With James Millton (Millton Vineyards, NZ) in the Loire (20.6.2014)

 

Biodynamic Duo: François Chidaine with James

outside La cave insolite (François wine shop in Montlouis)  

It has been a busy but hugely enjoyable few days showing James Millton (Millton Vineyards in New Zealand) around part of Touraine as well as some of the vineyards of Anjou. It has been fascinating as James naturally looks at vines, soils, etc. with the eye both of a vigneron and as a producer, who needs to make a profit to remain in business, so you become aware of different aspects and different questions arise.

James arrived on Thursday evening around 9pm. The French rail strike had attempted to stop or, at least complicate, his first visit to the Loire for 19 years. Fortunately they failed, though the train he was due to catch was cancelled but he was able to get one that run two hours later. 

 Thursday night we also had Gerry Dawes, writer and Spanish expert, 

and his partner Kay staying  with us. Gerry is wondering 

why his glass is empty as we await James' arrival.

This temporary problem was soon sorted

 

As Millton Vineyards is the only New Zealand producer to make serious Chenin Blanc we concentrated on visiting a range of people in Montlouis and Vouvray. Millton has been biodynamic for 30 years, so we started with François Chidaine concentrating on some of his 110 different parcels of vines. Time constraints meant that we stuck to Montlouis, so missed the Clos Baudouin in Vouvray where James did the 1995 harvest with Prince Poniatowski, the then owner, as well as the AC Touraine vines at Chissay in the Cher Valley.

 

Very much a hands on visit – looking at cover crops, soils - 

their smell and the root system including the elasticity of individual roots.

François was very relieved that he had got safely through two major hurdles – no frost despite early budbreak and the flowering, which was getting close to being finished over quickly and evenly in lovely sunny conditions.    

 More to follow in further posts.

Jan Read: 1917-20th November 2012

Jan Read:The Wines of Spain and Portugal, Faber 1973 

Very sorry to learn this evening of the death of Jan Read at the age 95 on 29th November 2012. Jan was well known initially for his work in films and then latterly as a specialist in the wines of Spain and Portugal. Jan's book – The Wines of Spain and Portugal (published in 1974) above – was the first book on the wines of the Iberian Peninsula that I bought and may well have been the first study of these wines in English. 

See here an appreciation of Jan Read by his son, Carlos Read, and Jancis Robinson MW from her website.

Jan was one of the most senior members of the Circle of Wine Writers. Here is the notice sent to members by CWW chair Stuart Walton:

'Members will be greatly saddened to hear of the death last week of one the Circle's most senior members, Jan Read, at the age of 95. Born before the end of the first world war, Jan became, for the generation prior to the late John Radford, a formidably authoritative expert in Iberian wines, and also wrote (with Hugh Johnson) what was the first ever book on the wines of Chile as long ago as 1988. It was that latter that some of us had packed in our suitcases when we did our very first trip there in the early 1990s. He and his Spanish wife Maite Manjon wrote some of the first ever specialist Hispanic cookery books to be published in the UK, and he was also a prolific screenwriter for both film and television. His autobiography, Young Man in Movieland, was published in 2005. Jan is survived by Maite, and by their son Carlos, who works for Spanish importers Moreno Wines.'

With the death of John Radford on 19th October, we have now lost two of the leading English speaking Spain wine specialists in little over a month. Señor Gerry Dawes look after yourself please!