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Winemaker Notes May 2002As many of you know, I travel to France every spring. The ostensible purpose of the trip, besides eating and drinking and not having to answer the telephone, is to expose myself to the wines other winemakers make from the same varietals that I produce. My first trip was in 1998 and my understanding of Pinot noir changed profoundly. I discovered that the quantity of extract was very different than the quality of extract. The best example is the difference between my 1997 and 1998 Pinot noirs. It was also on that trip that I discovered what Pinot gris was really about. The lesson each year always seems to be a new level of understanding of the essential nature of wine. France keeps me fresh. Because my style is very terroir oriented, I am searching for the best way to express what is really an idea. You can't get your hands on terroir, only the dirt, the trellis, or the vines. Terroir is something almost subliminal, it is a sense that the land gives you when you experience the total wine. The flavor, the color, the complexity and quality of the aromas, the textures and movement in your mouth, the lingering qualities of the finish and, after you swallow, the impression and memory of what you just tasted. Great wines transcend the ordinary. And it is these wines that I am blessed to experience in the cellars and restaurants of France. There is an intrinsic understanding in the French culture that the experience of wine and food has nothing to do with filling you stomach and getting a buzz. Food and wine is treated with reverence. The energy that goes into producing this experience goes beyond the techniques used and is not treated casually. My approach to making wine is also not casual. Making wine is not the process of sorting fruit, fermenting must, filling barrels, and running a bottling line. Rather, it is an experience of sensing the vineyard, feeling the season, tasting the fruit quality at harvest and discovering the possibilities of each wine from each site as captured in each lot of fruit. It does not end with bottling; rather, that is just the moment of my surrender. As the wine ages, I get to see the real wine develop and see if I succeeded in helping grapes become wine, or, as sometimes happens, watch the wine develop despite my lack of clear understanding and maladapted techniques in its production. Sometimes the wine is significantly smarter that the winemaker. I will try to describe one of those moments when I experience a new level of understanding on my trips to France. I can only define the moment in retrospect, I never realize it at the time. (To stimulate my writing muse, I am sitting at my bastion of French real food - not the pretentious stuff- located in Salem, at Fleur de Sel, eating seared fois gras and gigot d'agneau avec lentilles. Its working.). After five trips, I have realized that whatever I am going to learn will have absolutely nothing to do with the questions I have when I leave or the itinerary that I arrange prior to arriving in France. The real lesson of the trip is always a surprise... and perhaps is that much more potent as a result. My latest experience began with watching Amelie Poulain at the cinema on the Champs-Elysées in French (my French is very limited). I loved it. I didn't understand much of the very Parisianne French, but the innocence, the beauty of Amalie's reaction to the unknown and her honesty was incredibly appealing, as well as her being, to quote my French friend, "la sense de la beauté parisienne". What this has to do with wine, I have no idea, but it set the mood for what was to follow, and as some of you know, setting the mood is paramount to the experience. (The lamb has arrived and it has that combination of garlic, earth and sweetness that only a french chef understands). Most of my appointments were in Burgundy, around the city of Beaune, tasting Pinot noir. However, as usual, my moment of understanding would take place in Chablis, technically in Burgundy, but 150 km west of Beaune. This year it was a single wine, which represented the essence of all the wines I tasted over two days at four domaines in Chablis. Chateau Grenouille, a small clos (vines surrounded by a wall) of the grand cru, produced by the largest producer of Chablis, La Chablisienne, a co-op that produces fully one-quarter of all the Chablis made. Unlike the grand cru of the same name made in new wood, the clos was produced entirely in used barrels. The winemaker understood that this terroir required more than stainless steel fermentation - because the terroir speaks so strongly - but to insult it with new wood would be to popularize a wine with so much more to offer. It embodied that essence of minerality, lovely ripe fruit, and fresh, balanced acidity that you taste in the great vineyards of Chablis, but is so rarely a part of Chardonnay produced elsewhere. The finesse of the wine, the restraint of the winemaker and the absolute respect of the nature of the terroir was my lesson. Restraint, doing just what is necessary and not grandstanding, is the most difficult balance to achieve. These wines are beyond ego. And it is ego that so often destroys great wine. I bought six bottles. It is not just the experience of great Chardonnay that was important, rather it was the lesson of how fruit from a great terroir was revealed with absolute clarity. The willingness of a winemaker to produce greatness and understanding exactly how to achieve it, without overmaking the wine, was inspirational. It is a lesson for life in general, and a lesson I hope I will not forget. Thanks, Mark Vlossak, winemaker |
