had lost with the devastations of the phylloxera, and I still recall with great pleasure some of the meals we ate and wines we drank there.

Malbec was once a very important variety in France, grown in almost every significant wine region, even Bordeaux. It was almost always used in blends, rarely as a monovarietal wine. In South America, where it has established a new homeland in Chile and especially in Argentina, it is used both ways. In Argentina the monovarietal version seems to be both the most esteemed and – for my very European palate – the most successful.

Tasting with Trivento’s winemaker Germán di Cesare, I tried the red blend Amado Sur (70% Malbec, 20% Bonarda, 10% Syrah) and three vintages (2011, 2012, 2013) of its 100% Malbec Golden Reserve. (Charles Scicolone gives a full account of this tasting on his blog). These all derive from high-altitude vines, and they are grown on their own roots from pre-phylloxera stock. I was impressed by the wines, both for their intrinsic drinkability – no overpowering tannins, good structural acidity, prominent but not palate-drowning fruit – and because they reminded me of old-style Cahors.

In my book, that is very definitely a compliment, and it’s what prompted me to try re-tasting the Golden Reserve Malbec at home, side by side with a respectable Cahors, Le Petit Clos from Triguedina, a long-established Cahors producer.

Both wines were from the 2011 vintage (that made the Trivento about six months older than the Petit Clos). The Golden Reserve was 100% Malbec, the Petit Clos 80% Malbec and 20% Merlot. We tasted them both by themselves and with food (a broiled steak) and finished them up over the next several days. Both held well and were still pleasantly drinkable a few days on.

Both wines showed the deep, dark coloration that gave Cahors its traditional name. The Cahors had an earthy, grapey aroma, strong and assertive. So too did the Golden Reserve Malbec, with a slightly more evident berry note.

On the palate, some differences began to show. Le Petit Clos felt smooth and soft, with good underlying tannins and decent acidity. It offered blackberry/mulberry flavors, with a hint of black pepper, and a long, slightly tobacco-y finish. It impressed me as a somewhat rustic wine, hearty and enjoyable.

The Trivento Malbec showed its New World origins clearly in its fruit-forwardness, which was the initial palatal impression it made – all dark berries and plums. To my surprise, however, that ostensibly big fruit attack was mollified and balanced by its acidity, more perceptible than that of the Cahors, making it lighter in the mouth. It too finished long, with berries and leather. Overall, despite the differences it was quite comparable to the Petit Clos: The family resemblance of the two wines’ fruit stood out clearly. I found the Trivento thoroughly enjoyable though perhaps a bit simpler, at least at this age.

Both wines are definitely capable of a good amount of bottle-aging and development. And both seemed a tad more sophisticated when tasted alongside that juicy steak, which may seem like no news at all – except that in the not far distant past it used not to be the case with many New World wines. As far as I am concerned, that is very good news, as is the fact that you can buy an almost-Cahors-equivalent wine at a very reasonable price (around $22).

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