Grenache vines near Vaison la Romaine. I’ve been spending some time lately sorting out my thoughts on French wine, and am a little shocked at how much I’ve absorbed over the past few years. I’m realizing the value of the education I’ve obtained driving all over France.
This vineyard, I’ll never forget. I hope not. It was one of my most memorable wine educations, and entirely unplanned. We fluked upon this place, looking for a place to crash for the night. They were unprepared for guests, but let us into their home for 20-30€. Later that night, while sipping at some cheap bubbly, I’d find out that the couple we were staying with were not married. Her husband had died, leaving her this vineyard which she knew nothing about, and he was the new man in her life. She had to learn by doing how to take care of the land to produce grapes to sell to earn a living. Enter the third character of the evening: Sebastien. He was a young guy, obviously full of energy, passion, and willing to work his ass off. Sebastien had made the lady of the house a deal whereby he’d help her tend her vines, in exchange for having access to a small portion of the land for his own use. He wanted to get his winemaking skills up, and used his portion to produce his own wines, between his duties tending vines at a high-end Chateauneuf du Pape winery a half hour away or so.
I remember her asking me if I knew about wine, and I told her ‘not much’. But then I followed that with a question of which ‘cépage’ [varietal] of grapes she grew. So I think it established that I knew enough of wine to have a good gab about it. She was personally a big fan of the Syrah grape – one of the big Cotes du Rhone varietals. But it grew better further north up the valley, so she didn’t get a lot of chance to enjoy it. She asked me a lot about our travels. The north of the valley was far for her. She couldn’t fathom the trip we were undertaking. She’d never left France, and it sounded like she had hardly made it out of the south. We’d just been to Alsace and Burgundy, and I talked about them assuming she’d been there, but she hadn’t. It blew me away. I suppose I’d assumed people in Europe traveled a lot in Europe. I should have known better. She found my stories interesting of all the places she hadn’t been. And I found hers compelling – a drama of being widowed into the position of a ‘vigneron’, and struggling to make ends meet.
Some of the stranger things that stick with you. I asked her where her must was vinified. She sold it to the local winemaking co-operative, who vinified and sold it. It gave me perspective that a beautiful vineyard alone does not make you a premium wine producer. They did not have the soil minerality or slope for drainage and exposure to sun to produce top-end grapes. As easy as that. Geography. And she’s a ‘peasant’ in the world of wine in France. Had she inherited land further southwest, she may be far more wealthy. It’s a good lesson about how terroir impacts people there.
Sebastien worked at a very high end winery, and felt that there will always be a market for the high end French wines, as there will always be enough select few that value terroir to buy French reds because they taste like France, not Australia. I agree with him. He also felt that the hard times, seeing ‘farmers’ rip up their vines in the low-quality regions, would ultimately end up with a higher average product coming out of France. Makes sense. He figure when times were good for French wine, vines were planted where they shouldn’t be for top class wine. So he was optimistic about French wines, despite the dire situation there.
Ah. Classic. So much to blog, so little blog time. Have to go run a bath for the little one.
the view from our window – her daughter’s old room