Vol. 3 No. 7
Standard Selection - (1) Red, (1) White
1997 Font-Sane Gigondas Italy
1998 Domaine des Deux Roches St. Veran Argentina
Red Wines Only Featured Selections
Chateau Les Aubret Cotes de Bourg 1996 France
White Wines Only Featured Selections
1999 Peter Lehmann Eden Valley Riesling New Zealand
Domaine de Font-Sane
A Masculine Wine with a Strong Feminine Side
Domaine de Font-Sane is one of the most charming and rewarding stops in the lovely Provence village of Gigondas, due in no small part to the enormous talent and gracious manner of the Veronique Peysson-Cunty, the third generation of women to make wine at this outstanding Gigondas estate. Whether she is discussing the relative merits or deficiencies of a particular vintage, or the effects of the terroir on her critically acclaimed Gigondas, Veronique Peysson-Cunty is both refreshingly honest and thoroughly captivating. Slim, but ebullient, her sparse frame mirrors the lean landscape of her native Gigondas, a paysage that by all accounts can hardly be described as corpulent. Yet, it bursts with life; the song of the cicadas, the power of the wind - the mighty mistral - and the illumination of a special landscape by the purest of light that throbs like a pulse.
In many respects the story at Domaine de Font-Sane is not unusual in the southern Rhone Valley; the family has cultivated vines in the village for generations but always sold all or most of their wine in bulk to negotiants until Veronique’s father, Gilbert, decided to estate bottle wine at the Domaine. For many generations, Gigondas was the preferred "bonesetter" (purchased wine used to doctor and improve leaner, more famous wines) for expensive estate bottled Burgundies. It should come as no surprise then that as Gigondas gained acclaim in the 1960's and 1970's, and began bottling its own wine, the quality of many "great" Burgundies slipped as the supply of Gigondas dried up. What has become Burgundy’s loss and shameful legacy exposed, is presently our gain. Madame Peysson-Cunty has taken this domaine to new heights.
Font-Sane is a typically small estate, comprising about 35 acres (25 of which are in Gigondas, the remainder in nearby Cotes de Vintaux. All the parcels used for the Gigondas are in sight of this small winery where the view of the rugged Dentelles de Montmirail is nothing short of spectacular. The Dentelles de Montmirail is the splendid outcropping of rock and heather that constitutes the final vestiges of the Alps as they descend into the fecund Vaucluse plain. The average age of the vines at Font-Sane are nearly 40 years old, with the youngest 20 year old vines planted hundreds of meters up the foot of the Dentelles de Montmirail, with important parcels of 50 year old vines on the middle slopes, and a small plot of 100 year old vines adjacent to the house and cellars on more level ground.
In blind tastings among the growers of Gigondas, Font-Sane is often chosen as the best of the appellation. Her male counterparts contend that her wine exhibits a certain feminine charm which is both easily identifiable and immediately ingratiating because it provides a counterpoint to the typically more rustic, macho wines of the Gigondas appellation. In a wine that is known for its power and vigor, she has infused a soul.
Font-Sane combines great finesse, smoothness and length in the mouth along with power and depth of color and flavor. Veronique contends that her wine is merely the result of her desire to produce balanced wines that check the often aggressive tannins of other Gigondas. Clearly, she has succeeded in imbuing her powerful, virile Gigondas with a healthy, feminine side.
Gigondas: A Sleepy Little Town with a Very Big, Robust Wine
Gigondas, along with neighboring Vacqueyras and Chateauneuf-du-Pape, produces the finest red wine of the southern Rhone. Relying upon old vines Grenache, married to lesser quantities of Syrah, Mourvedre and Cinsault, Gigondas turns out a startling array of hearty, robust wines from nearly 2,500 acres of vines. Spanning a combination of soils, from the gravely clay of the flat, plains at the base of the craggy Dentelles de Montmirail, to the sheer bedrock of the Dentelles itself, Gigondas is testament to the belief that in this enchanted land one can even extract blood from stones, in the form of deeply colored Gigondas.
Elevated to its own appellation in 1971, rather than remaining just one of many Cotes du Rhone villages, Gigondas quickly made a name for itself. The village of Gigondas remains one of the prettiest, least spoiled of the sleepy villages in this corner of Provence, but the wine that bears its name has taken the wine world by storm. Capturing the palate of critics and restaurant cognoscenti alike, Gigondas is highly sought after in fine wine shops and is increasingly well represented on restaurant wine lists that cater to the world’s "bon vivants". This is due in no small part to the hedonistic personality filled character of Gigondas, a wine that renowned wine critic, Robert Parker, Jr. has called "a hearty, ... wine for a cold winter’s night... Its appeal is its robust, frank, generous, extroverted character, in addition to its value. It is to be savored and admired because of these virtues". Show us a wine with the supreme virtues of power, personality and passion, and we’ll show you a Gigondas. A votre sante.
Tasting Notes: The 1977 Font-Sane Gigondas is a beautiful example of Gigondas; it displays an intense, smokey nose, entwined with Provencal herbs. It also sports the typical pure, bold fruit for which Font-Sane is justly renowned. Due no doubt to the scrupulous handling of the harvest and careful vinification at this estate. Font-Sane combines great flavor with finesse, smoothness, profound fruit and depth of color, and uncommon length in the mouth, all in equal measure. Big and beautiful, but eminently balanced, the 1997 Font-Sane can easily be engaged now with an hour’s breathing time, or left to rest quietly in a cool cellar to accrue further complexity and subtlety.
Accompaniments: Although some have called Gigondas the perfect wine for a cold winter’s night, it is equally pleasurable in the middle of summer when heat and humidity tend to rob lesser wines of their charm and character. Served slightly cool (cellar temperature; about 55-60 F) the Font-Sane Gigondas is a great partner to steaks, ribs and a myriad of highly flavored onion and garlic-laced bean dishes. Sausages, cassoulet and traditional Provencal dishes containing tomatoes, herbs, garlic, and olive oil all make exemplary accompaniments to the Font-Sane Gigondas. A rotisserie grilled chicken with butter, garlic and herbs is another savory treat with Madam Peysson-Cunty’s lovely wine.
Recipe for Red Wine:
Casserole Chicken with Braised Onions and Potatoes
½ lb. sliced bacon
1 lb. boiling potatoes
4 Tbl. Butter
1 herb bouquet (parsley
3 lb. whole chicken
½ bay leaf, 1/4 tsp, thyme)
15-25 pearl onions - peeled & cooked
1/4 tsp. salt
2 cloves garlic - crushed
Cook bacon in 1 Tbl. butter for 2-3 minutes, until lightly brown. Remove to a side dish. Brown the chicken in hot bacon fat. Remove chicken and pour out fat. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Peel potatoes and trim to about 2" long. Cover with cold water and bring to boil. Drain immediately. Heat remaining butter in casserole until it starts to bubble. Add garlic, potatoes and cook over low-medium heat for 5 minutes. Add chicken to casserole. Surround chicken with potatoes and add onions and bacon around potatoes. Add herb bouquet and cover with casserole cover or aluminum foil will do just fine.
Cook in preheated oven for 1 ½ hours or until chicken is cooked through. Baste chicken and potatoes 3 times throughout cooking.
Domaine des Deux Roches
Quality Over Quantity
In any single wine region, often there are many fine producers, men and women who labor for the love of the vine as well as the living it affords them, but there can only be one, maybe two at the very most, whose wines merit the superlative, "the best". In the laudable appellation of St. Veran, Domaine des Deux Roches garners the coveted accolade of producing the very best wine of the commune. Without hesitation, critics, writers and consummate wine mavens in the United States and France agree that Domaine des Deux Roches knows how to transform what used to be referred to as good café wine into one of the world’s tastiest Chardonnay’s.
In a recent review, the prestigious French journal, La Revue du Vin de France tasted 186 assorted wines from the Maconnais region of southern Burgundy (of which St. Veran and its more celebrated neighbor, Pouilly Fuisse, are an integral part). They saw fit to note only 33 wines, of which 4 were from the Domaine des Deux Roches. In the Revue, Michel Bettane, one of the most serious and influential journalists in France deplored "the industrialization of viticulture in the greatest part of the Maconnais", adding... "the wine of the Maconnais is not a little café wine meant simply to quench the thirst of the novice drinker... to prove it, one only has to visit the small, elite of growers on whom repose the whole prestige of the region."
Jean-Luc Terrier and Christian Collovray of the Domaine des Deux Roches are the "elite growers" who have steadfastly chosen to produce quality over quantity. Sporting one of the few state-of-the-art, California style wineries in the Maconnais, this dynamic duo is not afraid to invest time or money in exploiting their excellent terroir. Terrier and Collovray have also learned the "secret" to all fine Burgundy: severe pruning or crop thinning and forgoing the excessive use of fertilizer. Also, choosing to plant their vines on high, steep slopes where the soil is more clareous and less fertile; the longer exposure to the sun at a higher altitude, imbues the estate’s grapes with better acidity, complexity and finesse to match a comparable ripeness and fat. These essential ingredients insure quality in the hands of dedicated winemakers, leading Michel Bettane to say about the wines now being made by the best growers in the Maconnais "...some of the most beautiful white burgundies produced today, with breadth of constitution unheard of up to the present, and a harmony of flavor worthy of the great growths". Kudos to Jean-Luc Terrier and Christian Collovray for the meticulous care and handling of their Sr. Veran, from vineyard to table, resulting in the production of the commune’s best wines. Emphasizing quality over quantity invariably pays off.
The domaine’s normal cuvee of St. Veran (this month’s feature) is made from vines that average more than 20 years of age and is vinified and aged in stainless steel vats. It is clean, rich, flowery and long, a wonderfully pure expression of the Chardonnay grape that provides magnificent argument for keeping some Chardonnay out of wood. It is a wine that is made to be drunk in the first few years of its life, but it will continue to improve and develop additional "gras" (fat) and length up to five or six years of age. This cuvee of St. Veran consistently wins the prestigious Coupe Daily for the best St. Veran at the annual Macon fair.
In addition to Domaine des Deux Roches’ normal, estate bottled St. Veran, small quantities of a delicious single vineyard St. Veran, "Les Terres Noires", and a St. Veran Vieilles Vignes are also produced. Like most Macon estates, Domaine de Deux Roaches also puts out a very fine single vineyard Pouilly Fuisse and a very good Macon-Davaye. The latter comes from a somewhat less privileged sight than St. Veran; and although it does not generally possess quite the "class", nor the finesse of St. Veran, it constitutes a deliciously buttery, pure expression of Chardonnay. This is the style of wine we wish more Macon producers would adopt; it would go a long way to dispelling the image of Macon-Villages as an uninteresting, easily forgotten glass of white wine.
Market Watch: We See What We See
It may very well be true that there is no shortage of inexpensive shipper-labeled Maconnais, wines that bear the very marketable names of Macon-Villages, St. Veran and Pouilly-Fuisse, but these wines should never serve as a benchmark of quality, nor as a standard of value for a region or its wine. In France, rarely if ever do shippers’ wines come close to matching the quality of the countries finest small estates, and nowhere in our experience is this more true than in the Macon.
In contrast to the plethora of relatively inexpensive shipper-labeled Maconnais, there is an acute shortage of the region’s finest estate-bottled wines in the United States, especially on retailers’ shelves. Typically, the wines of growers such as Domaine des Deux Roches, Gilles Noblet and others are sold out months before the next vintage is ready for release, forcing consumers to choose the cheaper, industrialized versions of their favorite Macon wine, or switch to a New World Chardonnay that bears little or no resemblance to its French counterpart.
The inevitable two-tier paradigm of high volume, mass produced wine on one hand, and of higher priced handcrafted wines from small estates on the other, invokes confusion among consumers. At the same time, this dichotomy of quality unfairly diminishes the reputation of the entire Maconnais and suppresses the potential of up and coming small estates. Furthermore, the proliferation of low-priced "plunk" from the Macon region exerts a downward pressure on the price a producer can charge, even for an exceptional, estate-bottled wine. Without an incentive to produce excellence, only a limited number of estates can make wines to match the great white burgundies coming out of Meursault and the communes of Puligny and Chassagne-Montrachet to the north of the Maconnais. However, a recent emphasis on quality and a young generation of dedicated vignerons in the region may shift the existing paradigm. In fact, Domaine des Deux Roches and a number of other quality-conscious growers have quietly begun a Renaissance of quality in the lovely Macon. With this in mind, the astute consumer would be wise to seek and stock up on the region’s finest estate-bottled wines, before prices match those of other more renowned white burgundies, or even the average, overpriced California Chardonnay.
Tasting Notes: The 1998 Domaine des Deux Roches St. Veran is one of the most richly robed wines of the commune. Its deep color underscores the "gras" and fullness that the Macon region is capable of producing. Hints of butter, honey and spring flowers rise from the glass, then melt into the pure essence of Chardonnay - a flavor too few consumers now recognize, due to the preponderance of oak in New World Chardonnays. Forsythia, bonbel cheese and white peach come to mind when describing the flavor profile of this delightful St. Veran. Forsaking the harsh acidification so typical of lesser wines from this appellation, the Domaine des Deux Roches finishes on a solid, natural note; it exhibits good fruit along with a touch of lemon oil that leaves the palate clean and refreshed.
Accompaniments: "This is the ultimate aperitif...it doesn’t fatigue the palate" commented one member of the tasting panel. "Yeah, you’re right, but why waste this wine on a cocktail party or a before dinner guzzle. Let’s face it most people want their first glass of wine to be cold, and refreshing, and go down easy. Period! This wine’s too good not to pair with food" retorted another. So what did we do? We experimented. We tried the Domaine des Deux Roches with a variety of hot and cold dishes, including a spicy Hunan Chicken. Grilled fish, shrimp, scallops, chicken salad, and lightly spiced Asian dishes all proved winning combinations. Then, we went back and had some more of this wine after dinner as a "digestif". We liked it with everything we paired it with and equally well by itself, so why not be daring? It’s no wonder France’s gastronomic bible, Gault Millau, named Collovray and Terrier "winemakers of the year" for the entire Burgundy region. A votre sante!
Recipe for White Wine:
Scrumptious Shrimp Salad
2 lbs. fresh shrimp (any size)
2 Tbl. onion - chopped
1 rib celery - sliced thin
½ tsp. salt
½ cup mayonnaise
1/2 tsp. ground pepper
1 tsp. dry mustard
lettuce (Bib or Romaine)
1/4 cup red bell pepper (chopped fine)
Boil 4 quarts of water and drop in shrimp. Cook until all are pink. About 5 minutes after water returns to a boil. Cool shrimp. Peel and de-vein shrimp and cut into pieces.
Mix mayonnaise and dry mustard together and let sit about 10 minutes. Mix mayo with shrimp. Add remaining ingredients except the lettuce. Chill for 1 hour. Arrange lettuce leaves on plate and scoop shrimp salad on top.
White Wine Quote:
"Where ever people have chosen to settle and live, they have first of all made quite sure that there was a supply of water, but whenever they have attained a higher measure of civilization or culture, they have always spent a good deal of time, labor and hard-earned money that they and theirs might drink wine."
Andre Simon (1877-1970)
Chateau Les Aubret Cotes de Bourg 1996
Situated on the right bank (north side) of the Gironde River, the Cotes de Bourg is home to many fine, old Bordeaux estates. Located just a few minutes away by boat from the renowned appellation of Margaux, the Cotes de Bourg remains some of Bordeaux’s more beautiful, unspoiled countryside. This lovely appellation is also one of the most historic wine regions in France, having served as the center of the "bone of contention" between France and England during the Hundred Years War. Not surprisingly, many medieval chateaux dot the hilly landscape of the Cote de Bourg.
Chateaux Les Aubret is one of the Cotes de Bourg’s little jewels. Produced from the Vignobles Magdeleine, this estate benefits from J.L. Magdeleine’s know-how and reputation in making one of the best wines of the appellation. The vineyard is located on high, sunny slopes of deep gravel soil in the village of Tauriac, just five kilometers from the ancient hillside town of Bourg sur Gironde.
By practicing a strict pruning for low yields, a traditional five week vatting time, and aging in both stainless steel and oak barrel Chateaux Les Aubret produces a concentrated, structured wine with significant aging potential.
Tasting Notes: From the traditional trio of Bordeaux grapes: Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, the 1996 Chateau Les Aubret exhibits a deep, regal robe and beautiful intensity. An amplifying bouquet of minerals, earth and red fruits: blueberry, currant and cassis mingle with cedar and spice in this concentrated, fleshy, full-flavored wine. Deep and harmonious, it is quite drinkable now, but it should continue to improve for several more years. Allow the wine to breathe at least one hour before serving.
Accompaniments: Cornish game hens, roast chicken, rabbit and lamb, all make for fine pairings with the Les Aubret. Good Bordeaux is one of the most complex wines brought to a table; consequently, it deserves food to match its noble bearing.
Peter Lehmann: A Zealot’s Faith
Guided by the legendary Peter Lehmann, the South Australia winery that bears his name makes an interesting array of delicious, full-flavored wines. One sip of Lehmann’s firm, palate-pleasing Riesling, or dry Graves-style Semillon will convince you that this is no ordinary, run of the mill commercial winery. Every aspect of this father and son operation is overseen by Peter Lehmann, the doyen of the Barossa, with a zealot’s faith and enthusiasm. With over fifty years of Barossa Valley vintages to his credit, Peter Lehmann still possess’s the energy and unbridled exuberance of a young man. It should come as no surprise that this man’s wines possess all of the personality and character of their creator.
Whether it be a dry white, a sweet, dessert-style wine, or one of Lehmann’s magnificent, textured reds, you can count on finding individuality and quality in every bottle of this winery’s offerings. To insure optimum consumer enjoyment and offer his wines the ultimate protection from the sun, all of Peter Lehmann’s wines are shipped in special UV resistant glass bottles.
Tasting Notes: Firm, full and bursting with flavor, this dry 1999 Peter Lehmann Eden Valley Riesling is no wimpy wine. When young, the wine possesses a lovely bouquet with fresh citrus and lime flavors on the palate. Deepening in color and gaining complexity with age, this Riesling will ultimately reveal more of its flesh. Although Lehmann’s wines drink well young, they age beautifully. As testimony to the quality of Peter Lehmann, Eden Valley Riesling from the 1982 and 1993 vintages won dry Riesling of the show at the 1991 and 1998 London International Wine & Spirit Competitions.
Accompaniments: This is one of the few dry Rieslings that’s really dry, it makes a wonderful accompaniment to oysters, as well as Shrimp on the Barbie. We also recommend it with red snapper and dishes prepared with fresh ginger, especially when consumed in its youth. Enjoy mates!
Ask the Wine Panel
Question: Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about "Rhone Rangers" but I’m not sure what that term means, especially since the wines that it seems to refer to are not even from France - let alone the Rhone. Can you explain?
Answer: "Rhone Ranger" is a term that is applied to New World wines, most notably from California, that are made from traditional Rhone varietals: Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Cinsault and Viognier constitute the majority of these plantings in California. Although most "Rhone Rangers" are red, some are white - Viognier for example. Until about fifteen years ago, only a tiny proportion of these varietals were under cultivation in California, prompting critics and the press to dub the first producers of these fine varietals "Rhone Rangers". Today, traditional Rhone varietals are some of the finest, most sought after varietals in California.
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