Various from Portugal & France

Portugal

Adegga Wine Market on Saturday 1st December 2018 – a date for your diary

This year the winter Adegga Wine Market has a new venue at Armazém 16, Marvila, Lisboa with 70 Produtores Adegga, 500 Vinhos, 5 Chefs, 1 Sala Premium (Premium Room). Scenes from the 2015 Wine Market in Lisbon

There will be a special 'Rising Stars' section with Álvaro Martinho (Douro), Arribas Wine Company (Trás-os-Montes), Herdade da Anta da Cima (Alentejo), Portugal Boutique Winery (Douro), Rosa da Mata (Dão), Titan of Douro (Douro) already confirmed.

It will be interesting to see how the empty space above will be transformed for the Wine Market. If you happen to be in Lisbon on Saturday 1st December then a few hours spent at the Wine Market is highly recommended – a brilliant opportunity to meet some of Portugal's most interesting wine producers, taste their wines and then buy at a discounted price.

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Lisbon is booming – a week last Sunday morning we travelled back into Lisbon where we had again had a great meal at Terroso and the streets were mobbed at 1.15 am with traffic jams – true it was the weekend before the Web Summit ...... but even so. Sadly Terroso is now closed on Sundays and Mondays, so long Sunday lunches are now out, so will just have to have long Saturday lunches or even long Tuesday lunches instead.

It is more than a full-time job trying to keep up with all the new bars and restaurant openings in Central Lisbon. During our brief Lisbon visit we did try one new restaurant – Picamiolos, where the influence is very much from the Alentejo. We were very impressed.

There were some very creative dishes like the above very crispy rabbit chops – so crispy that you eat the bone and all.

Acorda is very much a traditional Portuguese recipe – a recipe based on bread and including fish or shellfish often prawns or monkfish. Acorda is a little like a bread porridge. Although well done acorda can be very good, here at Picamiolos the approach was decidedly different. Their acorda of guinea fowl was more akin to a bread and butter pudding without the sweetness – the bread lightly toasted. With this we drank the fascinating and lightly spicy 2013 Mayor from José da Sousa, which is vinified in ceramic amphora that has a very long tradition in the Alentejo dating back to Roman times.

I do hope that Lisbon will ride the boom and continue to offer quality food and drink at a reasonable price wherever you go – one of the big reasons for the the city's current popularity. If it doesn't then there is always a danger that boom can turn rapidly to bust.

France

Make Mine a Pouilly-Fumé!

On Friday night we opened the stunning 2014 Barre à Mine, Blanc Fumé de Pouilly from Michel Redde – a combination of lovely rich texture citric fruits edging towards more exotic fruits matching by great clean mineral length. Drinking brilliantly now but clearly capable of aging much longer.

Barre à Mine comes from a special relatively recently created vineyard planted in very flinty ground just off the D4 close to La Roche in the northern end of the Pouilly-Fumé appellation. The Reddes cleared some huge boulders (see below) from ground around an old quarry – hence the name.

 

Vines struggling through pure flint....

Vignobles & Signatures venture to London (part two)

(First published on Les 5 du Vin)

My last week's post covered the Loire producers who were present at the first London tasting. This week covers those producers from other parts of France and whose wines I tasted and impressed me and, in the case of Roger Groult, his cider and Calvados. To make this tasting manageable producers were limited to showing four examples from their range.

Domaine Paul Blanck & Fils
It was good to see Philippe Blanck again and taste the wines which Frédéric, his cousin, makes. The Blanck wines have lovely purity and precision. This was typified by the 2017 Rosenbourg Riesling, from a parcel planted on granite, with its concentration of fruit and length on the palate. No doubt the severe April frost, which reduced yields by 80%, accentuated this wine's precision.  Their 2016 Grand Cru Furstentum, comes from a limestone vineyard, and has lovely mouth-filling texture and again is very long and precise. Surely this has the potential to age for many years.

Domaine Cauhapé
Moving from the eastern end of France to the south-west to Jurançon close to the Pyrénées, I was impressed by all four of the Domaine Cauhapé wines – 2017 Geyser (sec), 2015 La Canopée (sec), 2015 C de Cauhapé (sec) and 2015 Quator. But then Cauhapé has long been a source of fine Jurançon – both sec and moelleux. I'll pick out the richly fruited and textured 2015 Quator (100% Petit Manseng), which is a blend of the best of Cauhapé's range of sweet wines. It has wonderful freshness in the finish to balance the rich fruit.

Coume del Mas 
This domaine, which joined Vignobles & Signatures last year, was created in 2001 by Philippe and Nathalie Gard making Banyuls and Collioure. I was particularly impressed by their 2016 Quadratur Collioure made from 50% Grenache Noir, 30% Mourvedre and 20% Carignan. Full of rich, concentrated, ripe black fruits it has lovely texture and  very good length.

Roger Groult
Although I have tasted and enjoyed Roger Groult's Calvados, I had never tried his cider. The company's origins go back to the 18th Century but it was Roger Groult (1905-1988) who really established distillery's reputation and gave the company his name. His grandson is now the owner and distiller.

I liked the cider's strong appley character, which I assume comes both from the quality of fruit but also that the cider is bottled fermented and spends two years on its lees before being dégorged. I tasted the 2015, which was dégorged in 2017. Unfortunately it is not available in the UK. As it retails for 12€ in France it may be the price that puts UK imports off.

The three Calvados on show – 3 ans d'âge, Vénerable and the Sherry cask finish – were all impressive particularly for the gentleness of the spirit – not at all aggressive.

Amongst other wines tasted – Jean Durup's crisp 2017 Petit Chablis (10.80€) and the more concentrated 2017 Chablis (13.30€) were good value and that Domaine de l'Hortus (Pic Saint-Loup) remains a star of the Languedoc.

Vignobles et Signatures venture to London (part one)

For the first time since the Vignobles et Signatures group of French producers were founded in 1984, representatives from 15 members of their 17 members came to London to show off their wines. In the case of Roger Groult it was their cider and Calvados and for Famille Lesgourgues an Armagnac.

I don't know whether V&S decided that October 2018 was their last easy chance to display their wares before the utter lunacy of Brexit kicks in at the end of March 2019 leading to who knows what sorts of complications – visas, travel delays etc. – to make the short journey across the Channel/La Manche. Two of the club's members were absent – Domaine Rolet (Jura) and Vignobles Joseph Janoueix (Saint-Emilion, Pomerol). I can only assume that they decided that it made no sense to visit a small island off the coast of mainland Europe in the middle of a full blown nervous breakdown and wilfully committing economic and political suicide. Who, furthermore, from 29th March 2019 will not be able to afford to buy their wines. All in all a rather understandable and hard-headed decision.

Whatever it was a very good tasting with the 15 who ventured into the lunatic asylum as each producer was sensibly limited to showing four wines/cider or spirit.. This meant I was able to taste the majority of the wines although I didn't have time to taste everyone.

All the wines shown were of a high standard – I didn't taste one poor wine.

Vignobles & Signatures have three Loire domaines – Château de Tracy (Pouilly-Fumé), Guilbaud Frères (Muscadet-Sèvre-et-Maine) and Couly-Dutheil (Chinon).

Château de Tracy

I started with Château de Tracy (Pouilly-Fumé). It was good to meet Juliette d'Estutt d'Assay, who took over a couple of years ago from her brother Comte Henry d'Assay, who ran the estate for many years but in 2016 founded his own négociant business – Comte Henry d'Assay  – which concentrates on Sauvignon Blancs from the Loire and the Côtes de Gascogne.

Juliette showed three wines – the 2017 domaine, 2015 Haute Densité (a small plot planted with 17,000 vines per hectare) and 101 Rangs also a 2015 from a plot on flint near the château. Of the three I found Haute Densité, which is matured in a 30 hl  foudre, the most impressive with its concentration, length and clear potential to age.

 

Pascal Guilbaud 

I first met Pascal Guilbaud (Guilbaud Frères) in February 1989 during my first professional visit to the Pays Nantais and my first trip for a Decanter article. Those were the days when the sales of Muscadet in the UK were buoyant and there was an annual article in Decanter. Pascal wasn't in London instead it was good to meet his daughter Romane and her partner Maxime Fernandez. Romane started working at the family firm in October 2017.

From their four wines I picked out the characterful 2017 Soleil Nantais and the complex 2009 Clos du Pont, which is made in a long ageing (more than two years) Muscadet Cru Communal style. Guilbaud Frères first made this cuvée in 1983. Romane told me that although they are in the commune of Gorges, Pascal isn't part of the Gorges Cru Communal as it was they who started off the movement with this cuvée. As an outsider staying outside the Crus Communaux movement, which is raising Muscadet's profile seems a pity, especially if you were a precursor.

 

Approach to the Couly Dutheil cellars
in the centre of Chinon 

Due to finishing the fine 2018 harvest Arnaud Couly stayed behind in Chinon. They showed two whites from 2017 – Blanc de Franc (Vin de France) from 100% Cabernet Franc and Les Chanteaux (Chinon Blanc) from 100% Chenin Blanc. It is rare for Cabernet Franc to be vinified as a still white, although this is a frequent practice for Loire sparkling wines. It works well with the 2017 Blanc de Franc having good concentration and attractive texture. Of the two reds the Clos de l'Echo naturally stood out with its ripe concentration of black fruits. Although it can be drunk now this really needs more time in bottle to reveal its full potential.

My post next week will cover the producers from outside the Loire.