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Published in 2006 by BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing
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Copyright © RDF Media Limited, Oz Clarke, James May and Julie Arkell 2006
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Oz Clarke is a man who can spend an hour talking lyrically about the character of a French wine without even opening the bottle. James May is a committed car enthusiast who likes a drink of an evening but can identify a wine only as being ‘nice’ or ‘nasty’.
It made sense, then, to pair them up for a month-long road trip around the historic wine regions of France. Oz and James’s Big Wine Adventure is a unique sociological TV experiment in which Clarke – renowned wine authority, Francophile and a former Wine Tasting Champion of the World – attempts to reveal the wonder of the world’s most arcane and complex viniculture to May – a beer drinker who admires the Renault 4 but regards garlic as the devil’s own ingredient.
The results are often ugly and an embarrassment for Britain. But this is what happens when two grown men spend a month together in a car (and sometimes a tent) arguing about who’s going to drive and whether or not it is acceptable to eat with your fingers in the Chateau of a French aristocrat.
So: what exactly are woody high notes and a fruity finish? Which white wine is the best accompaniment to fried spam? Can you make your own wine in a bucket? Should you spit or swallow? And where does this pole go?
For many people, French wine is a subject shrouded in mystery and confusion. So all the important stuff has been put in this book instead.
Oz Clarke spent many years as an actor before becoming wine correspondent for the Daily Telegraph. He achieved notoriety on BBC TV’s Food and Drink and has presented and featured on countless other radio and television programmes. Oz’s many books include his annual Wine Guide, Oz Clarke’s New Essential Wine Book, Oz Clarke’s Wine Atlas and Oz’s Pocket Wine Guide. He has won Glenfiddich, André Simon and Wine Guild awards and was given the Special Millennium Award by Le Prix du Champagne Lanson for his outstanding contribution to wine education.
James May is a motor journalist and one of the main presenters of BBC2’s Top Gear. He has also presented Driven, and in Christmas 2005 had his very own BBC2 special James May’s Top Toys, in which he relived his childhood, playing with machine guns, blowing up Action Man and recreating model train history. A freelance writer for many years, James has contributed to Car Magazine, the Scotsman, Country Life, One Life, Conde Nast Traveller and the Daily Express. He currently writes a column for Top Gear Magazine and the Daily Telegraph.
Julie Arkell began her writing career after 11 years in the wine industry, where her roles included Wine Manager at Guinness Belfast and Wine Manager for The Sunday Times Wine Club. She has been the drinks correspondent for the Daily Express and writes regularly for publications such as Harpers, Decanter and the Daily Telegraph. Julie has also presented and guested in the world of television and frequently lectures on wine. She runs wine courses, works as an expert consultant and arranges corporate wine tastings. This is her fifth book on wine and spirits.
CONTENTS
Cover
About the Book
About the Authors
Map
Title Page
Introduction
Bordeaux
Languedoc-Roussillon
Provence
The Rhône Valley
Burgundy
From Alsace to Champagne
More Places to Visit
Appendix
Index
Acknowledgements
Copyright
OK, so you love French wines already and want to learn more about them. Or perhaps you’re a beer drinker who’s watched the TV series this book accompanies and been inspired to undergo a conversion. Either way, the book will not disappoint you. Inside these pages is a wealth of region-by-region information that will increase your understanding of French wines – and that will enhance your enjoyment of drinking them. It will guide you to making better choices when you order French wine in a restaurant and when you buy it in a shop (or even at a French winery).
In addition, you’ll find all sorts of practical hints and tips for planning your own big wine adventure – for example, the best ways of getting to France, what local food specialities you should try when you’re there (not to forget which French wines can be drunk with what when you’re back home) and how to look after the wines you’ve ferried (or tunnelled) across the English Channel – or should that be La Manche?! At the back of the book there are the names of the best companies offering organized wine holidays in France; if you’re going DIY, you’ll also find the addresses of all the major tourist offices that can help point the way to a good tour of the various producers that welcome visitors.
The book follows the route that was taken in the TV series across the wine regions of France. Not every nook and cranny could be visited, of course, but fear not! The best of the missing bits are included here, which will prove useful when you are planning your stay in France. Having said that, this book is not an attempt to be the definitive, all-singing, all-dancing, exhaustive guide to French wines – which is why you will find pointers to more specialist books in the Appendix (see here).
There’s always a ding-dong battle with Italy, but in most years France usually wins the honour of being the world’s largest producer of wine. But is France the producer of the best wine in the world? That is an altogether very different question. Well, the answer to this is yes and no. ‘Yes’ because many French wines, most especially the top-flight reds and whites from the regions of Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Rhône valley, simply cannot be emulated by any other winemaking country, as hard as anyone tries (and try they do). The point here is that there’s no doubt that France has created the model for the rest of the winemaking world. So where does the ‘no’ bit come in? Well, put simply, at the bottom end of the quality wine scale, France is as guilty as any other winemaking country of producing its fair share of utter dross, wines that verge on the undrinkable. But after you’ve read this book, you won’t be drinking any more of these, will you?
A fine example of France’s far-reaching global influence is its classic grape varieties, which have been grown in French soil for over 2000 years (Provence is the country’s oldest winemaking region). Many are the originals of the varieties that have now become international superstars: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir (to name but a few). This wouldn’t have happened without France acting as the pathfinder, lighting the way to show the world where these grapes like to grow and how they should be turned into good wine.
French winemakers have also always held dear the concept of ‘terroir’, a concept that embraces the belief that every vineyard has its own unique ‘address’ in terms of its relationship to soil, climate, topography and exposure to the sun, which dictates the grape variety that should be grown where. This concept is now being taken more seriously by New World countries (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, South America and the USA), which often used to dismiss terroir out of hand.
Interestingly, while the New World has striven to imitate France’s benchmark wines, in turn many of their best practices are now trickling into France. In consequence, many French wines are much better made and are much easier to drink than they once were, even in the most traditional of regions, such as Bordeaux and Burgundy.
It has been the character and quality of French wines that have proved the hallmarks of their success and a mere glance at any schoolboy geography book gives all the clues as to why. Lying between the 40th and 50th parallels north, the latitude of France is ideal for wine production, offering everything from the chilly, windy and wet climate of the north of the country to the blistering, bone-dry heat of the south. There’s also tremendous geographical diversity in terms of the variety of different soil types so that every major (and a host of minor) grape varieties can make a good home here. Furthermore, French winemaking knowledge has been passed down from generation to generation since medieval times, giving almost insuperable expertise. All this means that France is able to produce wine of every style and flavour to match every taste at a range of prices to suit every pocket. It gives us everything, from the traditional classics of Bordeaux and Burgundy that have seemingly been made for ever to the new-wave, New World-style wonders emerging from parts of the south. And there is plenty of it (too much, in fact). A fairly unbeatable formula for success you would think … but read on.
More red and rosé wines (64 per cent, to be precise) are made than white, the majority hailing from the southern half of the country – it must be remembered that northern France is at the climatic limits of grape-growing and red grapes struggle to ripen properly here.
On average, France produces around 19 per cent of all the world’s wine, a whopping 52 million hl of wine each year (that’s 1,143,870,000 gal. in old money). Some 55 per cent of this is of appellation-contrôlée status (wine made under the strictest of rules – see here) and 31 per cent is Vins de Pays (country wine). Doing the sums, therefore, that leaves 7,280,000 hl (160,141,800 gal.) of plonk. The vineyards cover a total of 860,000 ha (2,124,200 acres) shared among 145,000 grape growers.
There is a storm brewing on the horizon, however. The European Union has drawn up radical proposals to tackle the crisis of wine overproduction across Europe (about 300 million litres/66 million gal. of wine from France and Italy alone is being turned into ethanol or surgical spirit in 2006 – a policy called ‘crisis distillation’). Its blueprint calls for more than 10 per cent of Europe’s vineyards to be pulled up by 2011 – and growers will be paid to do so. This isn’t the first time this has happened in France, though. In the 1980s, over 30,000 ha (74,000 acres) of vines were uprooted in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in an effort to curb over-production of sub-standard wine.
Digging up vineyards will not solve the problem alone, however. Apart from the knock-on effect of falling domestic consumption, France is losing sales in the UK, one of its vital export markets, to the wines of the New World (to Australia and California in particular). The country has wasted valuable time by not addressing this problem before now, although the French government has now pledged a 40 per cent increase in funds to tackle the marketing of French wines in the UK. So how could things change? Well, for example, winemaking laws could be relaxed to allow the use of oak chips to simulate barrel ageing, a technique that is used widely in the production of New World wines. Perhaps most importantly – as the relative success of the Vins de Pays has shown – simpler labelling and greater use of brand names would be popular with UK consumers. Vins de Pays usually state on the label the name of the grape variety from which they have been made, whereas the vast majority of appellation contrôlée wines are named after the place where the grapes were grown and, furthermore, are often subject to complicated, hierarchical wine-classification systems that can be difficult to get to grips with. Vin de Pays Syrah can now even be labelled Vin de Pays Shiraz in recognition of the fact that UK drinkers are very familiar with this name, thanks to Australian versions (Syrah and Shiraz are exactly the same grape variety). This tiny change alone will allow producers to compete head-on with their New World peers. France needs more initiatives like this if it is to win back its place in our hearts and on our tables – and before we forget the thrilling flavours that it offers.
‘Great wine is made from great grapes.’ This is the mantra of all producers of quality wine, who recognize that it is impossible to craft good wine from bad grapes. So how do they achieve this?
When a wine producer chooses a new vineyard site, he or she will take into consideration its altitude, topography, aspect, climate, soil and the availability of water. Much thought will go into selecting the grape variety that will best match all of these criteria. How close to one another the vines are planted, how the vines are trained and pruned, and when the grapes are harvested are equally important. If the vine is planted in the best possible place, it will provide top quality grapes and, in turn, top quality wine, though in France, many grape growers (especially those in the north of the country) have to keep all their fingers and toes crossed because the quality of their crop is largely in the hands of nature.
Climate very much influences the choice of grape variety grown. The red Mourvèdre variety will not ripen unless it is planted in regions that boast roasting heat and long hours of sunshine and is therefore unsuitable for cool climates, whereas the white Riesling grape variety prefers cool conditions in which it can ripen slowly over a long period.
In general, all vines perform best in the kind of infertile, free-draining soils we wouldn’t want in our back garden, where they must send their roots deep into the ground in their scrabble for nutrients and water. Having said that, though, some soils suit certain grape varieties better than others. Chardonnay, for example, performs best when planted in limestone soils, while gravel favours Cabernet Sauvignon.
In France, centuries of trial and error have determined which grape variety grows best where, but this doesn’t mean that the era of experimentation is over, as the south of the country is proving. Aimé Guibert at Mas de Daumas Gassac provides the perfect example of a producer who has planted a wide range of non-traditional grape varieties to stunning effect.
This ensures that the foliage is kept under control in order to balance shade and sunshine so that the grapes ripen to perfection. In the south of France, where it is very hot in summer, most grape varieties require a dense leaf canopy to protect them from sunburn, but in the cooler climate of northerly parts of the country, grapes will not ripen if the foliage provides too much shade.
The word ‘acidity’ may conjure up negative images of vats of sulphuric acid and other caustic chemicals, but natural fruit acids are essential for wine. As a rule, grapes grown in the north of France are more likely to produce wines with higher acidity levels because the grapes don’t always ripen properly thanks to the cooler climate.
If the grapes are picked too early, they will lack sugar and flavour; too late, and the over-ripe grapes will lack refreshing acidity and aroma. Grape growers therefore aim to produce perfectly ripened grapes that possess the perfect balance of natural sugars and just the right amount of natural acidity. Some styles, however, actively need grapes with low-sugar and high-acid levels – champagne provides the perfect model here because it needs to start off life as a very tart wine. In complete contrast, some sweet wines are made from ultra-ripe grapes that have been left, quite literally, to rot on the vine to give very concentrated and very sweet grape juice.
Spring As the weather starts to warm up and the days begin to lengthen, the vine’s sap rises and the buds burst to reveal the vine’s leaves. The biggest danger at this time is frost because it can destroy vulnerable young buds – no buds, no grapes, no wine! Pest and disease control are also critical at this time of year – the vine is often sprayed to protect it from potential problems (cool, wet areas where fungal diseases are rife require the most protection) – and the soil beneath it is cleared of weeds (the hoeing in itself helps to put some air into the soil). As the vine grows, new shoots are tied to the trellising wires; training systems are often determined by years of tradition and of knowing what system works best where.
Summer The vine flowers for about ten days, during which time pollinations and fertilization occurs. The flowers then set into clusters of what will become the fruit. Hot, dry weather is critical – rain or cold causes poor fruit set or disease and the size of the crop is therefore reduced. The vine needs water at this point, however, if fruit set is to be successful, so it plunges its roots deep into the earth in search of it (irrigation is not permitted in France). If the fruit needs more sunlight, leaf plucking (the removal of excess leaves) is carried out and when the grapes increase in size and change colour from green to translucent gold, dark red or black (called ‘véraison’) green harvesting (the removal of excess grape clusters) is done if the grower wishes to reduce crop levels to enhance the quality of the remaining grapes.
Autumn This is what everyone has worked so hard for – the harvest! In France, the grapes are usually picked in September or October. The last thing anyone needs right now is a downpour because this will cause the grapes to become bloated with water, diluting the flavours contained within their pulp.
Winter Time, now, for a much deserved rest – indeed, a period of dormancy is essential to the vine’s health. It sheds its leaves, the sap descends and the vine goes to sleep. Snow, ice, frost and wind won’t disturb it. The grower doesn’t relax, though – this is a great time of year for pruning, which is by far the best way of controlling the yield of grapes for next year’s harvest (the lower the yield, the better the wine).
Wouldn’t it be great if winemaking could be described as putting the fruit in at one end and drinking the liquid that comes out at the other? It’s not quite as straightforward as this, of course, but the process can nevertheless be summed up neatly in six steps.
Sorting and de-stemming After the grapes have been picked, they are brought to the winery, where they are usually sorted to discard any fruit of poor quality. The stems and stalks are removed because they would otherwise impart a nasty, highly astringent taste to the wine.
Crushing The grapes are now crushed to break their skins so that the yeasts (either the native ones found naturally on the grape skins and in the atmosphere of the cellar, or the induced, laboratory-cultured strains that are more predictable) can get to work on the juice and fermentation can begin.
For white wines, the grapes are also pressed at this point so that all of their juice is squeezed out (though not too forcefully because nobody wants the bitter, woody flavours of squashed pips). The juice is then usually whisked away from the skins as quickly as possible – most whites don’t benefit from prolonged skin contact (where the juice and the skins are allowed to mix together), thanks to the undesirable, mouth-puckering effect of tannin, a substance found naturally in grape skins. Some wines, such as Sauvignon Blanc, may have a few hours of skin contact, however, because Sauvignon skins contain a lovely leafy, nettley flavour that tastes great in the wine – and this needs to be extracted.
When it comes to red wines, the skins need to soak in the juice to coax out all the hidden perfumes and flavours contained within the skins and, of course, to leach out their colour (even red grapes have white pulp). Fortunately, the tannin extracted at the same time is advantageous here, by acting as a preservative and anti-oxidant.
Alcoholic fermentation Wine is fermented in stainless-steel, fibreglass or epoxy resin-lined concrete tanks, though oak barrels are often used for top wines. The yeasts convert the grape sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide gas. Fermentation ceases when the yeasts die because they have either used up all of the sugars, giving a dry wine, or they’ve been killed through alcohol poisoning, in which case there will still be some natural sweetness left in the juice.
White wines are fermented at lower temperatures than red wines (around 18°C (64°F) versus 32°C (90°F)) to preserve freshness, fruitiness, delicacy and aroma. For red wines, both the juice and skins are fermented together and the skins are pressed afterwards.
Malolactic fermentation Sorry for the long words. In effect, this is a secondary fermentation brought about by the action of bacteria that turn tart malic acid (think cooking apples) to the softer, rounder lactic acid (think milk). Because this phenomenon can occur spontaneously, the winemaker has to think ahead. Wines of very high natural acidity benefit from ‘the malo’, as winemakers call it, so if he or she wants to make sure that the wine is less aggressive, then the wine is injected with lactic bacteria. If, on the other hand, the winemaker desires a naturally sharp, acid level in the wine, it is filtered off its lees (the sediment formed by dead yeast cells) and is then rigorously protected against any future potential bacterial invasion. Red wines almost always undergo malolactic fermentation to soften them.
Blending Wines made from different grape varieties, or from various batches of the same crop that have been fermented separately, are often blended together to create a wine that is far greater than the sum of its individual parts. Many people believe that blended wines are inferior to varietal wines (the term that describes those crafted from a single grape variety), but this isn’t the case. The famous Châteauneuf-du-Pape red wine of southern Rhône is a prime example of a blended wine that can be made up of 13 different grape varieties.
Oak ageing While everyday wines designed for immediate drinking are bottled as soon as they are ready – often within a matter of months – top wines (both red and white) are aged in oak barrels, generally of a 225-litre (50-gal.) capacity. Thanks to a magical marriage between the liquid and the wood, the wine mellows and becomes more complex, gaining extra dimensions of toasty, vanilla and spice flavours from the oak barrel over time. White wines are aged in barrel for around six to eight months, while red wines spend an average of nine to eighteen months in barrel.
You will see plenty of bottles bearing the somewhat official-looking words ‘Appellation Contrôlée’ (shortened to AC), or Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC). This is indeed official because it means ‘controlled appellation’ and officially guarantees the official origin of a wine – in practice, this means where the grapes were grown – and, also, that official minimum standards are met when the wine is being made. Furthermore, this complicated and stringent slice of French wine law dictates which grape varieties are grown where, controls the yield of grapes per hectare or acre (grape by grape, place by place) and governs a whole host of other regulatory stuff. Confused? To put it simply, it says where the grapes were grown.
An AC can envelop a whole region – as in the example here. Appellation Bourgogne Contrôlée covers the whole of Burgundy and means that the grapes that make the wine can come from anywhere within the official wine region. Alternatively, an AC might embrace a collection of villages that are considered by the powers-that-be to produce better-quality grapes (and, with a bit of luck, better-quality wine). Then you have the villages that produce wines so good that they are allowed their own appellation. Finally, some individual vineyards carry their own name in the AC. These are the kind of wines that fetch fabulous prices at auction.
By now you might be thinking that appellation-contrôlée wines must be something really special. Some wish. Yes, the AC guarantees the origin, but it doesn’t promise delivery of a tasty glass of wine each and every time, sorry to say. Some very mean stuff gets through with an AC label because local tasting panels (which are made up of local winemakers) are unwilling to throw out wines – it might be something they made themselves, after all.
‘Chardonnay’
This is the name of the grape used to make this wine. It is extremely unusual (and very often illegal under local French wine laws) for appellation-contrôlée wine labels to show the name of grape varieties.
‘Elevé et mis en bouteille par Louis Jadot, Beaune, France’
This literally translates as ‘raised and put in bottle by Louis Jadot’ in the town of Beaune in France. In other words, Louis Jadot is the name of the Beaune-based company that blended, matured and bottled the wine.
‘Fondée en 1859’
This means ‘Founded in 1859’.
‘75cl e’
The contents of the bottle. The ‘e’ means that the bottle size is approved under European Union regulations.
‘13% vol.’
The alcoholic strength of the wine expressed as a percentage of the total volume of the bottle.
Blanc white.
Blanc de Blancs a white wine made entirely from white grapes.
Blanc de Noirs a white wine made entirely from black grapes.
Brut dry sparkling wines.
Cave (coopérative) a co-operative winery.
Château a wine estate (especially in Bordeaux).
Claret the generic English name for red Bordeaux wines.
Côte(s) and Coteau(x) generally superior wines made from grapes grown on hillside sites. Most of the best vineyard sites are indeed on hillsides – but not all: the ‘Côtes du Rhône’ name covers just about every wine in the Rhône valley! They just thought it sounded smart to say ‘Côtes du Rhône’ and not just ‘Rhône’.
Crémant traditional-method fizz from regions other than Champagne.
Cru literally ‘growth’, meaning a vineyard or group of vineyards of superior quality
Cru Classé ‘classed growth’. Applies to top Bordeaux wines.
Cuvée the contents of a vat, a blend or a special batch of wine.
Demi-Sec medium dry.
Domaine a wine estate, especially in Burgundy.
Doux sweet.
Extra-Dry a style of champagne that is sweeter than Brut.
Grand Cru literally ‘great growth’, usually meaning the best vineyards in a region. Some regions, such as Burgundy, are very strict. But in St-Emilion, 60 per cent of vineyards are Grand Cru, so it doesn’t mean very much here.
Liquoreux very sweet.
Mas a wine estate, especially in the south of France.
Mis (en bouteille) au Château/Domaine/La Propriété estate-bottled.
Monopole a vineyard wholly owned by a producer.
Mousseux sparkling.
Non-Vintage a blend of wines from the grape harvest of more than one year. Commonly used in champagne.
Nouveau new wine.
Pétillant semi-sparkling.
Premier Cru literally ‘first growth’, used to describe superior wine villages, vineyard sites or the wines themselves. But, irritatingly, in Champagne and Burgundy ‘first’ doesn’t mean best. Their top wines are Grands Crus – Great Growths. Don’t expect the French to make their regulations easy for us to understand. That wouldn’t be French!
Rosé pink.
Rouge red.
Sec dry still wines.
Supérieur wines possessing a slightly higher alcohol content than is normal for any given appellation. It does not mean that they are superior in taste, however!
Sur Lie wines that are bottled directly from their yeast sediment (called lees) without filtering, which adds freshness and creaminess to the wine.
Vieilles Vignes old vines.
Vin Délimité de Qualité Supérieur (VDQS) delimited wine of superior quality. Well, not really. This is the next tier down in the classification system to appellation contrôlée. Hardly any wines are VDQS and they’ll probably scrap the whole tier soon.
Vin de Pays country wines that are often full of character and, usually, offer great value for money.
Vin de Table table wine. The basic stuff. Plonk.
When we’re drinking wine, it’s terribly easy to let the liquid simply slip down our throats without giving it much thought. But if you make a conscious effort to evaluate the wine you’re drinking, you’ll very quickly find that you are able to judge a wine much more accurately as you build up a mental library of smells and flavours. Make some notes because the human memory for taste is not very reliable – taste may sometimes be very hard to describe, but it’s certainly far, far more difficult to recall.
Look Wine shouldn’t have any strange bits floating in it and be suspicious if it’s cloudy. The wine’s appearance also gives hints about its age and style. Simple, young, dry white wines are very pale in colour, often possessing a slightly green tinge; richer or more mature styles have a golden tinge; and many sweet white wines are deep gold. Conversely, red wines fade in colour as they age: young reds have a purple hue, turning from ruby to garnet to tawny. Full-bodied, complex styles are very dense and you won’t be able to see through the wine, but if you can spy the bottom of the glass, it indicates that it is light-bodied.
Smell Taking the time to smell the wine properly is hugely important because the nerve endings that detect flavour are located in the upper nasal cavity and not in the mouth, contrary to what all of us perceive. Gently swirl the wine around the glass to release the aroma. Ideally, the glass shouldn’t be more than half full so that you can do this more easily – this can be a very sloppy business – and it leaves enough room for you to be able to stick your nose in for a proper sniff. What you are detecting here is the character of the grape variety and it is very useful to compare the aroma of the wine with something familiar to you – for example, it may remind you of strawberries or newly mown grass. As you gain experience, you’ll be surprised by how quickly you’ll be able to recognize different grape varieties simply from the smell of the wine. It’s truly thrilling when you find that you can achieve this. Incidentally, if the wine smells musty, vinegary, sulphurous or vegetal, it is probably faulty.
Taste Take a small sip of the wine now and gargle it around your mouth, allowing the liquid to reach all the parts of your mouth. If you can, simultaneously suck in a little air. This is the way to enjoy the full flavour of a wine. By the way, flavour in this context is not the same as taste: what the mouth identifies are things like sweetness, acidity and the body of the wine – it is your nose that it is doing all the work in sending the flavour messages to your brain.
Afterthoughts After you’ve swallowed the wine, think about how long the taste lingers in your mouth – this is known as the wine’s finish or length. Was the wine in balance? A balanced wine is when acidity, fruit, tannin and alcohol are in perfect harmony. To look at these factors in more detail: a wine high in natural acidity tastes sherbety; if the wine is very fruity, it suggests that it’s young (wines mellow as they age); wine containing a lot of tannin causes your mouth to pucker up and feel dry; and the effect of alcohol makes your mouth feel hot and oily. Did it have an oaky taste, which suggests that the wine has been fermented and/or aged in oak barrels?
Corked wine