With Olivier Lamy, St Aubin, May 2012

It will be no surprise to followers of Domaine Hubert Lamy to hear that Olivier Lamy has made a superb set of wines in a year like 2010.  What is unusual is to know that there is very little difference between his (sold out) 09s and his 2010s as St Aubin (a naturally cold region with rocky, mineral soils) benefited from the sunny weather in 2009 and Lamy produced a profound set of wines. The ‘10s are different but certainly no better. There are a number of new things on the go here. Olivier Lamy has bought some new vines in Chassagne and Santenay. He is using less and less new oak (not that he was ever excessive here): none in the reds in 2010 and much less in the whites.  His is a Domaine continually and carefully evolving since Olivier took over in the 90s. Not many know that Olivier worked with Henri Jayer and Meo Camuzet before he returned to his family Domaine and was one of the first producers to introduce the kind of stringent quality controls in the Côte Beaune that started in the Côte de Nuits. For example this was one of the first Estates of the CdB to introduce sorting tables (in the early 90’s). Other evolutions include the use of 600lt demi-muids (mid 90’s), high density plantings (up to 30,000 vines per hectare) and so on. The Estate now uses very low sulphur, none until after malo and at bottling, and is conducting a long term trial across a range of closures. Look out for the 2010s landing later in the year.     

  Rob Walters  

A Day in June with Jerome Prevost

As we were leaving, Jerome Prevost came riding past us on a pushbike with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He made the ‘call me’ signal with his spare hand and a devilish grin broke across his face. We watched him wobble up the hill towards his vines, some 300 metres from his house. We had been standing with him in his vineyard not long beforehand. Prevost is a micro grower producer based in the picture-postcard-perfect village of Gueux, on the edge of the Mountain de Reims or what the locals call la Petite Mountain. Here, in the north west of Champagne, Prevost grows a tiny quantity of remarkable, age worthy Pinot Meunier from a single, two hectare plot of forty year old vines. His wines have garnered a cult following across the globe and are sold strictly on allocation. Sadly demand far outstrips supply and we get very little wine.

I like Peter Liem’s (champagneguide.net) quote to give you an idea of the current frenzy for Prevost’s wines. “It’s virtually impossible to be a hip wine bar or wine store in Paris, or, indeed anywhere, if you don’t have champagne from Jerome Prevost. Selling a Prevost wine, or ordering one at a wine bar or restaurant has become almost a badge of honor, a secret sign that affirms your initiation into an exclusive club of those in the know. Unfortunately, with an annual production of only 13,000 bottles, Prevost’s wine is not always easy to obtain.” www.peterliem.com

I can’t talk about Gueux [pronounced: gerz], where Prevost is based, without mentioning the Grand Prix grandstands that sit like sentinels at the entrance to the town. Gueux was the finish line of France’s Grand Prix track between 1950 and 1966; then known as the Reims-Gueux circuit. It was here that the Australian, Jack Brabham, won in 1966. Now I’m no motor sports fan, but as you drive between the two ancient concrete grandstands that hug both sides of the road, covered in faded automobile and petrol ads, the effect is, well, spooky. Especially at night. It feels as though you are driving through an old black and white newsreel. Everything slows down and there is an eerie echo of the crowds that once sat and cheered here.

To examine the soils in Gueux is to be reminded of how much we generalise about wine. Champagne’s soils are predominantly chalk, right? A bit of shallow topsoil and then solid chalk all the way down. As always, the story is much more complex on the ground, and in the ground, than what we find in most wine books. Prevost’s soils in Gueux, for example, are predominantly made up of alluvial layers of sand and clay mixed through with fossils. Over millions of years, the oceans came here and the oceans went, leaving behind layers of sand and tiny crustaceans that eventually fossilised. The sands of Gueux are known as “Thanetian sand” (in French), or “Thanet sand” in English, after the English area of Thanet, in Kent, that shares the same soils. Each time the seas retreated from Gueux, terrestrial soils would build up over the sands, then the oceans would return to deposit another layer. This happened many times with the result being that Gueux was left with a deep, layered soil structure: a layer cake of calcareous sand over clay over calcareous sand and so on. Such soils – totally different from any other Champagne producer we work with - signal the remarkable complexity of the vast and varied Champagne region, (we are, after all, talking about an AOC that is as large as a small country: covering some 25,000km!) and why the work of producers such as Prevost, who follows a living soil, terroir driven approach (truly a rarity in this area) is so important.

Click to read more ...

A recent visit to Larmandier-Bernier

You know you are visiting a truly organic Domaine when the owner suggests you go to the toilet in the garden as it saves water and is generally better for the environment. This was exactly what Pierre Larmandier told me to do when I was waiting to use the toilet in his tasting room. I did what I was told, popping outside to go behind the nearest tree in his garden. I was half expecting to have James Broadway – our ‘embedded’ photographer – pop out, camera in hand, to catch an inappropriate action shot. Thankfully (for everyone!) he didn’t.

Most readers will know that Larmandier-Bernier is a biodynamic grower based in Vertus at the southern tip of the Côte de Blancs, yet they also have holdings in Cramant, Chouilly, Oger and Avize. The chalky slopes that surround Vertus were once known equally for Pinot Noir, but with the rise of sparkling wine, it was the much-easier-to-grow Chardonnay that came to dominate. Hence Larmandier-Bernier is a producer best known for its Chardonnay based wines. Larmandier-Bernier were one of the true pioneers of the quality grower movement. They were pioneers in organic/BD viticulture and have long emphasised the vineyard over the cellar. In short, like all of the region’s greatest wines, they are “…wines first and Champagnes second”. Today, the wines of Larmandier-Bernier are some of the finest being grown in the entire Côte de Blancs.

            

As it turned out, we were running late for this appointment and did not have time to stop for lunch. Pierre Larmandier is, in many ways, a traditionalist, and he wouldn’t hear of us skipping such an important meal. That’s just not what’s done in France! So he disappeared for a moment and soon returned, his arms loaded with plates of charcuterie. Having stayed with Pierre and Sophie in their home, I know that Pierre always has a charcuterie stash in his fridge. It’s his favourite foodstuff. Sophie teases him that it’s an addiction and Pierre doesn’t deny it. I once visited Pierre’s favourite charcutier at the Vertus markets with him. He was a man who looked like he enjoyed too much of his own wares. You know that old myth about people looking like their dogs? Well, this charcutier looks like the source of much of his fine produce, right down to the folds of pale, pink skin. At first we felt a bit guilty to be eating the Larmandiers out of house and home but Pierre reassured us that we were doing him a favour as he did not want to end up looking like the man who supplied him with the delicious wares that we were now enjoying.

In terms of wines, we tasted some base wines from 2010, which were superb, especially the Chardonnay wines which were intensely mineral. 2010 was a challenging season in Champagne, particularly for the Pinot Noir, as there was heavy rain late in the season. However the Chardonnay was already harvested by the time the rains hit, so there were no problems there. This is a Domaine that is today rightly revered for the quality of its wines and yet it continues to progress and produce better and better quality.

The Blanc de Blancs, the Brut Tradition and the Rose we sampled on this recent visit are certainly the best I have tasted here, and that’s saying something. The Larmandiers produce two famous single terroir, old vine, vintage cuvees: Terre de Vertus and Cramant Vieille Vignes. The Terre de Vertus ‘07 was ultra fine and elegant, the most ethereal version of this single terroir wine yet produced. It did not seem to have the power of the previous vintages, reflecting the season, but it was ultra refined. And it was only recently disgorged when we tasted it so it will be fascinating to taste it again with some time in bottle. We then tasted the new ‘06 Grand Cru Cramant against the current ’05 version. This comparison was done as Sophie Larmandier prefers the ‘06 while Pierre Larmandier prefers the ‘05. We were shown the two wines and asked to vote on the wine we preferred, which split the room. The ‘05 is certainly denser and deeper, an intensely powerful, rocky wine, whilst the ‘06 is much more seductive, round, silky and approachable now. The ’05 needs more time while the ’06 was already showing. Most liked both wines and had trouble picking a favourite – we were in truth debating style rather that quality. I ended up siding with Sophie Larmandier, I know which side my bread is buttered on.  

The longer we stayed, the more wines Pierre opened, culminated in a 1979 Special Club Release which was fascinating, and still drinking well, full of marmite and spicy complexity. Here was a wine made before the conversion of the estate to organic or biodynamic viticulture and before the minimalist, 'no additions' wine making kicked in, but the quality of the terroir – the most important determinant of quality - shone through.

The Gentle Dreamers of Champagne

                          

There was a very interesting article in the French papers recently comparing the ‘natural’ wines of Larmandier-Bernier with the ‘bling-bling’ of large houses like Cattier. Of course the article was in French, so I’ll try to give you the main points. The thrust of the heading is that the tradition of the region is being challenged by the choice now available between wines made ‘naturally’ (wines of the soil) versus ‘bling-bling’ wines.

 Initially the article talks about the current vintage being an enormous one, up 20% on 2010. This year a remarkable 12 ½ tonnes of grapes per hectare are legally allowed to be cropped from the vineyards of Champagne. It then goes on to compare these yields with those producers it calls ‘anti-conformist’ or  ‘sweet dreamers’ such as Pierre and Sophie Larmandier where production can be as low as 4 tonnes a hectare. It quotes Sophie and Pierre saying, “We have for a long time been thought of as the gentle dreamers. Champagne is a region where the proprietors live well. That doesn’t encourage change.”

The article mentions that the picking dates of the smaller high quality growers will be much later than the conventional growers and the negociant houses this year for obvious reasons. Finally it goes on to discuss Cattier’s Armand de Brignac prestige cuvee with a metallic golden bottle, a wine that is sold purely on the basis of its ‘prestige value’, i.e. its appearance, price etc. Cattier's bling-bling bubbles

Similar articles have appeared in the Aus press for years, but in France this is quite a significant evolution. The thrust of the article is that we all now have a choice between small producer vins de terroir and the vins de marketing of many of the large houses. Of course not all large houses take the Armand de Brignac approach and very few small producers are making true vins de terroir. But none the less, the fact that there is such a choice today, and the fact that this is a discussion that has now broken into the mainstream press, can only be good for the Champagne region as a whole.

 Photo: The 'gentle dreamers' Sophie and Pierre Larmandier

Words: Rob Walters



Wine Traveller Diaries, 2011. Part 1.

It’s unlikely that I will get too many sympathy votes for spending two months in Europe but here I go - this has been one of the toughest, most stress testing, buying trips I’ve conducted. Partially this was due to the length, some eight weeks on the road, the amount of travelling, some 10,000 km by car, and the number of tastings, over 70 producer visits across the length and breadth of France and Germany as well as a number of other ‘off site’ tastings. All the while trying to juggle my Australian work load. Then again, this is nothing new: I have been visiting wine producers in Europe for more than twenty years and imposing myself on some 50-100 producers each year for almost a decade. My longest stint on the road is in fact 12 weeks. What really tipped my work load over the edge this year was a three part history of the Champagne region that I was researching and writing for the English magazine, World of Fine Wine, the first part of which will be published in the December issue. As this has amounted to close to 20,000 words and a shedload of research, it added quite a number of work hours to the trip - hopefully it will be worth it. I think I’ve managed to forge a view of Champagne that strongly challenges the traditional history of the region as well as explaining how the finest grower producers arose and why their wines are so important. As the trip is now coming to an end I am at last finding some time to begin reviewing my notes and to start producing my annual diary. Below is the first entry.

Click to read more ...