french wine a day:

Dear wine lovers,

If you want to understand better what the "terroir expression" means, Chablis* is a very good example of it with Chardonnay.

In fact, this famous grape behaves uniquely in this little area of 15 000 acres which is nestled in the middle of nowhere. When you arrive at Chablis, you see the landscape** change from flat to white steep slopes (Download chablis_soil.jpg) composed of Jurassic marl rocks consisting of deep limestone, clay and marine fossils. Planted by Cistercian monks in the XII century, Chardonnay was at that time named "Beaunois" referencing the famous wine capital of Burgundy.

But in Chablis, Chardonnay behaves differently from Beaune and this makes a lot of sense since its terroir is unique. Not to complicate things, but in Chablis you can taste the difference between vines planted in the plain (Petit Chablis), the ones in the bottom slopes (Chablis) and the ones at the top (1er Cru or Grand Cru with a named-place). See the example of Domaine du Chardonnay (yes it is also an Estate name) to understand better : Download Chablis.jpg

Chablis is often very mineral. Tasting it, you will be amazed by all the complexity it has which is very far from the fruit that Chardonnay usually puts forth. The dominant flavor is pepper which turns to honey when the wine ages, especially when it has been vinified in barrels.

For those who like small family estates, Chablis is the place to go to. Besides the (too) famous William Fevre, there are beautiful vineyards like Domaine des Malandes, Domaine du Chardonnay or Jean-Marc Brocard. 2004 and the very special 2002 are great to drink now.

Drink a Petit Chablis for the aperitif to open up your palate, a Chablis with sea-food and a 1er Cru with strong cheeses like Maroilles and you will understand, just exploring the wines of this little village, the way French devote themselves to enhancing terroir rather than brands. I know this is not the easiest way to understand wine but, at least, it gives me a chance and the joy of writing these columns.

Cheers,

Jean-Marc Espinasse

Any comments, edits are very welcome at [email protected]

*Listen to "Chablis" : Download Chablis.mp3

**Landscape = Paysage

To see Chablis area on a French wine map (use enlarge icon to see it better) : Download chablis_map_copier.jpg

My daughter Jackie having fun harvesting last year at Domaine du Banneret

Dear wine lovers,

Here we go for another season of "vendanges*" in France. Beaujolais usually starts first at the end of August in producing the famous "Beaujolais Nouveau" with the light Gamay grape and they should be over in December with the ice wine (yes, there is a very little French production in Alsace).

Some of you have told me about your dream of going harvesting some day and some are actually about to fly to France for that. Today, here are a few things you might want to know when you go harvesting.

At this point, all the talks I hear from vineyards announce high sugar contents and issues with natural acidity. We had another very dry summer and maturity is in moving along. In any case, until the grapes are in the tank, any prediction is pure fantasy.

In fact, you should know that 90% of the quality is already determined when the grapes are harvested. The rest is techniques to try to enhance this quality or not to deteriorate it. For that, the most important is to harvest at the right time. And this is a real challenge because when the grapes are about to be 100% ready, there might be rain which might then spoil the quality by diluting flavors, delaying the picking date which will alter sugar and acidity content and maybe ruin the quality in itself with rotten grapes.

This weather interaction is even more problematical since, at about harvest time, the two major components of berries, which are acidity and sugar, evolve very rapidly (Download acidity_sugar.jpg - a very rough graph to show you how sugar and acidity evolve in time).

The problem is that there are rotten grapes that have this famous noble rot and these are great. When you don't know, a tip is to smell the grape. If it smells vinegar, just drop it to the ground. If it has a smell of currant raisins, you are more welcome to keep it.

So when the time has come in being in the vines cutting. Sorting out the bad grape is very important, during the cutting as well as they reach the sorting table in the cellars. They are then destemed or not (depending on the level of tannins looked for) and put in the tank after a little crushing** which will release the juice from the skin. See the picture and a very short video that will show two very traditional way to crush grapes (Download Foulage.jpg and Download foulage_in_corsica.wmv)

Of course, what I am telling you concerns the old.fashioned way to harvest in France. But it is always a memorable time and we all are now looking for the next to come. I will tell you all about this in a few weeks...if mother nature allows us to have fun !